NASA’s ‘Hidden Figures’ Honored with Congressional Gold Medals

Sept. 21—On Sept. 18, the women whose work set the foundation for America and humanity to become a space-faring species—by calculating, sometimes by hand, the intricate orbital maneuvers needed that were used to put American astronaut John Glenn into orbit in 1962—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 and movie of 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 Rep. Mike Johnson  (R-LA) 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.”

Also attending the event was Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, (later turned into the movie “Hidden Figures”) exposed the hidden story of these women in 2016. “To all of the other women,” Shetterly said, “who served our country throughout NASA’s history as computers, mathematicians, data analysts, engineers and scientists, women who are still largely hidden figures, women from all backgrounds and from all corners of our great nation, I am delighted that we are celebrating you today as well.”

Only one of Wednesday’s honorees, 82-year-old Christine Darden, is still alive, and was only able to attend the celebrations by Zoom. The bill conveying the honors on the women dates from 2018, in bipartisan legislation signed by President Trump the following year. The five-year delay in the actual ceremony is attributed to time needed to design (by an 11-person Congressional committee) and mint the medals, then Covid, and then, well, “politics.” The women are also memorialized in buildings named after them at NASA facilities across the country, and the stretch of E Street running in front of the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building was named “Hidden Figures Way” in 2019. Duplicates of the medals—cast in bronze—will be made available to the general public.