Re: Incompetent female "astronauts" accidentally drop tool bag during ISS spacewalk

On 11/13/23 13:41, Incompetent Biden female personnel misassignments wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>
> loser <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara marked their first
> spacewalk this month with a tool bag floating through space. ------
> 
> Always an incompetent cunt assigned to work better suited to males.
> 

Because we all know, no All American 'he-man' ever dropped a tool bag!
Ever!!

How about this story, of a female, and also, she was Black.

Katherine Johnson
26 August 1918 – 24 February 2020
NASA mathematician who helped get the US into space
By Layal Liverpool

Katherine Johnson
David C. Bowman NASA, Langley

Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician whose calculations helped the 
US get an astronaut into orbit for the first time. She also played a 
crucial role in calculations for the first moon landing.

US astronaut John Glenn, who orbited Earth three times in 1962 before 
returning safely, famously insisted that the calculations behind his 
trajectory be double-checked by Johnson before he took off.

Early life
Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918, Johnson excelled 
academically from an early age. She finished high school at the age of 
14 and graduated summa cum laude from West Virginia State College with a 
double major in mathematics and French aged 18.

Following a brief stint working as a public school teacher, Johnson 
became the first African American woman admitted to graduate school at 
West Virginia University, enrolling in the graduate mathematics programme.

Space race
In 1953, Johnson started working at the all-Black West Area Computing 
section of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory at the National Advisory 
Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which would later become the space 
agency NASA. In addition to the computing pool, the toilets and 
cafeteria at Langley were also racially segregated at the time. Johnson 
refused to use the “colored” toilets and ate lunch at her desk.

Within two weeks of working at Langley, Johnson’s talent landed her a 
position in the Flight Research Division. Over the next four years, she 
worked alongside aeronautical engineers analysing data from flight 
tests. At the same time, the space race between the US and the Soviet 
Union was heating up.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 – the first artificial 
Earth satellite – and in April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the 
first person to journey into space and orbit Earth. Meanwhile, at NACA 
(which had since become NASA), Johnson had been working on the 
trajectory analysis for the US’s first human space flight. In May 1961, 
astronaut Alan Shepard became the first US citizen and second person in 
the world to go to space.

Less than a year later, NASA was preparing for the mission that would 
see Glenn become the first US astronaut to orbit Earth in February 1962. 
The agency was relying on a network of computers, programmed with 
orbital equations that would control the trajectory of Glenn’s capsule. 
As part of the pre-flight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the 
girl” – referring to Johnson – insisting that she run the numbers 
through the same equations by hand to check the computer’s calculations. 
“If she says they’re good, then I’m ready to go,” Johnson recalled the 
astronaut saying.

Johnson went on to join the Space Mechanics Division, where she 
calculated the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon and 
worked on key calculations that helped synchronise the mission’s lunar 
lander with the moon-orbiting command and service module. Her work 
helped the US become the first country to land a person on the moon on 
20 July 1969.

Johnson died in Newport News, Virginia, on 24 February 2020 at the age 
of 101.

Legacy
During her career, Johnson authored multiple research papers and 
received numerous awards and accolades, including the 2015 US 
Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Barack Obama. In 
2016, NASA named a new computational research facility after her.

Johnson’s story was featured in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden 
Figures, as well as in the 2016 film of the same name. In the film, 
which tells the story of Johnson and two other African American women – 
Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson – who worked as NASA mathematicians 
during the space race, Johnson is portrayed by actor Taraji P. Henson.

Following the news of her death, the then NASA administrator James 
Bridenstine described Johnson as “an American hero”, adding that “her 
pioneering legacy will never be forgotten”.

Key facts
Full name: Katherine Johnson (born Creola Katherine Coleman)

Born: 26 August 1918, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, US

Died: 24 February 2020, Newport News, Virginia, US

Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician famous for her brilliant 
calculations, which helped the US land astronauts on the moon during the 
space race.