YouSaid · the spoken record

Margot Lee Shetterly

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44
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2017-03-22
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2017-03-22
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  1. “There were several options of how to do this over the years, different inventors would come up with different ways of doing it. And I believe that the consensus was most of them actually took more energy. And that turned out to be the chosen approach.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Loud. I don't know. We have always debated whether one half PSF would be an acceptable level on the ground. We were trying to get it to one level and it would not get any higher. Somewhere in that range would have been our goal. And I'm not quite sure what this design they have now.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Okay, well, no, it wasn't 75 when we did the flight that was the culminating activity was like 202, 2002. But it is very expensive to develop a full scale airplane. And so, yes, we're waiting on the funding. And so I actually saw one of my past co-workers the other day, and he says, yeah, we're in design review, but the federal government is still on a continuing resolution. So they don't even have 2017's budget yet. And they don't know if they're going to get what they'll get in 2018. So they're still waiting for this budget to build this airplane and fly it over all of you in this room. To see if you would say yes, I could live with that And so we could build that airplane and have it fly over land.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Okay, I never got to that. Once we proved the concept, the next step was a Boeing or a Gulf Stream wanted the plane that we flew was just kind of hacked up military airplane. So it was not designed to be a supersonic airplane. And so what they wanted to see was a design for an airplane, a supersonic airplane and a low boom airplane in one plane that was fly at the design altitude everything and show that this generates an acceptable sonic boom. So NASA this year is supposed to be building two x-planes. One of them, we're just getting the money, yeah, because Because to build a full scaled airplane is pretty expensive.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Well, they were the ultimate. They were the ultimate equations, yeah. So they were sort of the basis and they were simplified before we got the huge computers that we could solve them with numerically.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “How far have we come? Well, of course, as you get women, white or black in higher positions, of course just the proximity of having them there and people getting used to working with you and knowing your abilities and everything. So certainly we have come further in that arena. We've had more black females move into management positions, I think, at Langley. And so that has been progress, but we still don't have very many there. So there's plenty of room for us to come further.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Okay One of the things, I guess my whole ethic of working with people is to treat them fairly and to do that. I do know that sometimes some of my co-workers would get upset about things, but I would, as long as I hadn't done anything wrong, I didn't let that bother me. And so I basically pretty much got along with the people that I worked with. Let's see, the second question was.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I just want to first thank you for the work that you've done and the role model that you are in helping tell the story that meant a lot to me and to my mom and to my parents. So thank you for that. My question for you is about a twofold one, as a woman, as a woman of color who was the first woman of color to be a manager, what were your strategies in terms of managing people with different backgrounds than you and managing men? How did you navigate what I'm sure was a lot of resistance and what strategies would you have for that? And then my second part of the question would just be any reflections you have on how far have we come and how far we have yet to go when it comes to women and people of color in tech.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Well, I want to see us get back into space and to actually learn how to maneuver in space. I think that's very important for all of us, for our planet. I think we need to be able to do that. And just like getting to the moon kind of got this country focused on one thing years ago, I think getting to either Mars or the asteroids or whatever it be. I think we need something like that to garner us again, to make us really go after one thing and get it done.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I certainly did. I actually had a young intern at NASA one summer who had gotten put into a shop area and she came She said they showed me all the equipment, and then, you know, I've seen it all, and now I'm just kind of standing around. It was a material.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yes, my geometry teacher. She definitely was one. And then I had supervisors that I thought kind of inspired and helped me. They weren't necessarily official mentals, but they would just say things in conversation that was very good advice that I knew I should listen to. And I try to tell people that you need to listen to those kinds of statements you hear.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Well, I think that makes us grow. I mean, we want to know why something happens. So we dig deeper to find things out. And I think that's the way we learn. And I also like Dorothy Bond's quote in the movie, Learn Everything You Can and Beule to somebody. I thought that was a very key statement she made.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Get people to fill the job. So we need those folks in our country to actually be able to fill those jobs. And so I think in both cases, you've got a case that they need to take, especially in high school, if they don't want to go further, but for those who can be engineers, they need to go all the way so they can take those top jobs.