John Glenn

Glenn distrusts the new IBM electronic computers and insists on a human mathematician he knows and respects to verify the orbital trajectory calculations before boarding Friendship 7. A miscalculation in orbital mechanics is not a paperwork mistake—it is a death sentence. By demanding Katherine's sign-off, he prioritizes proven human intellect over technological novelty at a critical moment in his career.

Glenn instructs the technicians to "get the girl"—referring to Katherine Johnson—to hand-check the IBM computer's trajectory calculations, stating that if she approves the numbers, he is ready to fly. Shetterly records a no longer attributed quotation from Glenn, and this directive, documented as historical fact rather than narrative invention, becomes the most symbolically loaded moment of Glenn's portrayal in the book.

Glenn's pre-launch demand effectively forces NASA's institutional hierarchy to recognize Katherine as indispensable. By specifically naming her and refusing to proceed without her verification, he bypasses the bureaucracy that had long rendered her invisible, elevating her status at a pivotal moment in the Space Race narrative. Shetterly frames this as central irony: it took a white male astronaut at the top of the cultural hierarchy to make the institution acknowledge what Katherine had always been.

Glenn is depicted as a moral touchstone—neither a crusader nor a villain, but a man of genuine humility and practical integrity. He contrasts sharply with the bureaucratic machinery that marginalized the Black women computers, not by ideologically challenging the system, but by trusting competence regardless of race or gender. Shetterly notes that his individual gesture of recognition does not dismantle NASA's discriminatory structures.

Glenn pilots Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. In Shetterly's account, his significance extends beyond the flight itself: his insistence that Katherine Johnson personally verify the IBM computer's calculations before launch anchors the book's central argument that the Black women computers—not the machines—were the true intellectual engine of the Space Race.

Glenn's distrust of the new electronic machines positions human mathematical reasoning as more reliable than technological novelty. Shetterly uses this to argue for the irreplaceable value of the women computers during rapid technological change. His skepticism gives Katherine Johnson's skills a visible, high-stakes platform and reinforces the claim that the women working in NASA's computing pools were the indispensable foundation beneath America's most celebrated Cold War achievements.

Glenn shares no direct scenes with Dorothy Vaughan or Mary Jackson in the book. Nevertheless, Shetterly situates his Friendship 7 mission as the culmination of their collective labor: Dorothy's supervision of the West Computing pool and Mary's engineering analyses at Langley are part of the vast, largely uncredited infrastructure that made orbital spaceflight possible, making Glenn's public triumph inseparable from their unacknowledged contributions.

Glenn's request exposes a stark institutional irony: a Black woman could be simultaneously essential to a mission and invisible to the system executing it—until a white male astronaut chose to name her. Shetterly uses this moment to illustrate that the power to confer legitimacy rested with those at the top of Cold War America's racial and gender hierarchies, and that personal respect, however genuine, does not equate to systemic equality.