Featured Characters
Historical Background
The Race to Space
Fact vs. Fiction in Movies
Early Computers
100

 

This person's exceptional mathematical skills were essential to the start of the Space Shuttle program.

Who was Katherine Johnson?

100
This category of law in the Southern part of the U.S. often prevented Black and White people from sharing the same public and working spaces.

What was Segregation Law? (or Segregation)

100

On October 4, 1957 the Russians placed this first successful satellite into orbit.

 What was Sputnik?

100

The character Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner is based on three different directors at NASA/Langley during Katherine Johnson's time at the research facility. This cinematic technique is called..

 What is a Composite Character?

100

IBM is an acronym for one of the first mainframe computers used in the Space Program.

 What is “International Business Machines”?

200

This person became the first African American supervisor and computer expert at NASA (then called NACA).

Who was Dorothy Vaughan?

200

In 1954 this Supreme Court ruling decided that public schools should no longer be segregated.

What was Brown vs. Board of Education? 

200

On April 12, 1961 this Soviet astronaut was the first man to orbit the Earth in the spacecraft Vostok I.

Who was Yuri Gargarin?

200

The women hired at NASA to calculate trajectories, wind tunnel tests and other important research were actually called by this title:  

Who were the Computers, or Human Computers?

200

In the movie, Dorothy Vaughan began by sneaking into the computer lab and eventually mastered this IBM programming language:

What is FORTRAN?

300

This woman became became NASA’s first Black female engineer in 1958.

Who was Mary Jackson?

300

 The period of tension and rivalry between the of the U.S. and Soviet Union after World War II was known by this term.

What was the Cold War?

300

 In 1961 President Kennedy went to congress and announced that he wanted to be the first to put a man on the Moon, spurring NASA to launch this program.

What was the Apollo Moon Program?

300

  Before the Flight of the Friendship 7 capsule, Astronaut John Glenn was factually quoted as asking for Katherine's calculations as confirmation with these words: "Get the girl to check the numbers... If she says the numbers are good... I'm ready to go." -NASA

 What was, "Get the girl to check the numbers... If she says the numbers are good... I'm ready to go."

300

This department was originally created in a basement at Langley for the African American human computers.

What was the West Computer Group?

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