Topics on the Page

The Harvard University "Computers"

Jerri Cobb and the Mercury 13 Women Astronauts 

Apollo 11 and the Rocket Girls

Black Women Mathematicians at NASA

• The Hidden Figures Book and Movie

Margaret Hamilton, Software Engineer

 Cross-Links

Sputnik, the Space Race and Women in STEM

Mae Jemison, Astronaut 

Sally Ride, First American Woman in Space

Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson

The Harvard University "Computers"

The Women Who Mapped the Universe and Still Couldn't Get Any Respect, Smithsonian (September 18, 2013)

Annie Jump Cannon devised a system for classifying stars that is still used today.

Known as Pickering's Harem, these women cataloged data on astronomical observations from the late 1880s into the 1920s. A total of 80 women, working 6 days a week and earning between 25 and 50 cents a hour (half the pay of men in a similar role)


The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, Dava Sobel, 2016.

The Mercury 13 and the First Women Astronauts

Jerrie Cobb, one of the Mercury 13

Women Astronauts

The Mercury 13, NASA

The Mercury 13 Story

Apollo 11 and the Rocket Girls

The Women Who Brought Us Apollo 11, Science Friday (July 22, 2016)

The Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars. Nathalia Holt. 2016

Watch a documentary on Apollo 11 here

Black Women Mathematicians at NASA

  Mae Jemison, Astronaut

A Forgotten Story: Black Women Helped Land a Man on the Moon, The Washington Post, September 13, 2016

Hidden Figures Book and Movie

Hidden Figure Movie Cast Members at the Kennedy Space Center, 2017

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Margot Lee Shetterly 2016

• The Real Women Behind the Hidden Figures Movie

How Black Women Did the Math That Put Men on the Moon, All Things Considered (September 25, 2016)

Make a Paper Mars Helicopter, NASA

Margaret Hamilton standing next to the navigation software that

she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo Project.

Margaret Hamilton, Software Engineer

Margaret Hamilton Led the Team that Landed Astronauts on the Moon

Her Code Got Humans to the Moon--And Invented Software