"Hidden Figures"...Good movie for us....

[rwsmith]

'Hidden Figures' is a good movie for those of us who like to look behind the scenes in the early 'space race'.

The movies follows three African American women who were recruited by NASA for their analytical skills...and more. Besides calculating take off, orbital and re-entry trajectories. NASA got an IBM mainframe that no one knew how to operate but one of the women learned Fortran and started cranking out equations. Some of the movie really makes you cringe at the unfairness with which they were treated, but eventually they earned respect and went on to illustrious careers. 'Katherine' is now 98 years old. A center for computing was named after her. It shows what can be done if you've got 'The Right Stuff'.

I had this movie recommended to me twice over the course of a few days, so I paid seven bucks and watched it on Amazon.

 

[hoosierone]

Just watched this movie last night. Really enjoyed it. I was stationed in Alabama in 1961 and saw Jim Crow first hand. Just shameful.
Anyway, the movie is great, even for a guy who has his struggles with math.

 

[427mach1]

Great movie. I got to work on this movie - all the wind tunnel scenes were filmed at the facility where I work. They came and overwhelmed us with people and trailers for 5 days - 2 for scene setup, two filming, and 1 teardown. While it was interesting and fun and they fed us very well, I'll keep my day job.

Georgia has a considerable film industry; other scenes were filmed in Canton, GA, Clay National Guard Center at Dobbins AFB (the hangar scenes where John Glenn and the other astronauts meet everyone), Morehouse College (the round room where Costner's office is located, all the scenes of her running to the restroom), and a couple other small towns.

 

[Tom K]

Good concept, I just wish it had been a better movie. The faked drama on Glenn's flight for instance, was eye-rolling.

 

[shouldazagged]

It's a hell of a story, and I've been wanting to see the movie.

The appreciation of these women by a lot more people is long overdue.

 

[rwsmith]

I'm not sure.....

Good concept, I just wish it had been a better movie. The faked drama on Glenn's flight for instance, was eye-rolling.

I'm not sure what you mean that was 'overdramatized'. I DON'T think that anybody outside the control room knew about the implications of the heat shield until the flight was over, but nothing else stood out to me. I remember it as a very exciting time, nearly the same as when we landed on the moon. Glenn's image and attitude was infectious and all of them were giants. I even had coins with the Mercury 7 astronauts that I got from bags of Gordon's Potato Chips.