History, what happened with nasa on this date . September 8, 1967, the surveyor 5 launched, september 8, 1983, satcom 7 launched. September 8th, sts 106 launched. Today, september 8, 2016, Margot Lee ShetterlyLee Shetterly publicly Lee Shetterly publicly launches her book story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race. [applause] i believe you know Margot Lee Shetterly. They couldnt wait to see her again. She was born and raised in virginia, graduated the university of virginia with a degree in finance, generous independent researcher, entrepreneur and cocreator of english language magazine with her husband aaron, margo is daughter of one of the first nasa black mail engineers, grew up among many figures, the founder of Alfred P SloanFoundation Fellow and recipient of the Virginia Foundation of humanities grant for her research into the history of women, lives in charlottesville, virginia. Anonymous is history, usually a woman. Let me say that again. Anonymous in history was usually a woman. Tonight women are anonymous no more thanks to book American Dream and the untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race. Made the names Dorothy Vaughan, mary jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden and the other women who contributed to the space race and change the course of history finally receive their dues. A few housekeeping notes, i want to remind everyone the book signing will take place afterwords in the great hall. Cspan asks because they are filming, no flash photography. And silence your phone. I welcome you on behalf of the hampton museum, invite you to make history with us and tonight Margot Lee Shetterly is doing that. It is with pleasure and honor i introduce Margot Lee Shetterly. [applause] thank you so much for that amazing introduction. Thank you to the Hampton History Museum which has been incredibly supportive of its Research Since the beginning and i cant think of anyplace better to publicly launch this endeavor than here in hampton, virginia, my hometown with my home people and thank you for coming out here tonight. It is a wonderful thing this venue that i am giving now is taking place in a church because it started six years ago in a church here in downtown hampton where my home church where i grew up sitting in a pew with my parents, robert and margaret lee who are here and my husband and we were interviewing a former sunday School Teacher of mine about her career as a mathematician at Langley Research center. None of us had an idea at the time that first interview would turn into all of this, Hidden Figures of this book, my first book and a movie. As exciting as it has been to receive that level of enthusiasm for this endeavor the most gratifying thing for me about the last few years has been learning about my hometown. There is so much i didnt know and so much i didnt know about the people who lived here, people i knew, writing this book for me has been a way of telling my story and tracing my path in the lives of these women. This is my history, this is your history, this history belongs to all of us. The thrilling part, the mundane part, the hard part and the painful part. All of this. The fact that we are here in this church across from the Hampton History Museum that sponsored this event, so close to hampton university, Langley Research center, the archaeological remains of the grand contraband, the first autonomous black settlement in the United States, it couldnt be a more Hidden Figures the American Dream and the untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race follows the lives of four africanamerican women, Dorothy Vaughan, mary jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden. [applause] i am so pleased to let you know that many of the family members of Dorothy Vaughan and mary jackson, and i believe mrs. Johnson are here, and Gloria Champlain who was part of my book and many other women who worked with them and men who works with them at Langley Research center so thank you for coming. If you see them in the crowd tonight, i am thrilled that these women who actually lived the history so i could write it are here. Many of us gathered here, we knew these women, raised by them, lived with them, worshiped with them, socialized with them, taught by them or worked with them and we have learned a tremendous amount from them. So many women from their lives, i have a list that could fill another book that i learned from them researching their lives and one of the most timely that i emphasize tonight is the following. Never allow fear to get the best of curiosity and imagination. Sending men into space is a risky endeavor, and take the powerful imagination to believe it is possible to land humans on the moon and bring them back safely. That adventure, one of humanitys greatest, had its truth right here in virginia. Black woman could do the calculations to get them there, would take even more imagination to come to fruition. That happened as well. On the mercury and apollo missions, most notably on john glenns groundbreaking orbital flight in 1962. People around the United States, indeed from around the world came to work at langley. These women worked alongside people of all backgrounds, and achieved things that 47 years later, have to stop and marvel. Incredible what is possible when you take the best