Margaret Hamilton

space · computer science · Apollo

Moon mission code. Margaret Hamilton directed the team that wrote the software for the Apollo Guidance Computer, the onboard computer that guided astronauts to the moon and back. Her code had to work perfectly because there was no reset button in space.

Invented software engineering. Margaret invented the term 'software engineering' because what she and her team were doing was so new and important that it needed its own name. Before her, people didn't think of writing code as a serious engineering discipline like building bridges.

Caught a critical bug. During the Apollo 11 mission, Margaret's team had programmed the computer to ignore certain errors so it wouldn't crash during landing. This decision, made during testing, may have saved the mission when an unexpected alarm went off in the lunar module.

Started her own companies. After Apollo, Margaret founded two software companies, Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She continued developing new ways to make software safer and more reliable.

Got the highest honor. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Margaret the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, for her groundbreaking work.