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CMargaret Hamilton, a pioneer in computer science, played a crucial role in the first landing of astronauts on the moon on July 20, 1969 and in their safe return a few days later. The young programmer and young mother of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) led the team building the embedded flight software for Apollo missions, including Apollo 11. The computer system was the most sophisticated of its time. His rigorous approach was so successful that no software bug was reported during crewed Apollo missions. "It symbolizes this generation of underrated women who have helped to send humanity into space," said President Barack Obama in 2016 when he awarded Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest distinction awarded in the United States in civil matters. In 2017, she was part of a handful of NASA women to be immortalized as a Lego figure. On the 50th anniversary of the first landing on a moon, Hamilton, 82, looks back on his pioneering work in computer science.
What brought you to software engineering? There was no degrees in computer science at your beginnings …
I got married in 1958, just after graduating in mathematics with a minor in philosophy from Earlham College. [in Indiana]. We both had assistants to go to graduate school – me in abstract math and my husband in chemistry – but in the meantime, I had taught high school for a year, we had my daughter and my husband decided that He wanted to go to Harvard Law School. . I found a job to support our family at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), located nearby. It was in the laboratory of Professor Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory, who was working on a weather forecasting system. He asked majors in mathematics. To take care of our daughter, we hired a babysitter. Here I learned what a computer was and how to write software. Computer and software engineering were not yet disciplines; instead, programmers learned on the job. Lorenz's interest in software experimentation was contagious and I caught the virus.
How did you join the Apollo project in 1964?
I had started writing software to detect enemy planes at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. I had plans to resume my studies when my husband saw an ad in a newspaper. The instrumentation laboratory at MIT was looking for people to develop software to "send the man to the moon". The laboratory had received NASA's contract for the construction of the Apollo project flight software, having already been selected to design the hardware. I was attracted to both the very idea and the fact that it had never been done before. I was the first programmer to join and the first woman they hired. The male engineers were already working on the project, but they were computer hardware engineers and that was not their problem. I had it as a background. I think [the lab] just thought that I could handle the unknown.
You first worked on the unmanned Apollo missions software. But you were gradually promoted to the helm of the manned spaceship software development team, including Apollo 11. What was your job?
There were two on-board computers – one on the control module, Columbia, and one on the lunar module, Eagle. Our task was to develop the software to run on each of them and the system software that they shared. At first nobody thought that the software was such a big problem. But then they started to realize how much they were counting on that. The group was developed, so there were about 100 software engineers in my team. The life of the astronauts was at stake. Our software had to be ultra-reliable and able to detect an error and correct it at any time of the mission. And everything had to hold on the material.
Has your software and mother's engineering life already occurred?
Often, evenings or weekends, I took my young daughter, Lauren, to work with me. One day, she was with me when I was doing a mission simulation on the moon. She liked to imitate – play to the astronaut. She started typing on the keys and suddenly the simulation started. Then she pressed other keys and the simulation was overwritten. She had selected a program supposed to be running before launch, while she was already on her way to the moon. The computer had so little space that it erased the navigation data that took it to the moon. I thought: God, this could happen inadvertently in a real mission. I've suggested a program change to prevent a pre-launch program from being selected during the flight. But senior officials at MIT and NASA said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake. Midway through the next mission – Apollo 8 – one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren virus! This caused a lot of damage and required the reconfiguration of the mission. After that, they let me set up the program change, agree.
the Astronauts get the biggest credit for landing on the moon. But they did it with the help of a system you created to preventflight emergencies. As President Obama has said, "Our astronauts did not have a lot of time, but fortunately, they had Margaret Hamilton."
By the time the astronauts were about to land, the software's priority displays interrupted them with alarms to warn that an emergency was occurring and the computer was overloaded. I learned it as I went along, in the monitoring room at MIT. We then reconstructed what had happened, that is, a radar switch was in the wrong position and was taking processing power. It quickly became apparent that the software not only informed everyone of the existence of a hardware problem, but also compensated by restarting and restoring the highest priority tasks. Mechanisms for error detection and recovery came to the rescue. Their landing was a total relief: the astronauts were safe and the software worked perfectly.
As I understand it, at the beginning of computer programming, women were actually pretty well represented. It was somehow considered women's work. Is this your experience?
Programming has never been considered a woman's job, at least in none of the many projects I've been involved with. Human computers [who did calculations by hand] were mostly women and there were women who used calculators – like Marchant machines – but they were not programmers They did not write software. When I arrived at Apollo, there were no other women writing software. Then, in a few years, there would be a few – and I worked for myself – but not much. There were always a lot more men.
Are the men disturbed by you being their boss?
When I took office, one of the senior bosses said that he did not doubt that I could do the job, but was concerned that the men working in the group would rebel. Well, they did not do it. More than anything, we were dedicated to missions and worked side by side to solve difficult problems and meet critical deadlines. I've also been fortunate to have a very modern husband, especially at this time. There were men who understood equality.
You invented, or at least popularithe term "software engineering". Why did he need a new name?
At the beginning of Apollo, software was not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines. Although we actually have a complex system of systems, we did not get credit for what was a legitimate domain. It was in despair that I found the term, "Hey, we're doing engineering too." It was a long-standing joke. Then one day, at a meeting, one of the most respected hardware gurus explained to everyone that he agreed with me. The process of creating software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just as with the hardware. It was a memorable moment.
After Apollo, some parts of your code were used in Skylab, the first space station, and then in space shuttle program. You then created your own business using your experience to design more reliable and affordable software. What are the Apollo project lessons for programmers today?
We recently saw systems where a plane crashed and the pilot had no idea what was going on. It's a good idea for the pilot to know his options! In addition, what has become obvious with Apollo – although this is not how it worked – is that it is better to define your system in advance in order to minimize errors, rather than producing a code package that must then be fixed with patches on patches. It's a message that seems to have been ignored – in this respect, the software is still built as it was 50 years ago.
A famous photo of you was taken in 1969, next to a stack of printed codes from the Apollo Missions, which is almost higher than you. Recently, this image has been juxtaposed next to one of Katie Bouman, the scientist who helped develop the algorithm that created the first never picture a black hole. She poses with a pile of hard disks of her project and editing has become viral. Do you remember that your photo was taken and what did you do the comparison?
The photograph was taken during the Apollo 11 mission by an MIT photographer to be sent to the newspapers. We got carried away, grabbed all the Apollo ads in my office and created the tower. I was trying to find a way to keep the stack. I did not consider the comparison a bad thing. At least they do not hide us. Although I do not envy [Bouman] to fight the Internet and all the vitriol it can spread. In some ways, things are worse for women now.
What advice would you give to young women who want a career in coding?
Do not let fear interfere and be afraid to say "I do not know" or "I do not understand" – no question is a silly question. And do not always listen to the so-called experts!
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