1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act . 2. Definitions In this Act: (1) NACA The term NACA means the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. (2) NASA The term NASA means the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 3. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) In 1935, NACA (predecessor to NASA) hired five women to be the first computer pool at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory where they took on calculating work previously done by male engineers. (2) During the 1940s, NACA also began recruiting African-American women to work as computers, initially segregating them from their White counterparts in a group known as the West Area Computers where they were restricted to segregated dining and bathroom facilities. (3) Dorothy Vaughan began working as a member of the West Area Computing unit in 1943 where her work and talent for leadership led her to become both a respected mathematician and NACA’s first African-American manager. (4) Mary Jackson joined the West Area Computing unit in 1951 and petitioned the city of Hampton to allow her to take graduate-level courses in math and physics at the all-White Hampton High School which enabled her to become the first African-American female engineer at NASA. (5) Katherine Johnson, who started her career in the West Area Computing unit in 1953, calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 mission in 1961, which was the first human spaceflight by an individual from the United States. (6) Dr. Christine Darden began her career as a computer at NASA’s Langley Research Center in 1967 and later led the Sonic Boom Team where her work on sonic boom minimization helped to revolutionize aeronautical design. (7) The stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Dr. Christine Darden were portrayed in the 2016 book by Margot Shetterly, entitled Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space and subsequent movie adaptation. (8)