Margaret Hamilton passes away

[Ranb]

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90

Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.

news.mit.edu

Margaret Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died on Sep. 30. She was 90.

A computing pioneer who authored over 130 publications, Hamilton helped to establish software engineering as a dedicated discipline. She worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s, after which she became a successful computing entrepreneur and CEO.

Her life’s work was recognized with many awards and honors, including the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, whose citation noted: “Hamilton defined new forms of software engineering and helped launch an industry that would forever change human history. Her software architecture led to giant leaps for humankind, writing the code that helped America set foot on the moon.”

There was the incident that became known as “the Lauren error”: One day, her daughter Lauren, then four years old, was playing with the command module simulator at the Instrumentation Lab when she somehow activated a pre-launch program, called P01, while the simulator was in midflight — which crashed the simulator altogether. Hamilton created a program add-on in the technical documentation warning users not to launch P01 during flight.

She also proposed a software fix to prevent the error happening during a real mission, but she was overruled on the grounds that the highly trained astronauts were never going to make that same mistake. Yet during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, that’s exactly what happened: Jim Lovell inadvertently launched P01 during the flight, causing the on-flight navigational data to vanish. Hamilton and her team were called in to solve the error, and after that her proposed changes were integrated into the program. This was an early example of “defensive” programming, the practice of building software that could anticipate or fix errors on its own.

 

[Norman Alexander]

From an old programmer: Stand tall, Margaret. Excellent work.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I was just going to post this in the notable passings thread.

Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the moon, dies at 90

Pioneering computer scientist led the development of the software for Nasa's Apollo mission and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[NatalieSalat]

Was she named after the 1939 WoO actor?

 

[bigred]

From an old programmer: Stand tall, Margaret. Excellent work.

I was an old programmer as well and for a time a stone's throw from where the astronauts tested at Langley AFB (IIRC one building I worked in I think was also where the Gemini program office was based).