All eyes have been on Artemis 2 this week and its many firsts. These include the first woman to fly to the moon (Christina Koch) and the first female launch director of a crewed launch (Charlie Blackwell-Thompson). That’s why this week—in addition to being the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 13 launch—is a fitting time to celebrate the accomplishments of another female NASA pioneer, Frances “Poppy” Northcutt, the first woman engineer to work in Mission Control.
A lasting legacy beyond Apollo
In 1965, Northcutt was a 22-year-old graduate of the University of Texas when she began working for NASA contractor TRW in the Houston area. (TRW was later acquired by Northrup Grumman.) Northcutt’s title was “computress,” which, as she has shared in many interviews, was baffling to her. She told Time Magazine that “not only do they think I’m a computer, but they think I’m a gendered computer.” Her mathematical acumen drew attention, however, and by age 25, she had become a “return-to-Earth specialist” and calculated the Apollo 8 mission’s trajectory, as well as helped safely return the Apollo 13 crew back to Earth.
Northcutt became the first woman in the Mission Control room, and her photograph drew nationwide attention and fan mail. She also later learned that her male colleagues secretly had a camera trained on her.
The experience of being the first female in Mission Control helped to foster her interest in women’s rights, as documented by Life Magazine. After the Apollo missions, Northcutt went to law school and began a second career as an attorney and women’s rights’ advocate. Northcutt has held many leadership positions with the National Organization of Women.
Watch Northcutt reflect on the Apollo 13 mission in this video from the Los Angeles Times.
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Photo: Frame Stock Footage / Shutterstock
