I think that the first question running through anyone’s mind is what are all those papers that are almost as tall as that woman? Well, that is the code that got the Apollo mission to the moon, and standing next to it is an extraordinary scientist that wrote that code.
Margaret Hamilton was one of the lead computer scientists in 1969’s Apollo space launch, and without her humans may have never gotten to the moon.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the very first landing on the moon was almost one of the biggest moments in history, I mean one of the world’s most famous quotes came from the man who touched the moon firsthand; Neil Armstrong,
“One Giant "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
However, that seems to be the only thing that people think about when they think about the first person to land on the moon rather than how the mission became so successful.
The beginning of the young scientist’s life started out being born on August 17, 1936. Growing up north in the state of Indiana, Margaret grew an affinity with mathematics growing up; and from there, she turned her passion into a career.
She attended Earlham College in order to study more in depth in her beloved field of mathematics. During her studies, she met James Hamilton whom she eventually married. While She began to settle down, she taught mathematics at a local high school for a small amount of time.
Margaret made a step in her career at first to study further in mathematics but instead accepted a job with MIT. The job was affiliated with the meteorology department of the campus; there, she designed software that would predict weather patterns.
As Margaret’s skills deepened she further explored programming software by working on programming the US first air defense system. Margaret’s main goal was to program software that could detect enemy aircraft. The project was deemed the SAGE with MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory.
Her experience in designing the first software that could program the first air defense system led to her working in MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory which provided NASA with aeronautical technology.
Margaret soon became the head of a team that was responsible for the programming control systems for lunar modules and in-flight commands for the Apollo missions. She and her team worked tirelessly to build and design the software necessary for the safety of the mission. The team had to work very closely in order to work out their problems. Due to the fact that in the 1960s there were not really any proper teachings for the type of software that they were building.
Due to not having an accurate name for this specific field of engineering, Margaret became known as the mother of this field because she ended up coining the term software engineering for her line of work.
The space to build the software was very limited compared to a cell phone-has about a million more storage available. The way that her team went about programming the software began written on large pieces of paper. From there, holes would be punched using paper punch cards that would then feed into a computer the size of an entire room that lacked screens entirely.
While using the newly developed programming, the Lunar module, Eagle launched into space. Soon after the launch, there was an error with the code that gave astronauts a warning sign. While being hesitant about what to do, the astronauts asked Margaret, and she gave them the go-ahead to proceed. The software not only highlighted the problem but then learned to compensate for it, leading to the success of the landing.
The major success became the highlight of her career, as she helped get them to the moon, and even created and developed an entirely new field of work.
After all of the monumental work that Margaret accomplished with NASA, she co-founded an engineering company called, High Order Software with Saydean Zeldin. At the company, they worked on flaw and prevention technology. For about 10 years she worked there and then started her own company called Hamilton Technologies Inc.
In 2016 Margaret was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in recognition of her successes in the Apollo mission and contributions to software engineering.
Margaret Hamilton created an everlasting legacy to go beyond the limitations people give you and break barriers.
Sources:
Magazine, Smithsonian. “Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon.” Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Mar. 2019, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/margaret-hamilton-led-nasa-software-team-landed-astronauts-moon-180971575.
Margaret HAMILTON. scientificwomen.net/women/hamilton-margaret-99.
“Margaret Hamilton | Computer Scientist – NASA Solar System Exploration.” NASA Solar System Exploration, solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/320/margaret-hamilton.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Margaret Hamilton | Biography and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Sept. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist. Images from Creative & Common Licenses of Google & Wix.com
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