Film review… Women in the space race

The struggle for women to achieve equality in the science and engineering professions continues even decades after they’ve made breakthroughs that have changed the course of history. Many women shatter the glass ceiling only to look back and find it in one piece again, awaiting the next woman on the way up.

One such story is depicted in Hidden Figures, a film about three female African-American mathematicians working at Nasa in the 1960s, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. Following a Russian satellite launch, the US is faced with amplified pressure to send astronauts into space. To help realise this ambition, mathematician Katherine Johnson is assigned to the Space Task Group, and becomes the first African-American to join the team. 

Meanwhile, Mary Johnson unremittingly fights the system to become the first female engineer at Nasa. Dorothy Vaughan teaches herself the programming language Fortran to enable her to operate the IBM 7090 computer, something her male colleagues fail to do.

The film is a thrilling depiction of the three women tackling sexism, racism and domestic tension, all the while helping their country to win the space race.

Director Theodore Melfi brings together historical accounts that are empowering and infuriating in equal measure, serving as a salutary lesson that we’re never too far away from repeating mistakes of the past. 

Scenes portraying rocket tests with engineers musing over their innovation are an endearing reminder of how far engineering has come since those days.