minds among us and imagine them to run free. The narrative of Hidden Figures the American Dream and the untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race is told through these four africanamerican women, to use the stories of their lives to tell other stories of world war ii, transformed our city and society and the anxious days of the cold war, hope and conflict of the Civil Rights Movement and Great Strides that all women have made legally, socially and economically over the course of the 22 century. Black women worked as mathematicians at langley and other National Institutions around the country. There are so many names. Eunice smith, barbara holly, christine ritchie, irma time, catherine there are so many of them, more than i could fit in a single book but those women were part of a larger focus of women, white women like virginia tucker, george lee, sharon stack. And barbara wine gold and these women, and math and science, very smart women came to langley, they work in a classroom. Stay tuned for a fraction of the credit they deserved. In the 1970s 1980s black women like mary jackson and Janet Mckenzie worked with white langley colleagues like glenda adams to create opportunities for talented women of all backgrounds. An Organization Called the human computer project trying to recover the names of all the women who worked as mathematicians and engineers during the early days of the naca and nasa not just all of the installations. To encourage you to get in touch with me and contact forms on my website, Margot Lee Shetterly. Com, get in touch with the museum but if you know the names of women who wear your grandmothers, mothers, colleagues, friends, people you knew from church, your neighbors, please let me know. I would like to have all their names so none of them are in the shadows anymore. All histories have a beginning, middle and end. I already knew the end. The result of this wonderful history that happened in hampton, virginia. My fathers nasa Wing Research scientist, my mother is retired University English professor. Im a proud product of integrated hampton city schools and i graduated the university of virginia which accept men and women from all backgrounds. That first meeting six years ago led me to ask the question, how did this all begin . How did she and Katherine Johnson and many other women i remember from my childhood end up working at nasa . Many people know the story of the Space Program which was feeding momentum at the same time a young preacher from atlanta named Martin Luther king jr. Was taking center stage in what was then becoming known as the Civil Rights Movement. As fewer people know, well before the start of the Space Program, hampton was americas for center for Aeronautical Research, fewer people know before doctor king, civil rights leader named Philip Randolph led a campaign in the Civil Service and Defense Industry against africanamericans benefited mexicans to catholics, many other people had been left out of the jobs that were coming about. In may 1943 after Franklin Roosevelt desegregating Civil Servants, 5 black women started working as mathematicians at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. What i would like to, in Hidden Figures the American Dream and the untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race, this is how the story begins. It all happened here in hampton, virginia. Chapter 1, the door opens. Melvin butler, the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory had a problem the nature of which was made plain in may 1943 telegram, this establishment has urgent need for 100 Junior Citizens as mathematicians, 100 assistant computers, 75 minor laboratory assistances, 125 trainees, 30 stenographers, every morning at 7 00 am the butler and his staff bring to life dispatching the last Station Wagon to the local rails and the bus station and ferry terminal, so many women now each day who made their way to a lonely finger of land, the shuttle conveyed the recruits to the door of the Laboratory Service building on the campus of langley field. Upstairs butlers staff wished the first aid station, photos and the oath of office. I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic so help me god. Bus installed the new Civil Servants stands to take their places in one of the research facilities, each already fool and write with peace. No sooner had sherwood butler, the Laboratory Head of procurement set the final brick on a new building without filling it with new employees. Closets and hallways and workshops stood in as makeshift offices and came up with the bright idea of going head to head, a new piece of furniture to bring 3 workers. And hitlers troops, american interests and european war converged in allconsuming conflicts. The laboratory complement 500 odd employees at the close of the decade on its way to 1500 yet the great war machine, remains hungry. The office of administration building, the crescentshaped airfield, going through the laboratories, the oldest at the National Advisory committee for aeronautics, naca, distinguished brick buildings belonging to that agency, identical ones used by the u. S. Army air corps. The installations had grown up together devoted to development of americas military airpower capability, civilian Agency Charged with a Scientific Understanding of aeronautics