ST State Trooper
[Dorothy Vaughan's 1957 Chevrolet has stalled out on the side of the road; a Virginia State Police cruiser drives up and stops, and a State Trooper gets out and looks at Mary, Dorothy and Katherine.]
Not a great place for the three of y'all to be havin' car trouble.
We didn't pick the place, Officer, it picked us.
ST State Trooper
[Glaring at Mary]
You bein' disrespectful?
ST State Trooper
You have identification on ya?
Katherine We sure do. We're just on our way to work. At Langley. NASA, sir.
[Mary, Katherine and Dorothy all display their NASA ID cards.]
We do a great deal of the calculating getting our rockets into space.
ST State Trooper
All three of ya?
ST State Trooper
[The State Trooper studies Mary's ID card for a few moments.]
NASA. That's somethin'. Had no idea they hired...
[Politely; the Trooper meant something else]
There are quite a few women working in the Space Program, sir.
ST State Trooper
[The State Trooper looks up at the sky suspiciously.]
Damn Russians are watching us right now. Sputniks. [Turning his attention back] You girls ever meet those astronauts? The Mercury Seven?
[There is a moment's pause; the three women have never met the Mercury Seven but decide not to admit that.]
Absolutely.
ST State Trooper
Alan Shepard? John Glenn?
Katherine Johnson We work with those gentlemen all the time.
ST State Trooper
Those boys are the best we got. That's for sure. We have'ta get up there before the Commies do. Whole damn country's countin' on 'em.
Hard to be of service broken down on the side of the road, though.
ST State Trooper
That's right. That's right. You need a tow or somethin'?
No, thank you, Officer. I think I got it, right here. Just have to bypass the starter. [Dorothy touches the screwdriver to between the battery poles; the car starts.] That's a girl. We're all set.
ST State Trooper
Hell, least I can do is give you an escort. Imagine y'all are runnin' late to work.
Katherine Johnson Oh, we wouldn't want to trouble you-
That would be wonderful, Officer.
ST State Trooper
Follow me.
[Cut to the State Trooper's cruiser flying down the road, lights and siren on, with Mary following close behind.]
Slow down, Mary! You're too close!
Doesn't mean you hit him in the ass!
Katherine Johnson Dear Lord... please... I don't even know where to begin!
I'll tell you where to begin: three "colored" women are chasing a white police officer down a highway in Hampton, Virginia, 1961. Ladies, that there is a God-ordained miracle!
LC Lieutenant Colonel Jim Johnson
They let women handle that sort of... [sees Katherine looking offended] That's not what I mean.
Katherine Johnson What do you mean?
LJ LTC Jim Johnson
I'm just surprised at something so taxing.
Katherine Johnson Oh Mr. Johnson, if I were you, I'd quit talking right now.
LJ LTC Jim Johnson
I don't mean no disrespect.
Katherine Johnson I will have you know, I was the first negro female student at West Virginia University Graduate School. On any given day, I analyze the manometer levels for air displacement, friction and velocity, and compute over ten thousand calculations by cosine, square root and, lately, analytic geometry. By hand. There are twenty bright, highly capable negro women in the West Computing Group, and we're proud to be doing our part for the country. So yes, they let women do some things at NASA, Mr. Johnson. And it's not because we wear skirts. It's because we wear glasses. Have a good day.
[Al Harrison comes out of his office to just as Katherine Johnson gets back from yet another long trip to the colored staff bathroom.]
Where the hell have you been? Everywhere I look you're not where I need you to be, and it's not my imagination. Now, where the hell do you go everyday?
Katherine Johnson The bathroom, sir.
[With rising anger]
The bathroom. The damn bathroom. For forty minutes a day? What do you do in there? We are T-minus zero here; I put a lot of faith in you.
Katherine Johnson There's no bathroom for me here.
What do you mean, "there's no bathroom" for you here?
Katherine Johnson There is no bathroom. There are no colored bathrooms in this building, or any building outside the West Campus, which is half a mile away. Did you know that? I have to walk to Timbuktu just to relieve myself! And I can't use one of the handy bikes. Picture that, Mr. Harrison. My uniform, skirt below the knees and my heels. And simple string of pearls. Well, I don't own pearls. Lord knows you don't pay the colored enough to afford pearls! And I work like a dog day and night, living on coffee from a pot NONE OF YOU WANNA TOUCH! So, excuse me if I have to go to the restroom a few times a day.
[Cut to the NASA team standing out in the hallway; Mr. Harrison knocks the "Colored Ladies Room" sign with a crowbar while the staff watch until the sign is finally down]
There you have it. No more colored restrooms. No more white restrooms. Just plain old toilets. [he throws the crowbar on the floor] Go wherever you damn want, please. Preferably closer to your desk. Here at NASA... We all pee the same color.
How did you know the Redstone couldn't support orbital flight? That's classified information; it's top secret.
Katherine Johnson Well, it's no secret why the Redstone tests keep failing. It's fine for sub-orbital flight, but it can't handle the weight of the capsule and push it into space. Numbers don't lie.
[reading the censored test results documents]
And you figured all that out with this? Half of that is redacted.
Katherine Johnson Well, what's there tells a story if you read between the lines. The distance from launch to orbit, we know. Redstone mass, we know. Mercury capsule weight, we know. And the speeds are there, and the data.
Katherine Johnson Yes, sir. I look beyond.
And how did you know about the Atlas rocket? That's not math. That data's not here. Like he said, it's classified.
Katherine Johnson ...I held it up to the light.
You held it up to the light?
Katherine Johnson Yes, sir.
[Harrison takes one of the censored documents and holds it up to the floresent light to read]
...Well, there it is. "Atlas". What's your name?
Katherine Johnson Katherine Gobal.
Are you a spy, Katherine?
Katherine Johnson Am I what?
I said, are you a Russian spy?
Katherine Johnson No, sir. I'm not Russian.
Ruth She's not Russian, sir.
Alright, then, we have nothing to lose, here. [to Stafford] Give her everything she needs to work on Shepherd's trajectories, without redaction. Are we clear on that?
What's the issue, Paul? You heard her, she's not a spy.
I–I just don't think it's a good idea.
You know what I think is a good idea? Darker ink. I think darker ink is a good idea. Ruth, could you pass that along?
Ruth Yes, sir.
Katherine Johnson Thank you, sir. [leaves with Ruth]
[after Ruth and Katherine leave, looks to Paul]
This interrogation's over.
Katherine Johnson The problem is when the capsule moves from an elliptical orbit to a parabolic orbit; There's no mathematical formula for that. 'Cause we can calculate launch and landing, but without this conversion, the capsule stays in orbit. We can't bring it back home.
...Maybe we've been thinking about this all wrong.
Maybe it's not new math at all.
Katherine Johnson It could be old math: something that looks at the problem numerically and not theoretically. Math is always dependable.
Katherine Johnson [takes a long look at the formulas, then gets an idea]
Euler's Method.
Katherine Johnson Yes.
Katherine Johnson But it works. It works numerically.
