Katherine Coleman

Katherine Johnson – Coleman

born in 1918, birthday on 26 August

This American mathematician contributed to the aviation and space programmes of the United States by making early use of digital computers at NASA. She did the trajectory calculations for the Mercury programme and the 1969 flight of Apollo 11 to the moon. Later in her career, Johnson worked on the Space Shuttle programme, the Earth Resources Satellite and on plans for a mission to Mars.

And also special: in 1938 Johnson was the first African-American woman to be admitted to West Virginia University.

Source: Wikipedia.nl

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