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yes, just recognized Well, one of the things I tell the young people is just we were talking about disruptive technologies and there are articles that say most a high percentage of people have to change jobs at some point in their lives. And if you've got the background of the math and science, you have double the number of options in which you're able possibly could get a job in. If you don't have that background, you have eliminated a lot of jobs. And that's just for the people who don't necessarily want to be engineers or everything. But the other thing is we need all of the engineers that are in school now who are not taking those math and science courses, those who have the capability to be engineers, to keep our country ahead, to fill the jobs in this country that all of these companies need and they're having to go overseas together.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yes, orbital reentry codes Well, she's a very gracious person, I think, and people like Catherine. She's very gracious. The first day I met her, when I went into the church, when church was over, she walked from the choir all the way to the back to invite me to come join the choir. And I think this might have been when I really met her. It was some years after I had started working there. And she's very good at what she did, of course, in her mathematics and everything. So, you know, Margot kind of couched me as standing on the shoulders of these three ladies. Because if NASA had hired black females and they had not done the job well, they probably would have stopped hiring them. But the very fact that I... Got hired and the people with me got hired was because these folks had shown that we, yes, we do do the job and we do it well.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, that's true. And I actually had decided if I did not get some action, I was going to quit at one point and go and teach in college. But I think you need to let people know what you want and what you're interested in. And I did that. I did that on several levels. And I wanted to go to school. I did that and had to kind of get... Higher boss to advocate for me to be able to take classes, and so I think you need to let people know what it is you're interested in, and maybe you would like to do something else, but you also need to make sure you're doing your job very well where you are so that maybe they'll listen to you and maybe be favorable in transferring you to something else you'd like to do”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, I always felt like I had to do my job and do it well. I don't remember thinking of it that way that I didn't have to prove myself, but that I actually thought I was pretty well respected by the people I was working with. And so while I wanted to do my job well, I didn't think of it like I had to prove myself.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “That's right. Computers are coming in. They're going to replace these human computers who are very much slower. So she says, I think you better learn how to do Fortran so that you can actually run the computer and not be out of a job. And that's something that is happening every day in our lives. And so I think that's a very important lesson that people need to learn.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Well, you know, maybe I'm thinking that folks didn't realize that what black women were working on at the time. So they were working on some pretty important topics. And I think that's part of what is galvanizing. And as far as our school children and everything, maybe these are role models that they've never seen anywhere. And we always say, Think that's an important lesson for school children.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “That was pretty hard. I actually thought of quitting my job at NASA when my last child was born. And my mother told me, well, that's a really good job you have. Maybe you should keep it. So, I mean, but so I had to deal with the babysitters or the childcare centers and things like that. And during the summer, it was very difficult because they would be out of school and I would be working. And so that was difficult. But I do know that I had opportunities to go to NASA headquarters earlier in my career, and I would not do things like that because I didn't want, I wouldn't leave her at home. And by that time, I think only the youngest one was there. And so I made sure I stayed at home and she wouldn't have to change schools or anything until I went to headquarters.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Well, by the time I left, we had seen far more women coming into the system. And though we had had in the intermediate times, we had had some female supervisors that had difficulty managing men who did not particularly like to work for women. By the time I left, we actually had a center director who was female. And so women were pretty much working in many, many areas of the center by that time. Completely worse, yes, yes.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yes, yes. Well, you know, mine was sort of depending on where I was assigned, and very often that's what happens. You sort of come out of school with a general education. You've got the math background and the physics background. But if you get assigned to a particular area, you are actually supposed to go to a deeper level in that area. And so that requires you to spend some time working to that deeper level. And so we find that actually most of the people that we come to NASA, once they started working in the engine area or the hypersonic engine area, they spent their careers working in that area.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Actually, I worked on supersonics doing some designing the flaps on supersonic airplanes for a while. But it was mostly the Sonic Boom that I did. And then at the end of my career, I actually went into management. When they were getting ready to cut the Sonic Boom funding again, I applied for and got into a career development program and went into senior management.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Well, the computer was doing it. The computer was generating them randomly, and then they were supposed to go back and give their immediate reaction to the Sonic Bone. And then the third thing we were concerned about, these airplanes are flying at 40 or 50,000 feet. What happens to that signal coming through the atmosphere 40 or 50,000 feet? So we actually went down to White Sands and did some flight test. In the morning when the atmosphere was quiet and we would see what would happen. And then in the afternoon when it heated up and there was a lot of turbulence in the atmosphere. So that was the third part. What would the atmosphere do to this signal? And so we launched into that program for the next few years actually looking at all three areas of that.