Photo of the Week: Celebrating International Women’s Day with NASA legend Katherine Johnson

In honor of International Women’s Day, this week we are highlighting Katherine Johnson, a pioneer scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

A physicist and mathematician who calculated rocket flight trajectories, Johnson was considered a human computer who was involved with determining the trajectories for America’s first manned space flights in 1961 and 1962 and in 1969, was instrumental in landing men on the moon. She also helped craft the plan that brought Apollo 13 safely back to Earth.

According to legend, Johnson’s work was so accurate that when NASA switched to computers, they would call Johnson to double check their computations.