NASA assembled a brain trust at Langley, called the Space Task Group. Katherine Johnson, John Glenn, and the Space Task Group John Glenn and Katherine Johnson later worked together. She overcame a great deal of institutional sexism, but she proved her value to the program with her obvious brilliance, competence, and passion for the mission. Katherine was integral to the publication of technical reports that enabled the space program to put astronauts into orbit. Katherine also gained a more prominent role in the space program as she became attached to the Flight Research Division, working closely with an engineering group called the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD), which specialized in rocketry. As such, West Computing was shuttered and its employees reassigned to smaller groups organized around specific tasks. There was less of a need for general computing skills and a greater demand for mathematicians with specialized knowledge. ![]() The launch of the Russian vessel Sputnik brought major changes to the women of West Computing. John Glenn, Katherine Johnson, and their team, called the Space Task Group, helped launch Glenn into space, making him the first man to orbit the Earth. ![]() Who was John Glenn in Hidden Figures? What did John Glenn, Katherine Johnson, and the other human computers have to do with space travel? Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly.
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