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Well, we did. We actually had a funding cut out during one period of one of these periods. And when we funding came back, it was for the environmental portion of a high-speed civil transport. Well, Sonic Bone was one of the environmental portions. So they asked me to come back and get the program back together for the Sonic Boom. And so I actually went all over the country looking for people who had worked in Sonic Boom at all the NASA centers, at universities, at Boeing, at McDonnell Douglas and everything. And they came back to NASA for like a three-day meeting for us to decide how should we approach this program now. And we decided the design, which we had been doing before, was one way. The second we needed to know what people would accept. And so we started. Putting computers in people's houses and randomly playing Sonic Booms.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And tested the airplanes at the design Mach number, whatever that was. And we would measure the pressure inside that cone because that cone would hit the wall in the tunnel. So we would put one of the pressure probes inside the cone, the other pressure probe outside the cone, and get the difference of that pressure jump when people would hear that sonic boom.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “We said this is about as close as we can get it. Can a hand drawing that? And then we took the design to the model makers and they built us five-inch steel models that cost $6,000 or $7,000 because they had to be very exact in thickness and everything. And then we went to the wind tunnel.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Once the computer code was running, then we would put in the Mach number, the length of the airplane, the weight of the airplane. And I left that one. There were four variables for the airplane. And so if we wanted to design a minimum sonic boom plane, it would give us the area. I and one of the guys who was working with me now sat down and started to design airplanes. We started out with just a wing and a fuselage. And we would calculate the volume of that airplane and get that area. Then we would calculate the lift of that airplane. And the lift, of course, is generated mostly by the wings. We would add those two together and compare it with the ideal. And then we would, of course, be off and we would have to go back and change the design and recalculate it and do it again until we got very close together.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “We had a system of equations. This paper was gave several governing equations that would give us minimum area that we would need for this airplane or minimizing area that would an area that would minimize the sonic boom. And so I was able to complete that program. It was a system of partial differential equations. And that gave us the equivalent area that we wanted to design. That was about 1972.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “And because they didn't have people buying very many concords, they only built 13 of them. And so it did not make money. It was very expensive to fly. I think I called once and asked what was the price of a ticket back in the 70s. And it was like $1,000 even back then and pretty expensive. And so the United States, so the lesson actually became if you're really going to have a profitable supersonic airplane, it really needs to have some overland routes. And so this is why working on the Sonic Boom became so very important in the early 70s. And can we reduce this to a level where people in this room would say, oh, no, I could live with that noise. And it's not bothering me at all. And that's what we were working on when I got put on Sonic Boom Work.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “This instantaneous change in pressure, and that's when you hear the sonic boom. And the sonic boom, it can be pretty bad. It can be okay. We're hoping that we can design it to be okay, but it could break glass. It could damage the sheetrock in a house. And when they did a lot of flight test in the 60s around Chicago and around Oklahoma City, people were calling saying, you know, you broke my glass, you cracked my sheetrock. So they could get paid for the damage to their house and things. And it was that during that time that this country actually passed a law that there could be no commercial supersonic flight over land.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Caused by that airplane going faster than the speed of sound contained within a cone that's attached to the front of that airplane. And this is like an ice cream cone in all directions. And it is not only when the airplane goes through Mach 1, which means through the speed of sound, it goes with that airplane the whole time it is flying faster than the speed of sound. So if an airplane flew from California to Virginia, that cone would go all the way from California to Virginia and that cone would intersect the ground all the way from California to Virginia. So before the cone intersects the ground, you are on the ground. You are in that normal air pressure on the ground. But exactly where it intersects the ground, you suddenly get into that cone with the higher pressure. And so that again is the”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Okay, well, I told your young assistant that when I talk to students, I explain it with a balloon. And I say, you've got a certain air pressure on your ear in this room. But if I sat here and blew up the balloon, the balloon is going up because the pressure in the air in the balloon is getting higher. So if I pop the balloon, there's a shockwave set up at this balloon going out in all directions at the speed of sound, and it's got a higher pressure. So when that shockwave gets to your ear, it immediately jumps from a low pressure to a high pressure. And that change in pressure, that instantaneous change in pressure is what you hear. That's the pop of a balloon. And when an airplane is traveling supersonically, the same thing happens. All of the disturbances cause”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “And he also commented on the fact that so many of the women coming there to work actually found husbands there and then got married and went home. And that was, you know, that they didn't want to waste money on women doing things like that. But I told him that that probably was not true of the African-American women. They would probably continue to work. And I got transferred to an engineering section. I got a promotion because I hadn't had a promotion in five years. And in that riff list, I was actually being bumped by somebody hired at the same time who had gotten promoted twice So, I got a satisfactory result out of that.