On Sept. 18, the women whose work set the foundation for the U.S. and humanity in general to become a space-faring species—by calculating, sometimes by hand, the intricate orbital maneuvers needed for space travel—were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation’s highest awards, equivalent to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The medals were bestowed on Christine Darden and posthumously to Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan—four women who worked for NASA and who have become collectively known as the “Hidden Figures,” after a 2016 book by that title. A separate medal was bestowed on the collective group of “hidden figures” who worked for NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics from the 1930s to the 1970s.
The women were honored at a ceremony held in Emancipation Hall of the Congressional Visitors Center, attended by numerous legislative and aeronautical leaders. Speaking in honor of the dedicated servants, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “The remarkable things that NASA achieves and that America achieves build on the pioneers who came before us, people like the women of Mercury and Gemini and Apollo…. The women we honor today made it possible for Earthlings to lift beyond the bounds of Earth.” House Speaker Mike Johnson noted that, “These women didn’t just crunch numbers and solve equations, they actually laid the very foundation upon which our rockets launched and our astronauts flew and our nation soared.”
