It is thanks to these women of color, all mathematicians, whom NASA employed until the 1980s, that John Glenn, the American astronaut, could be placed in orbit around the Moon. It was they, too, who calculated his trajectory so that he could return to Earth!
American space research had begun recruiting women during the Second World War, the men having gone to the front. These mathematics teachers were recruited through the city’s Black newspaper. Hidden Figures (Théodore Melfi, 2016) came to our screens (Twentieth Century Fox France) for Women’s Day. It tells the extraordinary story of the African-American scientists who enabled the United States to dominate the conquest of space and whose story remained largely unknown for a long time. The film is excellent in every respect, even in its mathematical aspects!
