WASHINGTON (AP) – NASA is naming its headquarters in Washington after the space agency’s first African American female engineer.
Mary Jackson started her NASA career as part of a segregated unit of female mathematicians at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Welcome to the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building
Today, Administrator @JimBridenstine announced that we’re naming our headquarters building in Washington, DC after our first African-American female engineer: https://t.co/znX2jXklRh
— NASA (@NASA) June 25, 2020
The women did calculations during the early pre-computer days of the U.S. space program. Their story was recounted in a book and the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”
Jackson was later promoted to engineer and retired from NASA in 1985. She died in 2005 at age 83. Part of the street in front of NASA headquarters is named “Hidden Figures Way.”
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