and findings to the military and private industry. Since the beginning, the army had allowed laboratory to operate on the airfield, close relationship with army flyers a constant reminder to the engineers that every experiment had real world interest. A double hanger, 110 foot long buildings getting sidebyside covered in camouflage in 1942 for enemy eyes in search of targets, shady and cavernous, sheltering the machines, reminders from the elements. Men in jumpsuits moved in trucks from plane to plane, stopping here or there like pollinating insects checking them, filling them with gas, examining them, becoming one with them and taking off for the heavens, the music of airplane engines cycling through various movements of takeoff, flight and landing, played before sunrise, each machine sounding unique as a babys cry to its mother. Beneath the tender notice of the engine, the laboratory wind tunnels turning their on demand hurricanes on the plane, plane parts, model planes, fullsized planes, two years prior to gathering, president roosevelt challenged the nation to ramp up production of airplane to 50,000 a year. It seemed an Impossible Task for an industry that is recently as 1938 only provided the Army Air Corps with 90 planes a month. American aircraft industry was a production miracle easily surpassing roosevelt by more than half, becoming the largest industry in the world. The most productive and sophisticated out producing the germans three times and japanese by 5. The facts were clear, the final contest would come from the side. For the fly boys of the air corps airplanes were mechanisms transporting troops for combat zones pursuing enemies, and ship sinking bombs. And exhaustive check out, mechanics rolled up there sleeves and sharpen their eyes, a broken system improperly locked, faulty fuel tank light. Any one of these cost lives but before the plane responded, its nature and the shape of its wings, and its engines were manipulated, deconstructed and recombined by engineers next door. Long before american aircraft manufacturers placed one of their newly conceived flying machines into production, a working prototype, and aircraft model in the United States made its way in virginia for drag cleanup. Engineers parked the planes in wind tunnels making note of air disturbing surfaces, uneven winged geometry, as prudent and thorough as they examined every aspect of the air flowing over the plane making careful note of vital signs. And sometimes an engineer riding shotgun took the plane for a flight, did it roll unexpectedly, did its all . Was it hard to maneuver . Was it like a shopping cart with a bad wheel . The engineers subjected the airplane to tests capturing and analyzing numbers recommending improvements, even small improvements in speed and efficiency multiplied over millions of pilot miles added up to a difference in the allies favorably to victory through airpower, henry reed, engineering in charge of the laboratory, the importance of the airplane to the wars outcome. And they repeated to each other, pouring over differential equations and pressure distribution charts until it is higher. Unless Melvin Butler failed to see 3 ships a day 6 days a week with fresh minds is the engineers are one thing, with a number of others. Craftsman to build the airplane model, mechanics to maintain tunnels and nimble number crunchers, and issued from the research. What was a plane but a bundle of physics . Physics reports mend math and math meant mathematicians and since the middle of the last decade mathematicians meant women. The first female computing tool started in 1935 caused an uproar among the men in the laboratory. And to process something rigorous and precise. Investing 500 on a calculating machine to be used by a girl. But the girls had been good, very good. And the men themselves, with only a handful of girls winning the title mathematician for professional designations put them on equal footing with the entrylevel male employees, designated as lower paid professionals provided a boost on the bottom line in 1943 the girls were harder to come by, virginia tucker, the late up and down the east coast, even a modicum from mechanical skills, hoping for matriculating, hundreds of open positions, scientific aids, models of the makers and Laboratory Systems and mathematicians, conscripted entire classes of graduates from North Carolina alma mater and hunted at virginia like lynchburg and state teachers college. Melvin butler at us Civil Service commission, as hard as he could so the laboratory might get top priority on qualified applicants, the local newspaper, the daily press, reduce your household duties, women who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do jobs previously filled by men should call Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, servants in the Personnel Department were published in the employee newsletter. Are there members or others you know who would like to play a part in gaming supremacy of the air . Have you friends who would like to do important work toward winning and shortening the war. With men absorbed into the military service, women already in demand, the labor market is as exhausted as the war market. A bright spot isnt it itself in the form of another mans problem. Philip randolph, the head of the largest black labor union in the country