12. Mai 2022: Hidden Figures (OV: EN, Garching, FACETS: women in maths day)

America in the middle of the last century: The black people are struggling against racial segregation. Katherine, Dorothy and Mary experience this everyday in their work for NASA. As “human computers” it is their duty to calculate the data for launch, orbiting and safe return of astronaut John Glenn, but the circumstances make life difficult for them.

Katherine is assigned to a new team, so she has to walk several minutes to the coloured people’s bathroom in another building. Dorothy is denied promotion to supervisor, although she is already doing the work due to the official supervisor being ill frequently. Meanwhile, Mary goes to court to obtain permission to attend night classes in an all-white school and get her engineering degree.

One day an IBM-Computer is installed, that could replace the three ladies, but Dorothy recognizes the signs of the times and decides to work her way into operating the machine. However, the girls can prove that no machine is an appropriate replacement for them.