Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

declared, was nothing less than a
technological Pearl Harbor.
For the third time in the century, the
United States found itself trailing
technologically during a period of rising
international tension. On the cusp of
World War I, the country’s inadequate
supply of aircraft had given birth to the
NACA. The mediocre American aircraft
industry of the 1930s rose to
preeminence because of the challenge of
World War II. What would it take for the
country to prevail against this latest
threat? Sputnik was proof, American
policymakers assumed, that the Soviet
Union had intercontinental ballistic
missiles—many of them, hundreds
perhaps, with the power to hurl an
atomic weapon at US cities. A new term
began to make the rounds in policy