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Katherine Johnson
1918–2020 · NASA Mathematician — The Computer in a Skirt
She calculated orbital trajectories by hand — with a pencil — for America's first crewed spaceflights. John Glenn refused to fly until Katherine Johnson personally verified the computer's numbers. A Black woman in 1960s Virginia, working in a segregated building, doing math that put men in space. She didn't march. She didn't protest. She just showed up every day and was so undeniably brilliant that the system had no choice but to listen. Her work outlived every barrier they put in front of her. A Grithosian builds a legacy that makes the walls irrelevant.