Thanks partly to research done at Langley, the problem of high-speed atmospheric flight has essentially been solved. Katherine and her colleagues have been wondering what comes next. Sputnik provides the answer: Langley will shift its focus to space flight. The government, eager to put the Sputnik embarrassment behind it, is determined to show the world that America’s space program can beat Russia’s. NACA, a small, engineer-run organization that stayed out of the public eye, is reorganized into NASA, a bureaucracy with a mandate to grow and to make news with its successes. Langley Aeronautical Laboratory is renamed Langley Research Center.

Katherine welcomes the challenges that lie ahead. For Dorothy, the changes are more bittersweet. Like Mary and Katherine, many other West Area women have ended up in specialized sections. Dorothy’s team has shrunk to nine women and no longer plays the central role it once did. There is also the awkwardness of an all-Black work unit, at a time when racial segregation is a growing international embarrassment for the United States. In 1958, West Computing is shut down, like East Computing before it. Dorothy will stay on at Langley, but from now on, she is just “one of the girls,” no longer a supervisor.