demanded roosevelt open lucrative or jobs to negro applicants threatening in 1941 to bring 1000 negroes to the nation at capital in protest if the president rebuffed the demand. Who the hell is this guy randolph, the president have stayed, roosevelt blinked. A tall, portly black man with superior diction and the stare of an eagle, close friend of eleanor roosevelt, 35,000 strong, the orders waited on passengers in segregated trains, prejudice and humiliation from whites, nevertheless these jobs were coveted in the black community because they provided economic stability and social standing believing civil rights were inextricably linked to economic rights. Randolph fought tirelessly for the rights of negro americans to participate in the country he helped build. And another march on washington seized the stage to a young charismatic minister from atlanta named Martin Luther king jr. Later generations would associate the black Freedom Movement kings name but in 1941 as the United States brought every aspect of its society toward war for the second time in 30 years it was randolphs longterm vision and the specter of a march that never happened that opened the door that had been closed like a bank vault since the end of reconstruction. With two strokes of a pen executive order 8802 ordering desegregation of the Defense Industry and executive order 9346 with the Employment Practices committee, the National Project of economic incision roosevelt primed the pump for a new source of flavor to come into the production process. Nearly two years after randolphs 1941 showdown reached the Civil Service applicants qualified negro female candidates began filtering into the langley Service Building presenting themselves consideration by the laboratorys personnel staff. No photo advised the applicant, that requirement under the administration of Woodrow Wilson struck down as the Roosevelt Administration tried to dismantle discrimination in hiring practices. The applicants alma mater take their hands, West Virginia state university, arkansas, agricultural, mechanical and normal, Hampton Institute just across town, all negro schools was nothing the applications indicated anything less and if anything the job was more experienced than the white women applicants after having many years of teaching experience on top of math and science degrees. They would need a separate stage Melvin Butler new, then they would have to point someone, and experienced girl, someone whose position suited the sensitivity of the assignment. The warehouse building on the west side of the laboratory that was more wilderness than anything redoubling a workplace, his brother Sherwoods Group already moved and the Personnel Department with roundtheclock pressure to test the airplane chewed up in the hangar engineers welcome the additional. So many engineers, relatively agnostic on the racial issue but devout and it came to mathematical things. Melvin butler felt the enforcement across the bay required no imagination on his part to guess what fellow virginians might think of the idea of integrating eager women to langleys offices that come here has the virginians called the newcomers to the state and their strange ways. There had always been negro employees, janitors cafeteria workers, groundskeepers but opening the door for professional peers with something new. Butler proceeded with discretion. No big announcement, no fanfare but he also proceeded with direction, nothing to herald the arrival of negro women in the laboratory but nothing to derail their arrival either. Maybe Melvin Butler was progressive for his time and place or maybe just a functionary carrying out his duty or both. State law and virginia custom kept him from progressive action. Perhaps the promise of the office was the cover he needed to get black women in the door, trojan horse of segregation opening the door, whatever his personal feelings one thing is clear, butler was a langley man through and through, loyal to the laboratory to its worldview and charged during the war by nature and mandate, he and the rest at naca were all about practical things, and the leaders activism unrelenting pressure and superior organizing skills laid the foundation for what in the 1960s would be known as the Civil Rights Movement but no way randolph or the men in the laboratory or anyone else could have predicted the hiring of a group of black female mathematicians at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Still routed from view, the notion that faster than sound flight was a physical impossibility, the electronic calculating devices that would amplify power of science and technology to unthinkable dimensions, no one anticipated millions of wartime women would refuse to leave the American Workplace and change the meaning of womens work or american negroes would persist in their demand for full access, founding ideals of their country and not be moved. The black female mathematicians who walked into langley in 1943 found themselves at the intersection of the transformation, sharp minds contributing to what the United States would consider one of its greatest victories. In 1943 america existed in the urgent presence responding to the needs of the here and now, butler took the next step making a note to add another item to sherwoods seemingly endless requisition list. A