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November 30, 2020 The Honorable Steven T. Mnuchin Secretary of the Treasury Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC 20220 Dear Mr. Secretary: The Citizens Coinage Advisory Commjttee held a public meeting via video conference on Tuesday, November 17, 2020, during which the Commjttee reviewed obverse and reverse candidate designs for the Dr. Christine Darden Congressional Gold Medal honoring her life and her contributions to the success of the National Aeronautics and Space Admjnistration during the Space Race. Dr. Darden began her career in aeronautics in 1967 as a data analyst at NASA's Langley Research Center and her work resulted in the production of low-boom sonic effects, which revolutionized aerodynarmcs design. During its review, the CCAC heard from Dr. Darden herself on her thoughts of the designs. This was a rare privilege of the CCAC to have the actual Gold Medal recipient as part of the meeting to be able to discuss the designs, and the CCAC took this opportunity to have a lively discussion with Dr. Darden. The CCAC ended up recommending designs CD-O-24 for the medal obverse and CD-R-05 for the medal reverse. • Obverse CD-O-24, depicts a portrait of Dr. Darden holding a model plan. • Reverse CD-R-05, depicts Dr. Darden's guiding principles as an inscription, namely "PRECEIVE, PLAN, PREPARE, PRESIST." The stars symbolize her four decades of service at NASA, while the graph shows the sonic boom cone hitting the ground, explaining in visual form the mathematical formulas that describe the air pressures involved in Sonic Booms Minirmzation. Additional inscriptions read "SONIC BOOM MINIMIZATION LEADER AT NASA FOR 14 YEARS" and "DR. CHRISTINE DA RDEN." We recommend that the inscription of Dr. Darden's guiding principles be removed from the reverse design, as it is already featured on the obverse, and replace it with "ACT OF CONGRESS 2019." urs, - _ Thomas Uram Chairman Citizens Coinage Advisory Commjttee Established by An Act of Congress, Public Law 108-15 https://www.ccac.gov November 30, 2020 The Honorable Steven T. Mnuchin Secretary of the Treasury Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC 20220 Dear Mr. Secretary: The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee held a public meeting via video conference on Tuesday, November 17, 2020, during which the Committee reviewed candidate designs for the obverse and reverse for the Congressional Gold Medal honoring Katherine Johnson in recognition of her service to the United States as a mathematician. In 1952, she started working at the West Area Computing Section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' Langley laboratory and later joined the Space Task Group at National Aeronautics and Space Adm1nistration. Johnson performed the trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard's May 1961 Freedom 7 mission as well for John Glenn's Friendship 7 mission. During its review, the CCAC heard from Katherine Johnson's daughters, Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore, who were joined by Donyale Reavis, the Johnson family attorney. The CCAC had an opportunity to discuss the portfolio extensively with the daughters and ended up favoring designs KJ-O-07 for obverse and KJ-R-08 for reverse. • Obverse KJ-O-07, depicts a portrait of Katherine Johnson in front of a variety of equations used to calculate the orbits and trajectories of spacecraft. • Reverse KJ-R-08, depicts a diagram on a chalkboard showing Apollo 1 I's lunar lander linking up with the command and service module. The additional inscriptions are "CALCULATING THE ORBITAL FLIGHTS FOR THE APOLLO SPACE PROGRAM," "RENDEZVOUS," "LUNAR LIFTOFF," and "EARTH." We recommend the additional inscription, "ACT OF CONGRESS 20 I 9" be added to the design. Thomas Uram Chairman Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee Established by An Act or Congress, Public Law I 08-15 https ://www.ccac.gov