OUTLIER: THE STORY OF KATHERINE JOHNSON

Cinemavixion Review

This one-hour documentary, 'Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson,' chronicles the extraordinary life and groundbreaking career of an African American woman whose unparalleled mathematical genius played a pivotal role in the American space program. Born in 1918, Katherine Johnson was a prodigy, graduating high school at 14 and college at 18. Her journey led her to NASA in 1953, where she shattered racial and gender barriers, calculating crucial trajectories for space missions. Johnson's expertise was instrumental in plotting the paths for Alan Shepard's historic 1959 flight, the first American in space, and she meticulously verified the computer calculations for John Glenn's 1962 mission. As the first woman in NASA's space division to author a technical report, she co-authored a remarkable 21 such papers. Her immense contributions were recognized in 2015 when President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Johnson did not merely succeed in a field dominated by white men; she excelled, becoming an indispensable figure from the early days of manned space flight through the Shuttle program.