Does anyone know how this fits with the many digital computers NASA used for mission planning (inc. trajectory planning)?
See e.g. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19680020624 for Gemini.
See e.g. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19680020624 for Gemini.
The movie also shows Dorothy Vaughan teaching themselves how to program those first machines. Remember that pretty much noone had any programming experience, and there are still pitfalls today for people doing science calculations on a computer.
> As a computer, she calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, John Glenn requested that she personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7 – the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth.
[1]: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/katherine-johnson-the-girl-who-...