“Get the girl.” On February 20th 1962, John Glenn was the first American to launch into space and orbit the Earth. Friendship 7’s success heavily depended on the exactitude of the rocket trajectory’s calculations. A few days prior to the mission, Glenn trusted his life with only one person to confirm by hand these IBM-generated numbers: Katherine Johnson, 44 year-old mathematician; daughter, sister, window, wife, mother of three, friend, teacher, community-builder, chorister; the first woman – and African-American woman – to join NASA’s Space Flight Research Division in Langley’s Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory as research mathematician, and who was part of the Space Task Group for America’s first multiple missions to space. Human computer. “The girl with the numbers”.