Day 12 Black History Month 2021 - Annie Easley
Annie Easley (April 1933 – June 2011)
For day 12 of Black History Month, we’d like to highlight Annie Easley, an American computer scientist, rocket scientist and mathematician.
In 1955, she came across a newspaper story about a pair of twin sisters who were working as “computers,” performing mathematical computations for engineers at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), which was a predecessor to NASA and the same NACA that Hidden Figure Katherine Johnston worked at in Virginia. She applied for the job and two weeks later she was hired.
Her first role was as a “computer,” like the twins she had read about, but once actual computers came on the scene, she learned assembly language and FORTRAN, evolving into a computer programmer.
Some of her work involved research and development of battery powered vehicles similar to the modern hybrid cars we have today. She also worked on shuttle launches that measured the destruction of ozone and helped to test and design the NASA nuclear reactor at Plum Brook, Ohio. What she is best known for however, is her work on the Centaur rocket which was first of its kind and has powered space missions like Surveyor 1 (first American space probe to land on an extraterrestrial body), the Cassini probe to Saturn and the InSight spacecraft to Mars.
In reflecting upon her 30 plus year career at NASA, she mentions that she had, “more good memories than bad,” but was candid about the racial discrimination she experienced throughout that time. She was denied financial aid that other NASA employees received to pay for additional college courses. She was also humiliated to find that she was often cut out of team photographs, when they were used for NASA promotional material.
“People have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can’t work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be so discouraged that I’d walk away.” – Annie Easley
For day 12 of Black History Month, we’d like to highlight Annie Easley, an American computer scientist, rocket scientist and mathematician.
In 1955, she came across a newspaper story about a pair of twin sisters who were working as “computers,” performing mathematical computations for engineers at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), which was a predecessor to NASA and the same NACA that Hidden Figure Katherine Johnston worked at in Virginia. She applied for the job and two weeks later she was hired.
Her first role was as a “computer,” like the twins she had read about, but once actual computers came on the scene, she learned assembly language and FORTRAN, evolving into a computer programmer.
Some of her work involved research and development of battery powered vehicles similar to the modern hybrid cars we have today. She also worked on shuttle launches that measured the destruction of ozone and helped to test and design the NASA nuclear reactor at Plum Brook, Ohio. What she is best known for however, is her work on the Centaur rocket which was first of its kind and has powered space missions like Surveyor 1 (first American space probe to land on an extraterrestrial body), the Cassini probe to Saturn and the InSight spacecraft to Mars.
In reflecting upon her 30 plus year career at NASA, she mentions that she had, “more good memories than bad,” but was candid about the racial discrimination she experienced throughout that time. She was denied financial aid that other NASA employees received to pay for additional college courses. She was also humiliated to find that she was often cut out of team photographs, when they were used for NASA promotional material.
“People have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can’t work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be so discouraged that I’d walk away.” – Annie Easley