Light shines on NASA’s ‘hidden’ heroes
New film explores the key roles three black women played in success of the Mercury missions
Mimi Valdés and Christine Deoja took two different paths to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference, but a story about three women working for NASA in the 1960s brought them together.
Deoja was the local, driving up to the George R. Brown Convention Center in October for the gathering from her job as an engineer at NASA. Valdés arrived from New York, where the former journalist now oversees projects for i am OTHER, the production company started by producer and musician Pharrell Williams. Valdés’ latest project with Williams, the feature film “Hidden Figures,” brought them together to talk about women and the space program.
“Hidden Figures,” which opens Sunday, tells the stories of Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monáe), three black women who had key roles in the success of the Mercury space program. All three contributed to NASA beyond those first missions, though Valdés said, “we had to concentrate on the two years around the John Glenn launch, even though their story covers 40 years.”
Because of her background as a writer and editor, Valdés said she “is always looking for stories. My goal is to entertain, educate and inspire. Pharrell and I were looking for a movie that would check those boxes. Pharrell, being from Virginia, he’s obsessed with NASA. Even his clothing logo has an astronaut on it.”
Producer Donna Gigliotti brought to their attention a book proposal by Margot Lee Shetterly, another Virginia native whose father worked at
NASA. Shetterly’s book focused on the contributions Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson made in their decades working for NASA. The producers optioned the story based on Shetterly’s proposal. She worked on her book as Allison Schroeder wrote a screenplay concurrently.
“I think people who followed the mainstream coverage of these events didn’t know about these women,” Valdés said. “But they’re superheroes. That’s why the poster looks the way it does. It’s been unfortunate because of the circumstances, their story was hidden. All the movies about space, you never see women, especially women of color, in the narrative. So I was grateful for the chance to be part of changing the narrative.
“Hopefully, it’ll inspire a new generation to see these people contributing toward doing something that had never been done before. Octavia thought it was a work of fiction. Taraji and Janelle were shocked and then angry when they found out the story. These women had been removed from the history books.
“Sometimes we don’t communicate everything about the things we’re good at.”
Deoja had a similar reaction.
“The first time I heard about them I was shocked. If I wasn’t aware of them, how many other people didn’t know what they did? Their story is a great one.”
“Hidden Figures” charts each woman’s path through gender- and racebased obstacles.
Johnson, a mathematician, began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in the early-1950s prior to the creation of NASA through the National Aeronautics and Space Act. The film follows her from her work as a human “computer” to more involved calculations required to make John Glenn the first man to orbit the planet.
Though computers — Vaughan’s specialty as a programmer — were used for Glenn’s mission, the astronaut demanded Johnson’s verification of the computer’s calculations prior to his launch. Jackson, also, worked as a “computer” who later realized her dream of becoming an aerospace engineer.
Deoja called the women “role models.” Her path to NASA was paved in part by them. A book with photos of other galaxies caught her attention in the fifth grade, and science soon became her favored subject.
She read a newspaper story about a local high school boy who, through the High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) program, spent a summer working with NASA engineers at Johnson Space Center. Deoja applied as a junior in 2003 and was accepted. “That solidified engineering work as what I wanted to do,” she said.
She studied electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas and then went to work for NASA, where she was involved in work on the International Space Station and Orion spacecraft. More recently, she was involved in development of the Morpheus project, a prototype for a planetary lander capable of vertical takeoffs and landings.
“Watching these missions happen on TV, it can start to look easy,” Deoja said. “And the spotlight is usually on the astronauts and mission control. But there’s so much that has to happen to get to space. The science and engineering and technology, the testing. There are a lot of people who contribute to making it happen.”