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Katherine Johnson (ligne à enlever avant publication). The passages marked with can be integrated in the main article (dont forget the reference)

1. Katherine Johnson nait en 1918 à White Sulphur Springs, en Virginie-Occidentale. Français  Terminé.  Diff
2. Elle montre tôt des prédispositions et un intérêt pour les mathématiques à l'école. Français  Terminé.   Diff
3. À 13 ans, elle est scolarisée au lycée situé sur le campus du West Virginia State College, établissement historiquement réservé aux personnes afrodescendantes. À 18 ans, elle s'inscrit à l'université, où elle rencontre son mentor William Schieffelin Claytor, le troisième Afro-Américain à obtenir un doctorat en mathématiques. Elle s'adapte rapidement au programme de mathématiques qui est enseigné. Français  Pas fait.=> Les infos sont déjà dans l'article. Par contre il y a un problème de dates à vérifier : l'article indique que Johnson a 10 ans au moment de son admission sur au college (ici on dit "13 ans") et 14 ans au moment ou elle entre à l'université (ici tu dis "18 ans").
4. Le fait d'avoir été choisie pour être l'une des trois étudiantes noires à intégrer les écoles supérieures de Virginie occidentale est souvent considéré comme l'un des plus marquants de sa vie, mais ce n'est qu'une des nombreuses percées qui ont marqué la vie de Katherine Johnson. Français  Terminé. Diff
5. Elle obtient son diplôme avec la plus haute mention honorifique en 1937 et accepte un poste d'enseignante dans une école publique noire en Virginie. Français  : je n'ai rajouté que le source et la mention "noire" car l'information était déjà dans l'article Diff
6. ..... à continuer... C'est mieux de vérifier que l'information ne se trouve pas déjà dans l'article sinon tu traduits pour rien :)

Career

Johnson working as a "computer" at NASA in 1966

Johnson decided on a career as a research mathematician, although this was a difficult field for African Americans and women to enter. The first jobs she found were in teaching. At a family gathering in 1952, a relative mentioned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was hiring mathematicians. At the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, based in Hampton, Virginia, near Langley Field, NACA hired African-American mathematicians as well as whites for their Guidance and Navigation Department. Johnson accepted a job offer from the agency in June 1953.

According to an oral history archived by the National Visionary Leadership Project:

At first she [Johnson] worked in a pool of women performing math calculations. Katherine has referred to the women in the pool as virtual "computers who wore skirts". Their main job was to read the data from the black boxes of planes and carry out other precise mathematical tasks. Then one day, Katherine (and a colleague) were temporarily assigned to help the all-male flight research team. Katherine's knowledge of analytic geometry helped make quick allies of male bosses and colleagues to the extent that, "they forgot to return me to the pool". While the racial and gender barriers were always there, Katherine says she ignored them. Katherine was assertive, asking to be included in editorial meetings (where no women had gone before). She simply told people she had done the work and that she belonged.

From 1953 to 1958, Johnson worked as a computer, analyzing topics such as gust alleviation for aircraft. Originally assigned to the West Area Computers section supervised by mathematician Dorothy Vaughan, Johnson was reassigned to the Guidance and Control Division of Langley's Flight Research Division. It was staffed by white male engineers. In keeping with state racial segregation laws, and federal workplace segregation introduced under President Woodrow Wilson in the early 20th century, Johnson and the other African-American women in the computing pool were required to work, eat, and use restrooms that were separate from those of their white peers. Their office was labeled as "Colored Computers". In an interview with WHRO-TV, Johnson stated that she "didn't feel the segregation at NASA, because everybody there was doing research. You had a mission and you worked on it, and it was important to you to do your job ... and play bridge at lunch." She added: "I didn't feel any segregation. I knew it was there, but I didn't feel it." NACA disbanded the colored computing pool in 1958 when the agency was superseded by NASA, which adopted digital computers. Although the installation was desegregated, forms of discrimination were still pervasive. Johnson recalled that era:

We needed to be assertive as women in those days – assertive and aggressive – and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be. In the early days of NASA women were not allowed to put their names on the reports – no woman in my division had had her name on a report. I was working with Ted Skopinski and he wanted to leave and go to Houston ... but Henry Pearson, our supervisor – he was not a fan of women – kept pushing him to finish the report we were working on. Finally, Ted told him, "Katherine should finish the report, she's done most of the work anyway." So Ted left Pearson with no choice; I finished the report and my name went on it, and that was the first time a woman in our division had her name on something.

