Capito introduces bill to name Fairmont NASA building after 'Human Computer' Katherine Johnson

Fairmont, W. Va. -  Katherine Johnson, the woman who hand-calculated numbers for America’s first trip to space, turned 100 on August 26th. 

Before the arrival of computers in the 1960s, humans — mainly women — comprised the workforce at NASA known as the “Computer Pool.”  Last week Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. introduced a bill to rename the NASA Facility in Fairmont after Katherine Johnson. 

"She's an amazing woman and I thought the best way to honor her service to NASA and her pride of West Virginia would be to rename the NASA Facility in Fairmont the Katherine Johnson NASA Facility and so she could continue to inspire generations of West Virginia," said Senator Capito. 

Johnson was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.