The Woman Behind the Apollo 13 Miracle: The Incredible Engineer Who Saved the Crew

Houston, we've got a solution

On a bright sunny August day in 1933, Judith was born in Brooklyn, New York. From a young age, she clearly had a mathematical mindset. Her father even taught her the basics of geometry using spare ashtrays around the home.

By the time she reached the 5th grade, other students were reportedly paying her to do their math homework. But this was the 1940s, and career prospects for girls in the STEM industries were bleak, at best.

But fortunately, she was inspired at just the right age.

“The only time I saw a woman doing anything interesting — I had a math teacher who was a woman. So I decided, OK, I’ll be a math teacher.”—Judith

Later on in high school, she managed to get a state scholarship to attend Brooklyn College and was set on becoming a math teacher. But even with this amazing achievement at that young age, her guidance counselor still advised her, “I think you ought to go to a nice finishing school and learn to be a lady.”

But on to Brooklyn she went.

During the day, she studied engineering—after changing her preference—and by night she danced at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet company. She also fell in love and got married.

Quite the two years!

Westward Bound

Shortly after, they moved to California where Judith upped her game from a double life to a triple.

During the next decade, she had the first three of her four children. And while the daylight found her working as a junior engineer for North American Aviation, the starlight had her deep in textbooks slowly earning both her bachelor's and master's degrees from USC by 1962.

She later mentioned she didn’t attend a single class with another female engineering student. Yikes.

But this is when she went to work at Space Technology Laboratories, where she stayed until her retirement in 1990. At STL, her projects included the guidance computer for the Minuteman missiles and the Abort-Guidance System used for the Apollo Lunar Modules.

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Houston, We’ve Got a Problem

The Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970, was intended to be the third mission to land astronauts on the moon. The spacecraft consisted of two modules, the Command Module and the Lunar Module.

Two days in, a crisis quickly developed when an explosion occurred in an oxygen tank. The detonation damaged the other tanks and the electrical power system, putting the crew's lives in mortal danger.

They were forced to use the Lunar Module—meant to support two astronauts for two days on the moon—as a lifeboat. The system was modified to support three astronauts for four very uncomfortable days.

To return to Earth, mission control had to plan a new trajectory and loop around the moon to return home. During most of this journey back is where the Abort-Guidance System, partly developed by Judith, was used to bring them back home safely.

On April 17, 1970, the crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and several years later a bunch of Hollywood folks made hundreds of millions from the idea.

A Semi-Retired Kind of Life

What does someone do when they’ve stopped working in their main career? Well, like this author, Judith started writing!

Inspired by her lack of female competitors and role models in STEM as a kid, she set out to help change it. Judith, alongside her third husband David Katz, started a book publishing company called Cascade Pass.

They released two popular series of children’s books motivating young girls all over the world to go into the sciences. In total, they sold over 100,000 copies, helping Judith earn the 2014 IEEE-USA Distinguished Literary Contributions Award for her work.

Who Was Judith?

In 1969, Judith gave birth to her fourth child, Thomas Jacob Black, in yet another testament to her work ethic. Her other son, a renowned computer scientist named Neil, once recalled that during Thomas’s birth:

“When it was time to go to the hospital, she took with her a computer printout of the problem she was working on. Later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And … oh, yes, the baby was born, too.”

That child turned out to be none other than Jack Black, the famous musician, and actor known for his quirky humor and general hilariousness. His mother was one of the first pioneers, let alone female, in the aerospace industry.

Judith Love Cohen passed away after a battle with cancer at the ripe old age of 82 in 2016.

She truly earned her place amongst the stars.

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J.J. Pryor

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