First I would like to say that I thought this was a tremendous movie. It is well written, acted, directed, and the story is amazingly compelling. Then I read a bit about the true story of these amazing women. There were such great liberties taken with their stories that I was a bit appalled. While it did a great job making us feel just how amazing these women were it failed to show the role NASA played correctly. I will simply paste the wiki of the reality of the mindset of NASA as well as the real story, in a super condensed way. Science is anti-stupidity and racism is stupid. I wish that NASA and science had been presented in a bit better light. Paste starts here:
The film, set at NASA in 1961, depicts segregated facilities such as the West Area Computing unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians, who were originally required to use separate dining and bathroom facilities. However, in reality, Dorothy Vaughan was promoted to supervisor of West Computing in 1949, becoming the first black supervisor at the NACA and one of the few female supervisors. In 1958, when the NACA made the transition to NASA, segregated facilities, including the West Computing office, were abolished. Dorothy Vaughan and many of the former West Computers transferred to the new Analysis and Computation Division (ACD), a racially and gender-integrated group.
Mary Jackson completed her engineering courses and earned a promotion to engineer in 1958, becoming NASA's first black female engineer. Katherine Johnson was assigned to the Flight Research Division in 1953, a move that soon became permanent. When the Space Task Group was formed in 1958, engineers from the Flight Research Division formed the core of the Group and Katherine moved along with them. She coauthored a research report in 1960, the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.
The Space Task Group was led by Robert Gilruth, not Al Harrison, who was created to simplify a more complex management structure. Vivian Mitchell and Paul Stafford are composites of several team members reflecting common social views and attitudes of the time. Karl Zielinski is based on Mary Jackson's mentor Kazimierz "Kaz" Czarnecki. John Glenn, who was much older than depicted at the time of launch, did ask specifically for Johnson to verify the IBM calculations, although she had several days before the launch date to complete the process.
The film, set at NASA in 1961, depicts segregated facilities such as the West Area Computing unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians, who were originally required to use separate dining and bathroom facilities. However, in reality, Dorothy Vaughan was promoted to supervisor of West Computing in 1949, becoming the first black supervisor at the NACA and one of the few female supervisors. In 1958, when the NACA made the transition to NASA, segregated facilities, including the West Computing office, were abolished. Dorothy Vaughan and many of the former West Computers transferred to the new Analysis and Computation Division (ACD), a racially and gender-integrated group.
Mary Jackson completed her engineering courses and earned a promotion to engineer in 1958, becoming NASA's first black female engineer. Katherine Johnson was assigned to the Flight Research Division in 1953, a move that soon became permanent. When the Space Task Group was formed in 1958, engineers from the Flight Research Division formed the core of the Group and Katherine moved along with them. She coauthored a research report in 1960, the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.
The Space Task Group was led by Robert Gilruth, not Al Harrison, who was created to simplify a more complex management structure. Vivian Mitchell and Paul Stafford are composites of several team members reflecting common social views and attitudes of the time. Karl Zielinski is based on Mary Jackson's mentor Kazimierz "Kaz" Czarnecki. John Glenn, who was much older than depicted at the time of launch, did ask specifically for Johnson to verify the IBM calculations, although she had several days before the launch date to complete the process.