metal bathroom sign bearing the words covered girls. [applause] that is how the story begins. I wont tell you everything about the story except americans finally do get to the moon. But everything that happens in between hopefully you will enjoy reading about that. I thought it might be interesting to open the floor to any questions you might have at this time. Yes . I am sorry. If you could raise your hands and the microphone will come to you so we can hear you. The thing about the Civil Services, pay depended on your grade. If you were hired in ts 4 you would get paid with the other chip, the issue was getting hired into that level, it wasnt always the case the black women were hired, in the beginning some women such as Dorothy Vaughan who was hired, equivalent of many male engineers, there were definitely exceptions but most of the women, black, white or otherwise were paid less then men. [applause] if i can just i am so fascinated by your research, i read about two books which i have a question, we could not fail by law and paul, that too because i am finding fascinating things about them, the black guy was sophisticated, the invention of the camera, so proud of you. There is a book that came out last year called we could not fail and it tells the story of many africanamerican engineers who worked at the marshall state center and a book came out called rise of the rocket guild which tells the story of a group of women who worked at the jet Propulsion Laboratory which is part of langley, part of nasa in pasadena, california during world war ii so it is exciting the big stories of people who worked in the Space Program and aeronautics, starting to come to light and that is another book that tells the story. I too am very proud but when you were writing or researching the book, what was the most surprising anecdote or nugget you came across in these stories . If there was one. There were so many, so many. For example there was a cold war thai to langley, an engineer who worked at langley, left in 1946 to go to the laboratory, he was connected with the rosenberg spy case, they were executed for responding to the russians and an engineer who worked at langley was put on trial, convicted of perjury, but the government charged him with naca secrets to the russians, the research on that was fascinating because the fbi came to hampton, knocked on peoples doors, they were investigating the situation thinking people were communists, so that was a surprising link that hampton, virginia, has to this global struggle between the United States and the russians. What is the riskiest thing you have done kind of parallel to that, would you be brave enough to go into space . Would you be an astronaut if you didnt have to do any other homework but go based on the math that was done before . The question was would i want to go into space . I kind of like earth. I am not sure. Although i must say i really do think the work that nasa does and is continuing to do is really important and it is interesting and very exciting that right now nasa is taking up the mantle and pushing forward to go to mars. That is really exciting. One of the other things, they are resurrecting some of the work pioneered by Christine Darden in terms of supersonic transport planes, that is happening at langley. I might not be the first passenger for mars one, but the fact that that work is continuing is very important and very exciting. How did you go from finishing the book to the movie . How did that happen . That is a very interesting question. The thing about this project, from the very beginning people have responded to it very strongly, with enthusiasm which has to do with the strength of the women, the fact there were so many women, this was a story of one woman or 5 women, there was a group of scores of black women in the total group of women probably from the 1930s to the 1980s was more than 1000. The idea that disproves anything we know about women not being able to do math is a natural that people respond to it. What happened, my literary agent after finding a publisher for the book got the book proposal in the hands of a producer side and was blown away by the fact she hadnt heard the story and ever since i have been running to catch up, kind of a parallel track and a theme that is so exciting to me about that, i am so happy there is no enthusiasm for the book, there will be greater audience for this history because of this movie but it has been a ride for sure. Be change after world war ii many women were let go to make returning service men. What happened at langley and was there differential for whites and africanamericans, did some women continue on and have successful careers at langley and rise through the ranks . It was interesting. I had access to all of the employee news letters, newsletters were reporting what was happening in terms of recruiting, in terms of reduction, the best i can tell, after the war there was a cut back at langley. At the end of the day they made a cut, 30 employees, enough people after the war returns home, left their job, they had to cut 30 people but in the next 12 months, 18 months, started recruiting again, particularly for more women, computing, and that coincided with 19461947, the army being consolidated, command being consolidated at langley, norfork naval base, this entire region