Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA and one of the subjects of the biographical film "Hidden Figures," will have the agency's headquarters building in Washington, D.C., named in her honor.
"Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space," Bridenstine said.
Bridenstine also said the now Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in southwest appropriately sits on 'Hidden Figures Way.'
Jackson started her career at NASA in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
The book was made into a movie that same year highlighting three brilliant African American women — Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan — who all served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history, the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit in 1962.
