By Eric Hinn for The Times West Virginian of Fairmont, W.Va.
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — NASA had a countdown Tuesday, but it wasn’t to blast off a rocket.
Rather, the countdown was for a ribbon cutting at a redesignation ceremony for the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility Tuesday in Fairmont.
The redesignation of the facility is in honor of Johnson, who was born in 1918 White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. and made many contributions to NASA.
According to NASA, “Johnson became part of the team to send mankind to the moon, and she began her work on calculating the trajectory for America’s first space trip with Alan Shepard’s 1961 mission, an early step toward a moon landing. She went on to do the calculations for the first actual moon landing in 1969.” …
