Nasa women who inspired Hidden Figures to receive Congressional Gold Medals

Sign up for the Independent Women email for the latest news, opinion and features

Get the Independent Women email for free

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

The women at Nasa who inspired the 2016 book Hidden Figures and subsequent biographical 1960s-set film of the same name are to be honoured with Congressional Gold Medals.

US President Donald Trump recently signed the “Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act” into law.

The act outlines that Congressional Gold Medals are to be awarded to mathematician Katherine Johnson and aeronautical engineer Dr Christine Darden and posthumously awarded to mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and aerospace engineer Mary Jackson in recognition of their work.

A fifth medal is also to be awarded in honour of “all of the women who contributed to the success of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration during the Space Race”.

The statement announcing the passing of the act states that “appropriate arrangements” are being made to present the five medals.

The Congressional Gold Medal posthumously being awarded to Ms Vaughan and the fifth medal being awarded to “recognised women” who worked as human computers, mathematicians and engineers at Nasa from the 1930s to the 1970s are to be given to the Smithsonian Institution.

The medal being awarded to Ms Jackson is to be given to her granddaughter, Wanda Jackson.

Each medal is to be designed with “suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions”, as determined by Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury.

Following the recognition of the bill in October, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris expressed her admiration for the women known as the “Hidden Figures”.

“The groundbreaking accomplishments of these four women, and all of the women who contributed to the success of Nasa, helped us to win the Space Race but remained in the dark for too long,” said Senator Harris.

“These pioneers remain a beacon for black women across the country, both young and old.”

Among her accomplishments, Ms Johnson calculated trajectories for the spaceflights of astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn, who became the first American in space and the first American in orbit respectively.

In 1949, Ms Vaughan became the first black supervisor at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Naca), a precursor to Nasa.

Ms Jackson became Nasa’s first black female engineer in 1958, having previously worked as a computer in Nasa’s West Area Computing division.

Dr Darden, who was featured in the Hidden Figures book but not the film, became the first black woman to be promoted into the senior executive service at Nasa’s Langley Research Centre.

The Congressional Gold Medal is one of the highest civilian awards in the US.

It is presented in honour of individuals who have “performed an achievement that had a major impact on American history and culture”.