Katherine Johnson works at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in 1961, alongside her colleagues Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, lowly "computers", performing math calculations without being told what they are for. All.of them are African -American women; the unit is segregated by race and sex. White supervisor Vivian Mitchell assigns Katherine to Al Harrison's Space Task Group, given her skills in analytic geometry. She becomes the first Black woman on the team; head engineer Paul Stafford is especially dismissive
