After graduation, Johnson earned a scholarship to Tuskegee University—where his idol George Washington Carver had once taught—and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1973 and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering in 1975. Upon the completion of his master’s, Johnson joined the Air Force and gradually established himself as an important member of the government scientific establishment. Johnson was assigned to the Strategic Air Command, where he helped develop the stealth bomber program. His other assignments included analyzing plutonium fuel spheres at the Savannah River National Laboratory and working as a systems engineer for the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn.
