Meet The NASA's Desi Women
THE WEEK|July 25, 2021
Sixty years after a team of coloured women helped America put a man in space, four Indian-origin women at NASA talk about what has changed
Anjuly Mathai
Meet The NASA's Desi Women

The year is 1961, when the US and the USSR are at the height of the Cold War, and all attention is focused on space. In October 1957, the Soviets had launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, into the earth’s orbit, thus gaining a distinct advantage in the ‘race for space’. The next year, to regain lost ground, president Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an order for the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). At NASA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, there was a segregated west side whose existence not many NASA employees knew of. This was where the coloured women—or the ‘West Computers’—who did much of the space agency’s complex mathematical equations, sat.

Theodore Melfi’s biographical drama, Hidden Figures (2016)—about the lives of three path-breaking West Computers—begins after the Soviet Union’s Vostok 3KA-2 successfully orbits the earth in March 1961, carrying a mannequin and a dog. There is a note of desperation in the voice of Al Harrison, the head of NASA’s Space Task Group, as he demands a human computer who is good with analytical geometry to do the agency’s orbital calculations. A missive is sent to the west side, and Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson becomes the first West Computer to work with the Space Task Group. As she enters a room full of white men who pay her scant regard, a trash bin is thrust at her. “This wasn’t cleared yesterday,” says one of the men. “Oh no, I’m not here to…,” she tries explaining, but the man has already left.

Denne historien er fra July 25, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra July 25, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA THE WEEKSe alt
What Will It Take To Clean Up Delhi Air?
THE WEEK India

What Will It Take To Clean Up Delhi Air?

IT IS ASKED, year after year, why Delhi’s air remains unbreathable despite several interventions to reduce pollution.

time-read
5 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Trump and the crisis of liberalism
THE WEEK India

Trump and the crisis of liberalism

Although Donald Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term to the US presidency is not unprecedented—Grover Cleveland had done it in 1893—it is nevertheless a watershed moment.

time-read
2 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Men eye the woman's purse
THE WEEK India

Men eye the woman's purse

A couple of months ago, I chanced upon a young 20-something man at my gym walking out with a women’s sling bag.

time-read
2 mins  |
December 08, 2024
When trees hold hands
THE WEEK India

When trees hold hands

A filmmaker explores the human-nature connect through the living root bridges

time-read
3 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Ms Gee & Gen Z
THE WEEK India

Ms Gee & Gen Z

The vibrant Anuja Chauhan and her daughter Nayantara on the generational gap in romance writing

time-read
5 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Vikram Seth-a suitable man
THE WEEK India

Vikram Seth-a suitable man

Our golden boy of literature was the star attraction at the recent Shillong Literary Festival in mysterious Meghalaya.

time-read
2 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Superman bites the dust
THE WEEK India

Superman bites the dust

When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park.

time-read
3 mins  |
December 08, 2024
OLD MAN AND THE SEA
THE WEEK India

OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Meet G. Govinda Menon, the 102-year-old engineer who had a key role in surveying the Vizhinjam coast in the 1940s, assessing its potential for an international port

time-read
4 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Managing volatility: smarter equity choices in uncertain markets
THE WEEK India

Managing volatility: smarter equity choices in uncertain markets

THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET has delivered a strong 11 per cent CAGR over the past decade, with positive returns for eight straight years.

time-read
3 mins  |
December 08, 2024
Investing in actively managed low-volatility portfolios keeps risks at bay
THE WEEK India

Investing in actively managed low-volatility portfolios keeps risks at bay

AFTER A ROARING bull market over the past year, equity markets in the recent months have gone into a correction mode as FIIs go on a selling spree. Volatility has risen and investment returns are hurt.

time-read
2 mins  |
December 08, 2024