Margaret Hamilton was 33 years old when the world held its breath.
It was July 1969, and the Eagle module was descending toward the Moon when the onboard computer became overloaded and alarms 1201 and 1202 began sounding. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were aboard. The software her team had designed at MIT did what it was supposed to: it reset, set aside secondary tasks, and stuck to essential functions. The descent continued, and the rest is history.
She was born in 1936 in Paoli, Indiana, studied mathematics, and in 1965 joined the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she led the Software Engineering Division. She popularized the term “software engineering”, founded two companies, signed more than 130 publications, received NASA’s award in 2003, and in 2016 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.
She died on September 30, at the age of 90. Years earlier, she said they were “the most fortunate people in the world” and that there was no choice but to be pioneers.