NASA: Is It a Man’s World? The “Hidden Figures” of the Space Program

By Amelie and Nina

The movie “Hidden Figures”, based on the original biography by Margot Lee Shetterly, tells the story of three female mathematicians who worked at NASA in the 1960s. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson worked as “Computers” in the Segregated West Area Computing Unit, on calculations involving the trajectory of rockets and altering the heat-proof shield to protect both the rocket and astronauts when they re-entered into the Earth’s orbit. They were integral for the first journey of American astronauts into space. The movie highlights their central role in the voyage to space, as well as showing the struggles they faced. Although they also faced racism during their time at NASA, this article will be focusing on their struggle against sexism.

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson, born on August 26th 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, worked at NASA from 1953-1986. She worked on calculations that sent astronauts into orbit and later on she worked on the moon landing. Specifically, she worked on the trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s 1961 mission, which was the first human space flight for the USA. Furthermore, she also worked on calculations for the Lunar module landing on the moon. In 2015, she earned the presidential medal of freedom and is the main character of the film (Lof )

Dorothy Vaughan

Dorothy Vaughan was born on September 20th, in 1907. She was from Kansas City in Missouri and worked for NASA from 1943-1971. She was the manager for the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics (NACA’s), for the segregated West Area Computing Unit. She became the first African American manager at NASA and went on to become a programmer for the IBM machines (Shetterly).

Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson was born on April 9th, in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia. She was the first African American woman who went to an all-white highschool in Virginia to get a degree in engineering. She started working at NASA in April 1951. In 1958, she became NASA’s first black female engineer. Then, from 1979 to 1985, she worked at NASA’s Langley’s Federal Women’s Program manager. She took on this job to work on supporting the next generation of female mathematicians, engineers and scientists for NASA. She continued this into her retirement, and helped young recruits find their place at NASA (Shetterly).

Sexism at NASA: Then vs Now 

At a special subcommittee hearing on the selection of astronauts in July 1962, military pilots were considered the best candidates for training, a field women could not access. In the final report written by the subcommittee, women were officially banned from going on Apollo missions. Glenn asserted that “the men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order”. It wasn’t until 1965 that NASA said they were developing “scientific-astronaut” programs for women (Slyvester).
Even today the STEM field is largely dominated by men and a majority of employees at NASA are men (65.8%). Research from Lisa Steelman, a professor at Florida Tech, found that women’s work is still often devalued in comparison to their male co-workers. This puts pressure on women to perform better than their male co-workers in order to garner the same respect (Kelly).

Even today the STEM field is largely dominated by men and a majority of employees at NASA are men (65.8%). Research from Lisa Steelman, a professor at Florida Tech, found that women’s work is still often devalued in comparison to their male co-workers. This puts pressure on women to perform better than their male co-workers in order to garner the same respect (Kelly). 

“Computers”

The womens’ roles as computers for NASA entailed doing very complex mathematical calculations by hand. Being a “computer” was labelled as “women’s work”, which meant that their work was often unappreciated by their male colleagues (Holland). In addition, these women helped design the IBM machines and made them more effective (Holland). Dorothy Vaughan even went on to become one of the first computer programmers (Holland). 

Despite facing extreme adversity, these women continued to work hard and fight against the injustices they faced.

About the Author of the Original Book 

The author of the original book “Hidden Figures”, Margot Lee Shetterly, knew the three women “from the local community – they were [her] parents’ friends” (Cawthorne). Her father worked as an atmospheric scientist at NASA, which is how she first heard their stories (Cawthorne). 

About the Film’s Director 

Theodore Melfi was shocked when he first read Shetterly’s book proposal and used the book when writing the script for the film. He also interviewed Katherine Johnson while working on the script. Melfi turned down an offer to direct Spiderman, as he felt that the story of the three women was important to share. He wanted to portray the women both in their workplace and at home. He was quoted saying, “In order for us to know they’re extraordinary, you had to see their home life and the equal weight they gave to their home life as to their job.” He particularly wanted to include Jim Jonhson’s proposal to Katherine Johnson to show their relationship and emphasize Katherine Johnson’s life as a single mother, especially since Melfi himself was raised by a single mother (Kilkenny). 

All in all, these women were pioneers in their fields and were critical to NASA’s space program. Although their work has gone unnoticed for many years, they are finally getting the recognition they deserve.

Pages: 1 2