NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� The of the space race were recognized with Congress鈥� highest honor at a medal ceremony on Wednesday.
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to the families of , Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden at the U.S. Capitol. Darden watched the ceremony from her 小蓝视频icut home.
A medal was also given to all the women who worked as mathematicians, engineers and 鈥渉uman computers鈥� in the U.S. space program from the 1930s to 1970s.
"By honoring them, we honor the very best of our country鈥檚 spirit,鈥� said author Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book 鈥淗idden Figures鈥� was adapted into a film in 2016.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 鈥� a precursor to NASA 鈥� hired hundreds of women to crunch numbers for space missions. The Black women hired worked in a segregated unit of female mathematicians at what is now NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Johnson's hand-written calculations helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 鈥� the nation鈥檚 highest civilian honor.
Vaughan rose to become NASA's first Black supervisor and Jackson was NASA鈥檚 first Black female engineer. Darden is best known for her sonic boom research.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Adithi Ramakrishnan, The Associated Press
