This week, we discuss how the history of NASA was shaped by racial inequality. The stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, the three women highlighted in this film by Theodore Melfi, remind us that science has never been a neutral subject. Listen to hear about the civil rights protests against the Cold War space race, NASA's collaboration with Nazi scientists, and what this means for technological progress today. We recorded this episode in October, which is Black History Month in the UK: an annual reminder to seek out historical figures that still remain hidden from conventional narratives about the past.

References:

• My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement edited by Brian C. Odom & Stephen P. Waring
• 'The Story of NASA’s Real “Hidden Figures”' by Elizabeth Howell
• 'Hidden Figures Light Up Screen: Black Women Who Helped America Win the Space Race' by Jenna Carpenter
• 'Moving Beyond the “Movement that Changed the World”: Bringing the History of the Cold War into Civil Rights Movement' by Renee Romano
• 'Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative' by Mary L. Dudziak
• Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen
• 'How Historians Are Reckoning With the Former Nazi Who Launched America’s Space Program' by Alejandro de la Garza
• 'Meet the former Nazi rocket scientist who all too accurately saw the future' by John Naughton
• Civil Rights Activists Protest Apollo 11 (2019) (found in American Archive of Public Broadcasting)
• 'From Hidden to Modern Figures' (NASA website)