Black History Month - Annie Eastley

Annie Jean Eastley

1933 - 2011

 

Continuing with Black History Month this blog post celebrates the life and work of Annie Easley (1933-2011).

Annie Jean Easley helped make modern spaceflight possible. Her work at NASA (and its predecessor NACA) as a computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist laid the technological foundations that future space launches, including the Cassini satellite destined to explore Saturn, relied upon.

She was born on 23 Apr 1933 in Birmingham Alabama. This was before the US Civil Rights Act, which meant that, as a black person, her education and career opportunities were very limited, and she had to make the best of every chance she got. She was raised by a single mother who encouraged her that she could do anything she wanted as long as she worked at it. After graduating top of her year at high school, she studied pharmacy in New Orleans (she did not graduate), returning to Birmingham when she was 21 to work as a supply teacher.

In between teaching, she helped members of her community prepare for the literacy tests that were required for black voter registration as a result Jim Crow laws. These laws had the effect of making it harder for African Americans to vote, but she pushed back against this by helping many people to register and vote.

At 21 she married, later divorcing. After her husband was discharged from the military they moved to Cleveland to be closer to his family.

Then came her first break. At age 22 she joined the staff at NASA's Lewis Research Centre in Cleveland as a "computer" (somebody who computed). This was at the start of a time of intense competition with the Soviet Union in the space race - neither country would be able to put an astronaut into orbit for another six years - but the US in 1955 put little effort into the race. All this changed with the Russian launch of Sputnik in 1957, giving Annie her second break when she was appointed to the Flight Software Section at the research centre, to work on the novel Centaur booster, derivatives of which are still in use today. The Centaur's novelty was to use liquid hydrogen as the fuel, and Annie worked on the complex monitoring systems needed to keep the burning hydrogen under control.

This wasn't all she worked on, also co-authoring numerous scientific papers on nuclear engines in rockets, and solar, wind, and energy projects.

During her time at NASA Annie also studied at Cleveland State University, gaining a BSc in Mathematics in 1977; unusually she was not financially supported in this by NASA as other staff members were. As computer technology developed and replaced human computers she changed horses and learned computer programming.

Annie served as Lewis's Equal Employment Opportunity officer, investigating complaints of discrimination. She belonged to the Speakers Bureau and gave talks on the technological spin-offs of NASA's research. She travelled to colleges and universities, recruiting engineers for the lab. She often represented NASA at school and college career days.

After she retired from NASA in 1989 she became an estate agent, eventually dying in Cleveland in 2011. Her example and hard work continues to inspire countless students to make an impact in the STEM field.

In 2016 a biographical film called Hidden Figures, about black female mathematicians working at NASA, was released to critical acclaim. Although not about Annie Eastley herself, this film demonstrates the culture under which Annie worked.

#BlackHistoryMonth #HistoryOfScience #NASA

References

https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/blog/modern-worthies/annie-jean-easley

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/annie-easley-computer-scientist

https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/easley-annie-j

https://www.energy.gov/articles/five-fast-facts-about-rocket-scientist-annie-easley

https://massivesci.com/articles/annie-easley-facts-stem-mathematician-nasa-scientist-discrimination/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/annie-j-easley-1933-2011/