Frances Northcutt

Frances Northcutt
Frances Northcutt
	Northcutt in 2019
Born	August 10, 1943 (age 80); Many, Louisiana U.S.
Other names	Poppy
Alma mater	University of Texas ; University of Houston Law Center
Occupation(s)	Engineer, lawyer, stockbroker

Last updated May 07, 2024

Frances "Poppy" Northcutt (born August 10, 1943) is an American engineer and attorney who began her career as a "computer", and was later a member of the technical staff of NASA's Apollo program during the Space Race. During the Apollo 8 mission, she became the first female engineer to work in NASA's Mission Control.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Later in her career, Northcutt became an attorney specializing in women's rights. In the early 1970s, she served on the national board of directors of the National Organization for Women.^[4] Now,^{[ when? ]} she works and volunteers for several organizations in Houston ^[5] advocating for abortion rights.

Early life

Northcutt was born in Many, Louisiana, on August 10, 1943. She grew up in Luling, Texas, and then moved to Dayton, Texas. Northcutt attended high school at Dayton High School in Liberty County and then went on to study mathematics at the University of Texas.^[6]

Career

Apollo Program

After graduating in three and a half years, Northcutt was hired in 1965 by TRW, an aerospace contractor with NASA in Houston, as a computress for the new Apollo program. After six months, she had her first performance evaluation, and the head of Houston operations wanted to promote her to technical staff, the term they used for staff doing engineering work.^[7] Northcutt was the first woman to work as technical staff.^[8] The pay difference between the computress role and the technical staff role was so large that the company did not have mechanisms in place to approve Northcutt's promotion. The operations manager had to schedule pay raises as frequently as possible so that Northcutt's salary was equitable compared to her male colleagues.^[8] This experience with the gender pay gap inspired Northcutt's later activism for women's rights.^[7]^[8]

Northcutt was stationed in the Mission Control's Mission Planning and Analysis room. Northcutt and her team designed the return-to-Earth trajectory that the Apollo 8 crew took from the Moon back to Earth.^[3] She was able to identify mistakes in the plan, including making calculations that lowered the amount of fuel used to swing around the Moon.^[1] Apollo 8 was the second crewed Apollo spacecraft and became the first crewed mission to ever leave Earth orbit. It successfully reached the Moon, orbited it and then returned to Earth safely on December 27, 1968.^[2]^[9]^[4]^[10]

Northcutt continued working with TRW and NASA for several more years, working NASA missions such as Apollo 13. After learning about the exploded oxygen tank on the Apollo 13 mission, Northcutt and the other engineers who developed the computer program for Apollo 13 all came in to find a way to get the astronauts home safely.^[1] The program that she worked on was used to compute the maneuvers used to return the spacecraft. Northcutt and the Mission Operations Team were later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Team Award for their work on Apollo 13. In 2019 she gave an interview about her Apollo work.^[11]

Lay-audience books and articles have claimed that a lunar crater near where the Apollo 17 Lunar Module landed was named for her.^[2]^[9]^[10] However, Gene Cernan, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission, stated in an interview for the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal that in advance of the mission, he had named a crater after the nickname that his daughter used for one of her grandfathers. That nickname was "Poppie". NASA documents misspelled it as "Poppy". Apollo crews and the NASA Astronaut Office assigned unofficial names to lunar features for convenience in referring to them. Other names given by Cernan to craters near the landing site were "Punk", his nickname for his daughter, and "Frosty" and "Rudolph", the names of characters in children's Christmastime stories.^[12]^[13] The International Astronomical Union's / U.S. Geological Survey's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature has no entries for lunar craters named either "Poppie" or "Poppy".^[14]

On December 19, 2023, the IAU: WG Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) announce that the Main-belt Asteroid (355657)2008 EA89 was named "Poppy" in her honor. ^[15]^[16]^[17]

Women's rights movement

While at TRW, Northcutt served on the company's affirmative action committee and advocated to improve its pregnancy leave policies.^[18] As one of few women working in engineering, Northcutt became increasingly involved in the women's liberation movement. She helped organize demonstrations, strikes, speeches, press releases and whatever else she could to help the cause with the National Organization for Women.^[10] She spoke at Houston City Council many times, and in 1974 the mayor of Houston named her the first Women's Advocate for the city. In this position she helped pass legislation improving the status of women. She negotiated an agreement with the Houston Police Department enabling women to become police officers. She got the Houston Fire Department to agree to let women serve as firefighters. She led an equal-pay study of the entire Houston municipal payroll. She was so dedicated to improving equality that she counted women's versus men's bathrooms^{[ clarify ]} throughout all of Houston, helping to bring even this number into parity.

Northcutt helped drastically increase the number of women that were on appointed boards and commissions.^[9] She helped pass a law that prohibited hospitals from charging women who came in for rape kits. Later on, Northcutt would become President of both the city of Houston chapter and the state of Texas chapter for the National Organization for Women.^[2]^[9]

During this time, Northcutt was still employed by TRW, receiving a partial salary as she was on loan.^[6]^{[ clarification needed ]} When her loan expired, she went back to TRW for a while. However, she believed that "If you were doing your job, you should do yourself out of a job" and thus went to Merrill Lynch, a stockbroker firm, for a year.^[6]^{[ when? ]}^{[ citation needed ]} Northcutt then switched into the TRW Controls division and during this time attended law school at night.^[6]^{[ citation needed ]}

Legal career

In 1984, Northcutt graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center, becoming a criminal defense lawyer. Northcutt continued to practice law with special emphasis and dedication to her fight for civil rights.^[6]^[9] Northcutt worked for Jane's Due Process, an organization that ensures protections for pregnant legal minors. She also worked for the Harris County District Attorney's office and was the first prosecutor in the Domestic Violence Unit.^[19]

In popular culture

In the Apple TV+ show For All Mankind, the character Margo Madison is believed by some to be loosely based on Northcutt, although the show creator claimed to have based the character on a NASA photograph of Margaret Hamilton.^[20]

Related Research Articles

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.

