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Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon

smithsonianmag.com · 1,853 words · saved by 1 readers

On July 20, 1969, as the lunar module, Eagle, was approaching the moon’s surface, its computers began flashing warning messages. For a moment Mission Control faced a “go / no-go” decision, but with high confidence in the software developed by computer scientist Margaret Hamilton and her team, they told the astronauts to proceed. The software, which allowed the computer to recognize error messages and ignore low-priority tasks, continued to guide astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin over the crater-pocked, dusty crust of the moon to their landing. “It quickly became clear,” she later said, “that [the] software was not only informing everyone that there was a hardware-related problem, but that the software was compensating for it.” An investigation would eventually show that the astronauts’ checklist was at fault, telling them to set the rendezvous radar hardware switch incorrectly. “Fortunately, the people at Mission Control trusted our software,” Hamilton said. And with only enoug

Women Who Shaped History A Smithsonian magazine special report Margaret Hamilton stands next to a stack of program listings from the Apollo Guidance Computer in a photograph taken in 1969. Wikimedia Commons On July 20, 1969, as the lunar module, Eagle , was approaching the moon’s surface, its computers began flashing warning messages. For a moment Mission Control faced a “go / no-go” decision, but with high confidence in the software developed by computer scientist Margaret Hamilton and her team, they told the astronauts to proceed. The software, which allowed the computer to recognize error m

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