From: Valerie L. Thomas [mailto:vthomas@xxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Saturday, September 9, 2017 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [NASA HQ News] Virginia Officials, Hidden Figures Author Join NASA
in Honoring Legacy of Famed Mathematician; Live on NASA Television
FYI
Valerie
On 9/7/2017 3:44 PM, Lucy Baker wrote:
I thought this NASA News Release was interesting so I wanted to share it.
September 07, 2017
MEDIA ADVISORY M17-105
Virginia Officials, Hidden Figures Author Join NASA in Honoring Legacy of Famed
Mathematician; Live on NASA Television
<https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/katherine_johnson_computational_research_facility_rendering_resize.jpg>
The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility at NASA's Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Credits: NASA
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, and author Margot
Lee-Shetterly are among the dignitaries honoring Katherine Johnson, former NASA
employee and central character of the book and movie Hidden Figures, at 1 p.m.
Sept. 22 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
They will join Hampton Mayor Donnie Tuck and Langley Center Director David
Bowles in cutting the ribbon to officially open the center’s new Katherine G.
Johnson Computational Research Facility, a state-of-the-art lab for innovative
research and development supporting NASA’s exploration missions.
The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website
<http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv> . Media wishing to attend must contact Michael
Finneran of the Langley communications office at 757-864-6110 or
michael.p.finneran@xxxxxxxx <mailto:michael.p.finneran@xxxxxxxx> .
Johnson, 99, will attend and participate in photo opportunities, but will not
be available for interviews. A prerecorded message from her will be aired
during the ceremony and a statement will be read.
Johnson was a "human computer" at Langley who calculated trajectories for
America's first spaceflights in the 1960s. The retired mathematician was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor,
in 2015. Her contributions and those of other NASA African-American human
computers are chronicled in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures, based on
Lee-Shetterly’s book of the same name. She worked at Langley from 1953 until
she retired in 1986.
For more about Johnson, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography
The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility (CRF) is a
$23-million, 37,000-square-foot, energy efficient structure that consolidates
five Langley data centers and more than 30 server rooms. The facility will
enhance NASA’s efforts in modeling and simulation, big data, and analysis. Much
of the work now done by wind tunnels eventually will be performed by computers
like those at the CRF.
For more information about Langley Research Center, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/langley
-end-
