50 free Katherine Johnson trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Katherine Johnson started high school at ten, graduated college at eighteen, and joined the segregated "Colored Computers" pool at Langley in 1953. Within years the flight research engineers "forgot to return" her, and she was calculating Alan Shepard's trajectory, re-checking the electronic computer's numbers at John Glenn's personal insistence, and plotting the charts that helped bring Apollo 13 home. She lived to 101, collected the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, and watched Taraji P. Henson play her in Hidden Figures. Easy questions ask which astronaut refused to fly until she checked the maths and which film told her story. Harder ones want her West Virginia birthplace, the professor who created courses just for her, the Supreme Court case that opened her graduate school, the name on the door of her segregated office, the colleague who insisted her name go on a report, the one-star navigation system she devised, the satellite named for her and the buildings, schools and spacecraft that carry her name. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Katherine Johnson and Hidden Figures, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Made for STEM teachers, Black History Month planners and quiz hosts. Related quizzes: NASA, Space Race and Women in Science.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Katherine Johnson's NASA job title, for people who did complex calculations by hand?
Human computer
She called the women in the pool "computers who wore skirts".
Q 02Which astronaut refused to fly unless Johnson personally verified the computer's numbers for his orbit?
John Glenn
He became the first American to orbit the Earth aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.
Q 03Whose 2016 nonfiction book was the film Hidden Figures based on?
Margot Lee Shetterly
The film follows Johnson and two other African-American mathematicians who worked as computers at NASA.
Q 04Who played Johnson in Hidden Figures?
Taraji P. Henson
Johnson appeared with the actress at the 89th Academy Awards and received a standing ovation.
Q 05Which president presented Johnson with the nation's highest civilian honour in 2015?
Barack Obama
He said she "refused to be limited by society's expectations of her gender and race".
Q 06In which West Virginia town was Johnson born on August 26, 1918?
White Sulphur Springs
Her father worked as a lumberman, farmer and handyman, and at the Greenbrier Hotel; her mother was a teacher.
Q 07At what age did Johnson enrol in high school, on the West Virginia State College campus in Institute?
Ten
Greenbrier County offered no public schooling for African-American students beyond eighth grade, so the family split its time between two towns.
Q 08How old was Johnson when she graduated from college, summa cum laude, in 1937?
18
She had taken every mathematics course the college offered and earned degrees in mathematics and French.
Q 09Which mentor, the third African-American maths PhD, added new courses just for Johnson?
W. W. Schieffelin Claytor
The chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King had guided her through high school.
Q 10Which sorority was Johnson a member of?
Alpha Kappa Alpha
It was founded at Howard University in 1908 and is the oldest Black Greek-letter sorority.
Q 11Which 1938 Supreme Court ruling led to Johnson integrating West Virginia University's graduate school?
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada
She was one of three Black students, and the only woman, chosen; she left after one session to focus on her family.
Q 12What was the name of the agency that hired Johnson in 1953, before it became NASA?
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
A relative mentioned it was hiring for its West Area computing section at Langley in Hampton, Virginia.
Q 13Who supervised the West Area Computers section to which Johnson was first assigned?
Q 21Where was Johnson when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969?
At a meeting in the Pocono Mountains
She and a few others crowded round a small television to watch the first steps.
Q 22What did Johnson create to help the Apollo 13 crew determine their location after the mission was aborted?
A one-star observation system
"Everybody was concerned about them getting there," she said. "We were concerned about them getting back."
Q 23Which planet was the subject of human-mission plans Johnson worked on late in her career?
Mars
Dorothy Vaughan
She was later portrayed by Octavia Spencer, who earned an Oscar nomination for the role.
Q 14What label was on the office door of Johnson and the other African-American women in the computing pool?
"Colored Computers"
Virginia law and federal workplace segregation required them to eat and use restrooms separately from white colleagues.
Q 15Why, according to Johnson, was she never sent back to the computing section after a temporary assignment?
The male engineers "forgot to return" her
Her knowledge of analytic geometry quickly won over the all-male flight research team.
Q 16What did Johnson say she wanted to attend, where "no women had gone before"?
Editorial meetings
She simply told people she had done the work and that she belonged.
Q 17What did Johnson like doing at lunch at Langley, showing why she "didn't feel the segregation"?
Play bridge
"I knew it was there, but I didn't feel it," she told WHRO-TV.
Q 18Which colleague insisted 'Katherine should finish the report', getting her name on one for the first time?
Ted Skopinski
It was the first time a woman in her division had her name on a report; the supervisor Pearson "was not a fan of women".
Q 19Whose May 5, 1961 flight, the first by an American in space, did Johnson calculate the trajectory for?
Alan Shepard
She also calculated the launch window and plotted backup navigation charts in case of electronic failure.
Q 20What was the name of Shepard's Mercury capsule?
Freedom 7
Glenn's capsule the following year was Friendship 7.
She also worked on the Space Shuttle programme and the Earth Resources Satellite.
Q 24In which year did Johnson retire from NASA?
1986
She had worked for the agency and its predecessor for 33 years.
Q 25How did Johnson's first husband, James Goble, die in 1956?
Of an inoperable brain tumour
She married Army officer Jim Johnson in 1959; they were together 60 years until his death at 93.
Q 26For how many years was Johnson a choir member at Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church?
50
She lived in Hampton, Virginia, and had six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Q 27How old was Johnson when she died on February 24, 2020?
101
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine called her "an American hero".
Q 28How many scientific papers did Johnson co-author?
26
NASA noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
Q 29What NASA award, often called "the astronaut's award", did Johnson receive from Leland Melvin in 2016?
The Silver Snoopy
It goes to those who make outstanding contributions to flight safety and mission success.
Q 30Which building, opened at Langley in 2017 on the 55th anniversary of Shepard's flight, bears her name?
The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility
NASA also renamed its Independent Verification and Validation Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia, after her in 2019.