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I asked, I said, Well, why is it that the men coming here with the same background I had, degrees in mathematics or applied mathematics, were put in engineering sections and able to work on their own projects and write their own papers, and the females are put into computer sections which as support, and you don't get promoted very well. His response was that nobody had ever asked that question before.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “That is correct, and that riftless was rescinded. And so, but I did say, well, I'm going to go and I had already asked some of my immediate supervisors about moving into engineering, but I decided to go to a higher level supervisor. And so I went to the director and asked. Yeah, it was several levels up. He was a director.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Well, of course, I was excited at first. I mean, I got a job. I'm working at NASA. I didn't really know what I had been hired to do. And then I realized that I was in a support role, that the engineers would bring in equations. We were to solve the equations and give them the answers. And very often we didn't know what the equations were for in the first place, nor what the answers meant. And I began to find that unsatisfactory, but that's the way it was. A few of them would explain what an equation was for, but not all of them.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Yeah. And I said it like that because as I was there longer and you began to see the young engineers come in who had been in school with women in engineering, their attitude was entirely different over working with women.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “So, can you describe what you found? Well, there were no women supervisors to say maybe in human resources in some of those offices, but in the engineering sections, the women were typically the secretaries or the computers that were supporting some of the groups. I went into a computer section which supported the Rioette Physics branch, which was the branch that had done the calculations of getting the satellites back into the atmosphere. But they had done all of that before I got there. They had done all those calculations. So there typically were not any females in the technical side in advances in everything. And this was black and white females, yes. And so it was predominantly male atmosphere. Predominantly males who hadn't worked with women.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Across the hall to the head of the physics department. He's looking for a research assistant in aerosol physics. When I went home that night, I had a research assistantship in aerosol physics. And that, I mean, it was just wonderful. And so that allowed me to get a master's degree in applied mathematics. I did my research in the physics. And when I graduated, I went to the placement office just before I graduated. And she said, you should have come early. NASA was here recruiting yesterday. And I says, I didn't even know about it. She says, well, I tell you what, you fill out the application and bring it back to me and I'll send it in. And she did, and I heard from NASA in three or four weeks offering me a job.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “I guess I really didn't. I actually went back to school. I taught for three years and I had gotten married and everything. And my husband got a fellowship to go to school to get a master's. And I said, well, I need to get a job up there around the school. applied at several counties around the school in Virginia. I got a letter from one asking for a letter of recommendation. And my principal said, I'll give you a letter of recommendation, but I want your contract back. I don't want to be looking for a good math teacher in August. So I gave it back and I said, I'll get this job. And I never heard from him again, but I had begun to take in-service classes at this same school where he was going. And my teacher was the head of the math department there. And so when I went up the next weekend, I told him I was looking for a job and I needed a job. And he says, well, let me take you.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, I was on the path to become a teacher. I wanted to do what we said get a general studies job in math, but my father said, I want you to be able to get a job when you finish school. And so you get a teacher certificate. So I did do that. And actually as electives, I took the math courses. I wouldn't have had to take as a teacher. So I took all the rest of them as electives.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Well, not necessarily the Sputnik. I happen to have a geometry teacher that just made me fall in love with geometry and math. And so that sort of sealed the deal that I wanted to go toward the math and physical sciences rather than biological sciences. my decision to go into math and physics.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Yes, I was a senior in high school when Sputnik went up. And my job at high school was to get the collect the morning newspaper and put it on the spindle in the library. And I remember the day I went out and saw the headline of Sputnik. And so I can just remember what happened to the whole country after that. All of us had gone through drills of hiding under our chairs at school because we were afraid of the Russians dropping a bomb. The guy says they're up there and they'll be flying a bomb over us. We were all worried about that. And so the schools were galvanized. The students were encouraged to go into STEM courses and take them. Our yearbook had a solar system theme and we did all of that because of Sputnik going up. And so it was very much so.”

    2017-03-22 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source