American Hero Katherine Johnson Dies At Age 101

(This photo of Katherine Johnson in 1962 is from NASA.)

Most Americans probably don't know who Katherine Johnson is -- but they should. She is as responsible as anyone for the success of the American space program. She was a brilliant mathematician, and NASA depended on her computations before going ahead with any launches.

Katherine Johnson passed away on Monday (February 24th) at the age of 101. She was truly an American Hero.

Here is just a small part of Harrison Smith's excellent obituary for her in The Washington Post:

When Katherine Johnson ­began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1953, she was classified as “subprofessional,” not far outranking a secretary or janitor.

Hers was a labor not of scheduling or cleaning but rather of mathematics: using a slide rule or mechanical calculator in complex calculations to check the work of her superiors — engineers who, unlike her, were white and male.

Her title, poached by the technology that would soon make the services of many of her colleagues obsolete, was “computer.”

Mrs. Johnson, who died Feb. 24 at 101, went on to develop equations that helped the NACA and its successor, NASA, send astronauts into orbit and, later, to the moon. In 26 signed reports for the space agency, and in many more papers that bore others’ signatures on her work, she codified mathematical principles that remain at the core of human space travel.

She was not the first black woman to work as a NASA mathematician, nor the first to write a research report for the agency, but Mrs. Johnson was eventually recognized as a pathbreaker for women and African Americans in the newly created field of spaceflight.

Like most backstage members of the space program, Mrs. Johnson was overshadowed in the popular imagination by the life-risking astronauts whose flights she calculated, and to a lesser extent by the department heads under whom she served.

She did not command mainstream attention until President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the country’s highest civilian honor — in 2015. The next year, her research was celebrated in the best-selling book “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly and the Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.

Mrs. Johnson was “critical to the success of the early U.S. space programs,” Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, said in a 2017 interview for this obituary. “She had a singular intellect, curiosity and skill set in mathematics that allowed her to make many contributions, each of which might be considered worthy of a single lifetime.”

Congratulations NASA !

Once again, the scientists at NASA have managed to pull off an incredible feat. This time they landed an SUV-sized "rover" on Mars (much larger than the two previous rovers). The mission this time is to search for evidence that life could exist, or could have once existed on the red planet. The picture above is one of the first pictures sent back to us from the new mars vehicle. Congratulations NASA -- both on a job well-done to land this much larger vehicle, and on the new journey they are now taking us on. This is exciting stuff!

Now This Is Embarrassing !

Shortly after their historic Apollo mission to the moon in 1969, the three astronauts (Aldrin, Collins and Armstrong) made a triumphant tour of Europe.   While they were in the Netherlands, they gave Prime Minister Willem Drees a very special gift -- a moon rock.   

After Mr. Drees died, the moon rock was put on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it had an honored place among the paintings by Dutch masters like Rembrandt.   At one time, the rock was even insured for a half-million dollars.

Sadly, those days are gone.   That's because the famous moon rock is a FAKE -- unless the moon was once covered by a forest.   The museum recently had the rock evaluated, and it turns out that it is just petrified wood.

Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation of the moon rock, told the Associated Press,   "It's a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered.   We can laugh about it."   The museum says it will keep the rock as a "curiosity".

What the hell is up with this?   Petrified wood!   The United States has given "moon rocks" to over 100 countries.   I have to wonder now just how many of those are fakes.   Were any of them real?

U.S. officials have said they have "no explanation" for this.   The rock had supposedly been verified by NASA itself.

This is really embarrassing.   Did those bozos at NASA think no one would ever check? 

NASA And Stephen Colbert

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is in the process of adding a module to the International Space Station. As with the other modules in the space station, they wanted to give the new module a name. But this time, they decided it would be some good publicity for the agency to let the general public choose the name.

NASA set up a poll on their website and asked the general public to vote. The names they suggested were Serenity, Legacy, Earthrise and Venture. But they also allowed the public to suggest their own names.

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert learned of the vote, and decided the new module should be named "Colbert". He asked his fans to go to NASA's site and vote for the module to be named after him. Several thousand of them did exactly that -- so many that the name "Colbert" easily outpaced all of the names suggested by NASA.

At first, NASA didn't react well to this. They removed the poll from their website and announced the vote was just a suggestion. They said they would decide what the new module's name would be.

Now it looks like they realized they made a publicity mistake, and they're trying to fix it. They are sending astronaut Sunita Williams to appear on Colbert's TV show next Tuesday night. While there, she will officially announce the name of the new module.

We still don't know what the name will be -- Colbert or one of the four suggested names. That won't be known until Tuesday. But at least the agency doesn't look so staid, now that they're sort of going along with the joke.

As for Stephen Colbert, he says, "I certainly hope NASA does the right thing. Just kidding. I hope they name it after me."

NASA Lawyer Destroys Government Property

Once again we have evidence that we just can't trust those in power in our government.

On April 10th, the head of NASA traveled to Washington to talk to staff members of NASA's Inspector General office. He was there because many in the Inspector General office believed their boss, Robert Cobb, was too friendly with the bosses of the space agency and created an abusive work environment for his employees.

The meeting might have been a good idea, except for the fact that the NASA head invited Cobb to the meeting. Did it never occur to him that a truly free and open discussion would be inhibited by having Cobb at the meeting? Was a free and open discussion the last thing the bosses wanted, and the meeting was just a PR stunt? What really happened at that meeting?

Even though the meeting was between government employees and on government time, we'll never know what happened for sure. That's because NASA's top attorney, Michael Wholley, collected all the DVD recordings of the meeting, broke them into little pieces and tossed them into the trash, because he wanted to make sure the meeting details were not made public.

The fact is that the American people pay the salaries of every single person at that meeting, including Michael Wholly. The American people have a right to know what happened at the meeting, whether Wholley and his bosses like it or not.

In his effort to hide the incompetence of his bosses, Wholley broke the law and should be punished. Those DVD's were also bought with taxpayer money and were government property. As Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) said, "I believe this tape...is government property and there are criminal penalties for the destruction of government property."

This is what happens when those at the top (Bush and Cheney) flaunt their abuse of the rule of law. This kind of attitude spreads throughout the government, and soon even government attorneys (who should know better) are breaking the law.

At the very least, Wholley should resign. He can no longer be trusted.