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More than Numbers

Katherine Johnson always loved numbers and learning. Her teachers noticed that she was good at maths. In fact, she was so good that she started taking secondary school maths classes when she was ten years old. She finished secondary school at only fourteen years old and continued to study maths.

In the 1950s, she worked with a group of women who worked out maths problems for the United States space programme. Today, these maths problems would be solved by machines instead of people. But back then, there were no high-powered computers like the ones we have today. The people who were travelling into space depended on Johnson and her team to get them there safely. With their maths skills, these women helped advance space travel.

Johnson’s work was useful to the space programme in many ways. For example, her maths skills helped people reach space so they could learn more about it. Johnson also used maths to help spaceships reach the moon. Apollo 11 was the name of the first mission to take humans to the moon. Johnson’s team helped decide the best time and place for the Apollo 11 rocket to take off. Their work was important for the trip to be successfully completed. The story of Johnson and other women she worked with was made into a book and a film called Hidden Figures.