"She was the heroine of America, a pioneering character whose legacy will never be forgotten." With these words, the director of the American Space Agency (NASA) mourned the mathematician Catherine Johnson, who died Monday, February 24.

French newspaper Le Monde said in a report that Catherine Johnson's accounts contributed a great role in helping the United States to invade the moon.

Hidden characters
African American mathematician Catherine Johnson died at the age of 101, and the path of this great character for black Americans inspired the 2016 movie "Hidden Characters," adapted from Margot Lee Chitrali's book, and it depicts the contribution of black women, which has often been ignored. He mentioned it, in the American invasion of space.

Catherine was born on August 26, 1918, to a mother who works as a teacher, a farmer father and a woodcutter. Her African origins and brown skin were a reason to deprive her of completing her education in public schools, as African American students were denied study after the eighth grade.

Catherine suffered from racial discrimination, despite her genius and ability to solve complex mathematical problems, but her family believed in her abilities, so she helped her to attend a school on the West Virginia state campus, until she graduated from high school, and she was 14 years old, so she joined the University of West Virginia, which was known Historically it is a black university.

Immediately after graduating, Catherine joined the teaching work as a teacher in a black public school, but after her marriage she joined a mathematics program for graduates, but she quit her job to care for her children.

Kathery's life changed in 1953 when I heard from a relative that the American space program - which would later become NASA - needed to recruit mathematicians. Catherine applied to work on the program, and she joined the job, becoming the first African-American mathematician in the program.

Catherine graduated in jobs, until she joined the spaceship control branch, and she was a unique scientist and mathematical superhero, as she achieved great fame in the program, so that John Gallett - the first American astronaut in orbit - requested a review of the complex mathematical calculations of his journey of extreme confidence In its efficiency.

Black isolation
French newspaper Le Monde reported that at that time racial discrimination existed in the United States, and the scientist held a job with a “color computer” with dozens of other black mathematicians, isolated from their white colleagues, and her team was not integrated into other NASA departments until 1958, to be part One of the first human spaceflight program in the United States.

Catherine Johnson later helped calculate the flight of Alan Shephard, the first American to ascend into space. During her three-decade career with the Space Agency, Catherine Johnson developed important equations that enabled the United States to send astronauts into orbit and the moon, formulas still used in contemporary astronomy.

The young scientist calculated the paths of Apollo 11, a historical task that made Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon in 1969.

Catherine was describing herself, saying, "Anything that can be held accountable, I do." This scientist remained relatively unknown until President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Freedom Medal in 2015, one of the highest civilian awards in the United States.