Summary

In Chapter 21, Out of the Past, the Future, Katherine Johnson worked on the problem of bringing a man safely home from space. The Russians put a man into orbit for nearly a full day. Finally, the launch date for the Mercury Project was set at February 12, 1962.

John Glenn requested one more check of the trajectory that was generated by the IBM computer. He requested that the numbers be checked by Katherine. He trusted that if she was confident the numbers were right, they were.

Film footage shot at NASA for television showed rooms full of white male scientists. However, behind the scenes, black employees were working diligently toward the launch. Dorothy Vaughan was working on calculations for Project Scout, which was testing a solid-fuel rocket. Miriam Mann worked on the data that would allow two ships to dock while in space. Mary...