'Hidden Figures' Reveals Work Of African-American Women At NASA In 1960s

The story of the hidden figures behind America's first space orbit. You were listening to KPBS Midday Edition . This is KPBS Midday Edition . I am truly. The film "Hidden Figures" opens this Friday. And tells the story of three African-American women and the calculations they made to help make America's first space orbit possible. She speaks with the film director. Tell me how "Hidden Figures" started. What a tragedy the Project? Back it started with a book proposal. Beverly grew up knowing that there were African-American women and she became curious. She discovered there were two teams of women that worked at NASA. They were the computing group. They were call computers. This is before IBM's mainframes came. They consisted up 30 white women. The West computing group which consisted of 22 black women. No one knows who they were. What they did do, a calculated the trajectories, the math and the orbits for the astronauts to get into space. They were the backbone in the mathematical program. And no one knows anything about them. They were women that worked at NASA in 1960 that did math. They were black women. One of the black women, Kevin Johnson, was the only one that they trusted to run the numbers. Wi-Fi, I fly a machine. It seems like the machine is why made. The guys are on it. Let's get the girl to check the numbers. The girl, guesser. Evening Catherine? Back yesterday. The smart one. She says they are good I am ready to go. John Glenn did not go up on his first orbital flight until get to bring his number. That is an amazing story. And being a father of two girls, I couldn't resist notice women when the country is divided and sexism and racism, it felt like I had to stop everything I was doing to take on. Are these women alive and it were you able to talk them? Back nearly 1 alive is Catherine Johnson and she is 98 years old. I interviewed her twice. I spent extensive time with her and her family. I dug in and questioned her and asked her everything I wanted to ask her. She is as sharp as a tack. She is a laureate Saul. She would say, I don't understand what the big deal was. I just did my job. I just did the math. That is how she sees her life. She does not see anything though she says I am not extraordinary. I said well you might be ordinary to yourself but you are not ordinary to others. Mary Jackson is not like. Being able to interview someone who was there, how that influence the way you made the film? Did you get anything from her they give you insight in how you might want to create this? She gave me the insight they needed in how Catherine Johnson, how look to her at NASA. I would ask Catherine, what was it like an workplace with racism? How did you handle that? She said what? A spent -- I said it was segregated. You were working in a segregated environment. She said I didn't see any that. I just put my head down and did my work. We didn't think about that. This is top secret. They cannot handle the weight of the capsule and push it in space. The numbers do not lie. We figure that out with this? After that, is redacted. It tells the story if you read between the lines. Distance from watch to order, we know there is no mass. We know. The speeds are there. Who did the math? I did. I said, that is how we shall betray her character, someone who does not see the she is anything different or less than anyone else and does her work better than everyone else and goes straight to the top because she is colorblind. That way being is specific to Catherine jocks and. That is what we did with her character. With Mary Jackson who is a fighter, who fought to get into the engineering training program and became the first woman the female at NASA ever, she fought all the way. Was up right? That the point is, no [ NULL ] woman in Virginia has attended a nonwhite high school. That is until her. It's unheard of. Before Shepard said, no other American had touched space. Now, he will be remembered as a Navy man from New Hampshire, the first to touch the stars. Icer, I plan on being an engineer but I cannot do that without taken the classes of the all-white high school. I cannot change the color of my skin. So, have no choice but to be the first. Which I cannot do without you, Sir. That is what we do. Okay. Dorothy Vonn's character, she was the matriarch. She put everyone else ahead of her. She put everyone else had. That is what you see in a movie. Me? Temporally as. We need the IBM for Glenn's lunch. The engineer says it is good for the cost of such. What about the girls here? Back human calculators cannot calculated the time we have. We can do the math. What about after the math? Back after Glenn's launched, NASA is dissolving. I am not accepting reassignment. Excuse me? We need a lot of manpower to program the peace. I cannot do it alone. They can do the work. What you hope audience will take away from this film? I had big dreams about what audience takeaway. I will say my most wildest dream is that you look at the movie and say, I one point in time we did a right. With the race and sex and religion and everything aside and worked as a team together, black-and-white, male and female, it achieved the greatest mission you can achieve in 1961. We talked the stars. I hope that is what people get out of it. We cannot be divided anymore. What we are doing is nonsense and sexism is nonsense. The sooner we grew up, the sooner we can advance the country. That was Beth speaking with Melfi. "Hidden Figures" opens on Friday. You can see the review on Fridays morning edition.