From 1958 until her retirement in 1986, Johnson worked as an aerospace technologist, moving during her career to the Spacecraft Controls Branch. She calculated the trajectory for the May 5, 1961 space flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space. She also calculated the launch window for his 1961 Mercury mission. She plotted backup navigation charts for astronauts in case of electronic failures. When NASA used electronic computers for the first time to calculate John Glenn's orbit around Earth, officials called on Johnson to verify the computer's numbers; Glenn had asked for her specifically and had refused to fly unless Johnson verified the calculations. Biography.com states these were "far more difficult calculations, to account for the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies". Author Margot Lee Shetterly stated, "So the astronaut who became a hero, looked to this black woman in the still-segregated South at the time as one of the key parts of making sure his mission would be a success." She added that, in a time where computing was "women's work" and engineering was left to men, "it really does have to do with us over the course of time sort of not valuing that work that was done by women, however necessary, as much as we might. And it has taken history to get a perspective on that."

Johnson later worked directly with digital computers. Her ability and reputation for accuracy helped to establish confidence in the new technology. In 1961, her work helped to ensure that Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury capsule would be found quickly after landing, using the accurate trajectory that had been established.

Johnson in 2008

She also helped to calculate the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. During the Moon landing, Johnson was at a meeting in the Pocono Mountains. She and a few others crowded around a small television screen watching the first steps on the Moon. In 1970, Johnson worked on the Apollo 13 Moon mission. When the mission was aborted, her work on backup procedures and charts helped set a safe path for the crew's return to Earth, creating a one-star observation system that would allow astronauts to determine their location with accuracy. In a 2010 interview, Johnson recalled, "Everybody was concerned about them getting there. We were concerned about them getting back." Later in her career, Johnson worked on the Space Shuttle program, the Earth Resources Satellite, and on plans for a mission to Mars.

Johnson spent her later years encouraging students to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Carrière

Katherine Johnson à la NASA en 1966.

Après un début dans l'enseignement qui ne la satisfait pas, Katherine Johnson se lance dans une carrière de chercheuse mais aussi de mathématicienne, un domaine difficile d'accès pour les Afro-Américains et les femmes. Lors d'une réunion de famille en 1952, elle apprend que le National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) — ancêtre de la NASA — a publié une annonce pour recruter des mathématiciens pour le centre de recherche Langley. Katherine Johnson s'est vu proposer un emploi en 1953 et l'accepte immédiatement.

D'après les archives du National Visionary Leadership Project :

« Au début, elle travaillait dans un groupe de femmes affecté aux calculs mathématiques. Katherine surnommait ces femmes les « ordinateurs avec des jupes ». Leur travail principal consistait à lire les données des boîtes noires d'avions et d'autres travaux mathématiques. Puis, un jour, Katherine et une collègue ont été temporairement affectées pour aider l'équipe de recherche masculine sur les vols. Les connaissances de Katherine en géométrie analytique lui ont permis de s'intégrer rapidement au sein de ses nouveaux collègues et supérieurs, au point qu'ils ont « oublié de me renvoyer dans le groupe des femmes ». Les barrières de race et de genre étaient toujours présentes, mais Katherine dit les avoir ignorées. Elle s'affirmait dans l'équipe, demandait à participer aux réunions où aucune femme n'avait encore été admise. Elle disait simplement aux gens qu'elle avait fait le travail et mérité sa place. »

— Archives

De 1953 à 1958, elle travaille comme calculateur humain, analysant des sujets tels que l'atténuation des rafales de vent pour les aéronefs. Affectée à l'origine à la section des West Area Computers sous la supervision de la mathématicienne Dorothy Vaughan, Johnson est réaffectée à la division de guidage et de contrôle de la division de recherche en vol de Langley.

De 1958 jusqu'à sa retraite en 1986, Johnson travaille en tant que technologue en aérospatiale, passant au cours de sa carrière à la branche de contrôle des engins spatiaux.

En 1961, elle effectue des analyses de trajectoire de lancement de la mission Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7), le premier lancement d'un Américain — Alan Shepard — dans l'espace.

Katherine Johnson en 1971.

En 1962, elle vérifie à la main les calculs de trajectoire informatisés de la première mission américaine envoyant un homme en orbite autour de la Terre : Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7). John Glenn, qui connaît sa réputation et a une confiance limitée dans les premiers programmes de suivi de trajectoire, demande expressément que cette vérification manuelle soit faite par Katherine Johnson, en tant que procédure standard dans la « checklist » précédant le vol.

En 1969, durant la mission Apollo 11, Katherine Johnson aide à préciser les trajectoires de rendez-vous spatial entre le module de commande et le module lunaire Apollo quand celui-ci remonte de la surface de la Lune.