Political Quotes

“Madam President, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson shared a combined 95 years of experience in the field of aeronautics and space exploration. Katherine Johnson worked as an aerospace technologist from 1953 until she retired in 1986. Dorothy Vaughan worked as a mathematician and programmer from 1943 until her retirement in 1971. Mary Jackson also worked as a computer and an engineer from 1951 until her retirement in 1985. Over the course of their careers at NASA, Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson coauthored more than three dozen scientific papers. In her role as a ``computer,'' Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Even after NASA began calculating trajectories with electronic computers, John Glenn personally requested that Johnson recheck those calculations before the Friendship Seven flight in which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. ``If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go,'' Glenn said during the preflight check, and once he got the word from Katherine Johnson, Friendship Seven roared off a launch pad and into American history. Katharine Jackson later would play key roles in the success of America's Apollo and space shuttle programs. Dorothy Vaughan left her job as a math teacher at Prince Edward County, Virginia's segregated Moton High School in 1943 for what she thought would be a temporary job with the agency that would later become NASA.…”