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im randi kaye. Tens of thousands of nasa employees worked on apollo 11 to put the first man on the moon. You got to meet some of them tonight. One unique individual came to our attention as the film was being researched. Turns out there was only one woman allowed in the control room during the launch. Her remarkable story has been mostly hidden all these years. She played a critical role, and as we learned, spending time with her, she remembers it well. Heres her story. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. The Space Program in the early 60s was dominated by men. But during the historic launch of apollo 11 on july 16th, 1969 one woman stood out in a sea of men in the control room. 28yearold joann morgan. I was the Instrumentation Controller. The Instrumentation Controller needs to know is there a problem . If so, i need to tell the right people in the test team. So how did you end up the on
or something she could build or do. at 17 she interned at the ballistic agency and went on to become the first missile engineer at cape canaveral. so what was it like when you first started at nasa? it was pretty intense it was all men and a lot of the buildings i worked in didn t have ladies restroom. just like in the movie hidden figures, she had to go to a different building or use the men s room. sometime during tests, the guard was just great. he would say, you need a little break. i ll police the men s room. how did the guys handle it? they tried not to notice. if i had to go, i had to go. when joanne first started working in the firing room, she also got some obscene phone calls. one time when one of them
reader. she skipped first grade. she wouldn t want a doll for christmas. she would rather have a chemistry set, an erector set. at 17, joann interned at the army ballistic agency, went on to be the first female engineer at cape canaveral. what was it like when you first started at nasa? it was pretty intense. it was all men in a lot of buildings i worked in, a lot of them didn t have ladies restrooms. like the women in the movie hidden figures joann had to go to a different building or use the men s room. sometimes during tests, the guard was just great. he would say you need a break, i ll police the men s room. when joann first started working in the firing room, she also got some obscene phone calls. one time when one of them