Tweet NASA STEM Pioneer Katherine Johnson A Happy 100th Birthday!

All you regular readers know I've been following the "Hidden Figures" narrative arc -- and very closely, too -- these last few years. Long overdue.

So, please, tonight or tomorrow -- tweet out a happy birthday wish to Ms. Katherine Johnson.

. . . .Today, retired @NASA_Langley mathematician Katherine Johnson makes her 100th trip around the Sun as she celebrates her birthday! Send her birthday wishes using #Happy100Katherine & learn about her calculations that launched @NASA_Astronauts to space. . . .

And, from our last Real President (44):

. . .Growing up in West Virginia, Katherine Johnson counted everything. She counted steps. She counted dishes. She counted the distance to the church. By 10 years old, she was in high school. By 18, she had graduated from college with degrees in math and French. As an African-American woman, job options were limited -- but she was eventually hired as one of several female mathematicians for the agency that would become NASA.

Katherine calculated the flight path for America’s first mission in space, and the path that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. She was even asked to double-check the computer’s math on John Glenn’s orbit around the Earth. . . . So if you think your job is pressure-packed -- (laughter) -- hers meant that forgetting to carry the one might send somebody floating off into the Solar System. (Laughter.) In her 33 years at NASA, Katherine was a pioneer who broke the barriers of race and gender, showing generations of young people that everyone can excel in math and science, and reach for the stars. . . .

She begins her 100^th trip around the Sun, tomorrow. Lovely, lovely woman.

नमस्ते