Without Katherine Johnson ... Which is why Johnson, dubbed the ‘human computer’ after she helped to plan the successful space mission, has had a NASA centre dedicated to her.

You see that light, moving across the sky? It doesn’t look like much now, does it? But actually, up there, that’s a spacecraft. And the man inside it – well, he’s a gentleman I work with.

Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson is seen after President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 24, 2015, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White ...