Capito, Manchin support renaming NASA IV&V after W.Va. icon Katherine Johnson

“We’re one step closer to renaming Fairmont’s NASA IV&V facility after Katherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician and true trailblazer,” Capito said in a press release. “I’m thrilled that the Senate recognized her incredible contributions — not only to West Virginia but also to the country and the science community — and passed this legislation with such overwhelming support.”

Manchin, who co-sponsored the bill, agreed with Capito’s sentiment. In a press release, Manchin noted Johnson’s contributions to the worldwide scientific community.

“I applaud my Senate colleagues for passing this legislation, which I was proud to cosponsor, to rename Fairmont’s NASA IV&V facility,” Manchin said. “Not only did Katherine Johnson broaden our nation’s perceived physical limitations with her contributions to the space program, she also broke down discriminatory barriers that stood in the way of so many other women and people of color advancing in the workplace.

“Katherine Johnson is one of West Virginia’s finest and a groundbreaking, brilliant mathematician. No individual is more worthy of this honor than her. Through her brilliance, strength and courage, she proved to the country that anyone — regardless of race, gender or background — can touch the stars.”

Johnson, a native of White Sulphur Springs, was one of three black student picked to integrate into the West Virginia University graduate school system 1939, although she dropped out to teach and be with her family.

Years later, in 1952, Johnson applied for an all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee Aeronautics, which would later become NASA. Johnson then moved on to a more permanent position in the lab’s Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division.

After years of analyzing flight data, Johnson began work on the organization’s space flight programs, working on Freedom 7, Project Apollo and Earth Resources Satellite, among other projects. Retiring in 1986, Johnson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to a civilian, by President Barack Obama in 2015.

Johnson, now 100 years old, was portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”

Although the bill her add her name to NASA’s IV&V facility is still in the House of Representatives, many are on board with the change. While nobody at the IV&V facility could speak about the bill with The Exponent Telegram, officials offered the following statement.

“NASA appreciates and shares Congress’s continuing interest in honoring the ‘hidden figures,’” the statement reads. “We look forward to working with Congress to ensure this history is widely understood and appropriately honored.”