there was a lot of speculation after world war i, go through tremendous depression some so many newspaper articles, people speculating, being concerned about that. What happened was the cold war started, hampton road turned into one of the centers of what we call the militaryindustrial complex which lasted a long time and langley went along with that. It did not seem for the research i did that there was a differential in the layoff between white women and black women, the word seemed to get around even after the peak of world war ii and a lot of black churches and high schools, that there is this amazing job opening for black women at langley who had math degrees. Let me say congratulations, i know mom and dad are proud. We are all very proud. Have you gotten a chance to view the home movie and my question is if you have is it fiction, is it accurate . I am a historian and when people see things on screen they often take it as gospel truth. I want to know what im looking for. That is the question everybody wants to know. I havent seen the whole movie, they are working on it. They are working on record time because they are excited about it and want to make sure it is in theaters by january and possibly early previews in december so they are working on it. The thing for me working on the book and the movie at the same time is i had to let go of the fact that i was writing a Nonfiction Book that took place over 30 years of history versus a movie that had to get people into the theaters, tell the story, capture the essence of it, hit the highlights, then come back home safely in two hours. So i talk closely with the people who are the producers of the movie and in the beginning i had a hard time understanding you cant film a book and sell movie tickets. The movie is inspired by true eventss. They have to take a segment of the history and make it exciting and what they decided to do is focus on that time from sputnik when the russians first launched the sputnik satellite, sending the us and soviet into the cold war, the space race, until that moment Catherine Johnson reviewed the calculations for john glenns fight flight which has been recounted many times by many people including johnson herself. They made the decision being film people the right decision, to take one of the real highlights of the research and make that the movie instead of the entire book. I want to congratulate you in bringing so many people together from your research. I am really happy to be here because it brings so many people together in a way they had no idea they were connected because the bonds, Dorothy Vaughan used to serve dinner and provide food for starving servants from Hampton Institute. So who would have known back then what she really was all about . Of course we all knew she was a smart lady and she raised all these amazing children but i am sitting next to people who not only are connected to the people that are in your story, that are in this book but also people who are connected to you that are connected to me, this person sitting next to me and this person sitting over here, and i guarantee you there are folks in here that didnt know they had a connection with each other had it not been for your book and your research so just realized through conversation, passion for research and knowing our history and making that anonymous women we are all connected so much, we are all so connected and i thank you for doing that, providing another way for us to realize we are all really connected. That is the part of your story that rings loud and clear for me. I guarantee we asked everybody to raise their hand who is connected to somebody because of your book everybody would raise their hands. They are connected, we are connected. [applause] i just want to thank you also for bringing us all together. The jackson clan from across the country to support you and your book, so thank you. I also want to ask will their be a premier here in hampton for the movie . [applause] that is the question. I think nasa has been so supportive of this project, not just from the Langley Research center which has been amazing from the very beginning and i cannot thank them and not for what they have done, but the people at nasa headquarters have been very supportive. They are very interested in doing what they can to make sure this community which is the core of the story has the chance to participate, and the excitement of that movie and our friends and neighbors and relatives on the screen. I dont know the details of that but i do know that is something they are very interested in making sure the community is anticipating. My question is i am curious. It happened at First Baptist church, the discussion or idea came into your head when your sunday School Teacher teacher was mentioned. What specifically that day the lightbulb went off, this is a story here, if she was a sunday School Teacher and you or shipped together growing up, you knew her basically, but what happened that particular sunday . Something i write about in the prologue of my book. It happened that my husband and i were visiting my parents in december 2010 and went to church that sunday and met and spoke with my former sunday School Teacher and driving back home my father was talking about her and the conversation turned to the other women who worked at nasa, the work