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) ruptured two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the lunar module (LM), 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.

Apollo 10 was the fourth human spaceflight in the United States' Apollo program and the second to orbit the Moon. NASA, the mission's operator, described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing. It was designated an "F" mission, intended to test all spacecraft components and procedures short of actual descent and landing.

Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.

Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, administered by NASA, and the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon. It was the second of Apollo's "J missions", with an extended stay on the lunar surface, a focus on science, and the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The landing and exploration were in the Descartes Highlands, a site chosen because some scientists expected it to be an area formed by volcanic action, though this proved not to be the case.

Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans orbited above. Schmitt was the only professional geologist to land on the Moon; he was selected in place of Joe Engle, as NASA had been under pressure to send a scientist to the Moon. The mission's heavy emphasis on science meant the inclusion of a number of new experiments, including a biological experiment containing five mice that was carried in the command module.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo Lunar Module</span> NASA crewed Moon landing spacecraft (1969–1972)

The Apollo Lunar Module, originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.

Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he remains the most recent person to walk on the Moon.

John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth 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.

Charles Moss Duke Jr. is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days.

James Arthur Lovell Jr. is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of the first three astronauts to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970 which, after a critical failure en route, looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth.

Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. was an American electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, officer and aviator in the United States Navy, and NASA astronaut. As Command Module Pilot on Apollo 17 he was one of the 24 astronauts to fly to the Moon, and one of 12 people to fly to the Moon without landing.

Tranquility Base is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module Eagle at approximately 20:17:40 UTC. Armstrong exited the spacecraft six hours and 39 minutes after touchdown, followed 19 minutes later by Aldrin. The astronauts spent two hours and 31 minutes examining and photographing the lunar surface, setting up several scientific experiment packages, and collecting 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of dirt and rock samples for return to Earth. They lifted off the surface on July 21 at 17:54 UTC.

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.

NASA Astronaut Group 3—'The Fourteen'—was a group of fourteen astronauts selected by NASA for the Gemini and Apollo program. Their selection was announced in October 1963. Seven were from the United States Air Force, four from the United States Navy, one was from the United States Marine Corps and two were civilians. Four died in training accidents before they could fly in space. All of the surviving ten flew Apollo missions; five also flew Gemini missions. Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Gene Cernan and David Scott walked on the Moon.

<i>Earthrise</i> Photograph of Earth taken by astronaut Bill Anders during the Apollo 8 mission

Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell described it as "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken".

The Lunar Flag Assembly (LFA) was a kit containing a flag of the United States designed to be erected on the Moon during the Apollo program. Six such flag assemblies were planted on the Moon. The nylon flags were hung on telescoping staffs and horizontal bars constructed of one-inch anodized aluminum tubes. The flags were carried on the outside of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), most of them on the descent ladder inside a thermally insulated tubular case to protect them from exhaust gas temperatures calculated to reach 2,000 °F (1,090 °C). The assembly was designed and supervised by Jack Kinzler, head of technical services at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas. Six of the flags were ordered from a government supply catalog and measured 3 by 5 feet ; the last one planted on the Moon was the slightly larger, 6-foot (1.8 m)-wide flag which had hung in the MSC Mission Operations Control Room for most of the Apollo program.

Jack Clemons is an aerospace engineer and air and space industry professional. He was a lead engineer on NASA's Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs, and later an aerospace company executive. He appeared as himself in the "Command Module" episode of the 2008 Discovery Science Channel six-part documentary Moon Machines. He also appeared as himself in the 2019 National Geographic Channel documentary Apollo: Back To The Moon. Following retirement from the aerospace industry, Clemons was a consultant and a professional writer as well as a speaker and presenter on NASA's space programs.

The Lunar basalt 70017 is a Moon rock gathered in 1972 by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on the Apollo 17 mission near their Apollo Lunar Module and then divided into smaller pieces on Earth.

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey were five mice who traveled to the Moon and circled it 75 times on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. NASA gave them identification numbers A3305, A3326, A3352, A3356, and A3400, and their nicknames were given by the Apollo 17 crew. The four male mice, one female mouse, and Evans orbited the Moon for a record-setting six days and four hours in the Apollo command module America as Cernan and Schmitt performed the Apollo program's last lunar excursions.

References

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↑ "Poppy Northcutt Continues To Make History". National Organization for Women. July 17, 2019. Retrieved February 21, 2021.
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↑ "The Valley of Taurus-Littrow". www.hq.nasa.gov. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
↑ "Apollo 17 Lunar Module Onboard Voice Transcription MSC-07630" (PDF). www.hq.nasa.gov. pp. 1–73. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
↑ "Planetary Names: The Moon". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
↑ WGSBN Bulletin 3, #17 page 3
↑ NASA JPL Small-Body Database Lookup 355657 (2008 EA89)
↑ MPC Database (355657) = 2008 EA89 = 2011 UE24
↑ Karlin, Susan (July 5, 2019). "How Poppy Northcutt cracked NASA's boy's club and became a feminist icon". Fast Company. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
↑ Diavolo, Lucy (July 10, 2019). "Career Advice From Poppy Northcutt — Activist, Lawyer, and NASA's First Female Engineer in Mission Control". Teen Vogue. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
↑ Paul K. Guinnessy, "Review: For All Mankind rewrites history with a prolonged space race", Physics Today DOI:10.1063/PT.6.3.20191120a Nov 20, 2019, Retrieved November 12, 2022.