Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

eighteen-station Mercury tracking
network.
The astronauts, by background and by
nature, resisted the computers and their
ghostly intellects. In a test flight, a pilot
staked his reputation and his life on his
ability to exercise total, direct, and
constant control over the plane. A tiny
error in judgment or a speck of delay in
deciding on a course of action might
mean the difference between safety and
calamity. In a plane, at least, it was the
pilot’s call; the “fly-by-wire” setup of
the Mercury missions, where the craft
and its controls were tethered via radio
communication to the whirring electronic
computers on the ground, pushed the
hands-on astronauts out of their comfort
zone. Every engineer and mathematician
had a story of double-checking the