they did and worries i heard and kind of new, you dont really think about it, can you tell me the story again . How come i never heard of this story . This experience of growing up someplace wherever it is and take it for granted, the neighbors and talent that is there and things that happened, and this was a case of something that happened, my husband looking at that and forcing me to appreciate the community i had grown up in and why were those women there . That is what really happened. As simple as that. [applause] thank you for writing the book and also the new opening of the africanamerican museum, will your book be published there at the bookstore there and you will be at the africanamerican museum . I didnt hear the first part of your question. You and your book will i be speaking at the africanamerican museum . I am still working through a lot of the details where i am going to be for the fall, hoping washington dc will be among them. Congratulations, i know your background is financing and journalism. What was your experience diving into history . This is a question from my historian friend Jeffrey Harris and the question is as someone who had a background in business, i studied finance in college, what was my experience diving into history . I really loved it. A lot of people think that so many of these things are separate, business is separate from science, separate from humanity, it is also different that it is not possible for people to have those interests. I always thought of myself as somebody who was business and finance and entrepreneurship, the process of uncovering the story was wonderful, so fascinating, i loved digging in the archives and looking at Old Newspaper articles, a lot of skills that i learned working in business and writing skills certainly helped me a lot in this process but i loved every minute of it. I never think this is old but give us the story with john glenn, please. The question was actually a request to recount probably the most wellknown anecdote that has to do with this particular history that is in the book, certainly an anecdote that has been told many times for the last 50 years about Catherine JohnsonKatherine Johnson and her role in the orbital mission, john glenns flight the tip the balance in the space race between the United States and the soviet union. As you know, from the research here, a computer we think of as a piece of electronic hardware, before the 1950s and 60s and the advent of the enormous electronic calculating machine, a computer was somebody who computed and that usually meant someone who wore a skirt, was a woman. When these Electronic Computers started coming, being used more widely for Government Applications and Business Applications it took a while for people to trust them, to figure out how to use them and how reliable they were. For a long time most of the Aeronautical Research and into the early part of the Space Program was done by women, the women in the book, women like the women in the book, they worked at langley, they worked at all of the nasa installations, they were working on the Space Program calculating the trajectories of how are we going to take this man in the can and blast him into space around the earth. Mrs. Johnson worked in the Flight Research division which changed its name over the years but the people in that particular division were very closely linked to the early days of the Space Program and her group was responsible for calculating those trajectories. At the point at which the mission transformed from a simple ballistic trajectory to send a man up and comes down like that, something that circles the entire earth required a higher level of communication and computer technology. Nasa langley was in charge of building the tracking network, working on the mercury tracking range, citing these tracking stations around the earth in order to track this man in the spaceship as he circulated overhead. Computers were brought in to help do that task, calculate the numbers realtime but this was a real moment at which the oldschool computing which had been done by a room full of women sitting at a desk, 500 calculating machine, was handing off the work to a room computer, computer the took up a room as opposed to a room full of computers, that would actually have the Computing Power necessary to track this satellite of the earth with a man inside and get him home safely but as that transition was happening and mrs. Johnson was working in this particular division among the many many checklists you can imagine that nasa had to have to be as safe as possible. Among them was getting Katherine Johnson who authored the report in 1959 laying out the original mass for the trajectories of how to send a man into orbit around the earth, she was asked to compute by hand the same numbers, the date of the computer had, to essentially a simulation in which the woman computed the numbers and compared that to what the computer came up with and if those different sets of numbers showed agreement, which is the actual word from the Research Report then astronaut john glenn, that is one of the things i want to know before i go, get the girls to do it basically. Because all of the women who worked there at the time were girls, they were called girls and she was the girl who worked for this particular get the girl to do it