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Barbara Crawford Johnson (1925 - 2005) was an American aeronautical engineer. [1] She was the one woman in NASA's engineering team that participated in arrival on the Moon. She conducted significant and important studies on flight dynamics, missile design, wind tunnels, performance analysis, and aerodynamics. In 1968, she was appointed the highest position ever achieved by a woman in her department: manager of the Apollo Program.
Barbara, who went by "Bobbie" most of her life, was from the small town of Sandoval, Illinois, from a family of six children.
She had a fascination of flying, and inspired by women like Amelia Earhart. She was known to pass time by watching planes take off and land and interview pilots about how to fly planes. Her curious mind most likely stemmed from her education-oriented family.
As Barbara grew through her teenage years, she discovered her love for math and science. A local engineer who was constructing Sandoval's new high school stayed with Barbara's family. This engineer taught Barbara about floor plans, engineering terminology, and surveying. Barbara's brother became an electrical engineer at Naval Academy, which further cemented her interest in engineering. Barbara's parents were in full support of her aspiration in the engineering field, and Barbara stated it was because she wasn't placed into a box due to her gender. "I didn't know that girls didn't take it," noted Barbara, referring to engineering. "My dad never said anything: he thought it was a great idea."
The finances of college was a challenge for her family. Barbara ultimately enrolled in the University of Illinois in 1943 due to scholarships and the low in-state tuition. At the time, the university did not yet offer aeronautical engineering degrees, so Barbara started with general engineering to provide her a solid technical understanding and background in all general engineering disciplines. Barbara struggled with oppression as a woman in engineering, and was often told she would never find a job because no one would want to hire a female engineer. The discrimination caused her to doubt her decisions, and she considered transferring to business, but her parents encouraged her to stick with engineering.
In her free time while in college, Barbara was active in the Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois and eventually learned to fly on her own. Her on-campus professors, Professor Spring and Professor Vawter had tremendously encouraged her on her path to becoming an engineer. Additionally, she won a bid to become an at-large student senator, acquiring more votes than the candidate running for president.
In 1946, in just three years, Barbara Crawford Johnson became the first woman to earn a Bachelor's degree in general engineering from the University of Illinois. [2] She immediately had three different job offers: to stay and teach at the University while pursuing graduate work, to move East and build bridges, or to take a job with North American Aviation in California (which later became Space Division of Rockwell International).
With her love for flying, Barbara chose the North American Aviation job, even with her feelings of inadequacy in the beginning. Barbara's worries stemmed from being placed in an aviation position when her background was general engineering.
Her first assignment with her job was in aerophysics and aerodynamics. "I have no idea why they put me where they did," said Barbara. "I didn't even really know what a Mach number was." The job was simple yet tedious, and Barbara spoke with her supervisor about placing her on a different assignment. "I am an engineer, and I want a real engineer's job," Barbara told him. Her supervisor laughed at her before walking out of the room, and Barbara thought she had been fired. However, he returned with her manager, and they assigned her to a new and challenging job: supersonic inlet design for a ramjet.
The preliminary designers Barbara got to work with taught her a lot and opened up more career opportunities for her, including flight dynamic projects for Dyna-Soar, the recovery of hypersonic gliders, lunar reentry vehicle research, and orbital rendezvous. She continued to learn as she took graduate classes at UCLA to keep up with the challenging projects. She borrowed her bosses car to drive to UCLA and take her classes.
She worked in the aerospace industry for thirty-six years, only taking time off when she and her husband had their son. [3]
Throughout her exceptional career, she received several awards within the world of engineering.
She additionally received a medallion from NASA to commemorate her contribution to the Apollo 11 mission. [7]
Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) failed two days into the mission. The crew instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as Lunar Module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella (measles).
Apollo 13 is a 1995 American space docudrama film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise.
John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the 9th person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. He is the only astronaut to fly on four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle.
Judith Arlene Resnik was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. She was the fourth woman, the second American woman and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit.
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