Margaret Hamilton is a modest conqueror of the Moon, about whom they used to keep silent
Everyone knows that success in any large-scale project is ensured by a lot of people who work tirelessly for a common goal. But almost always the laurels of the winner go to one, and few people remember about other modest but important project participants. If someone asks you who Neil Armstrong is, then you will probably say that this is the first conqueror of the Moon, but the name is Margaret Hamilton you will not have any associations.
Meanwhile, it was thanks to this modest girl with glasses that the flight to the Earth satellite took place and was successful. On July 20, 1969, at 20:17:39 UTC, the Apollo 11 space module with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface, marking a new era in the development of human civilization.
The flight and landing of the American astronauts were not without difficulties, but it was quite successful thanks to Margaret Hamilton, who wrote the software for the Apollo project.
This is exactly what a complete printout of the program code written for the Apollo space program looked like, the ultimate goal of which was a human walk on the lunar surface in 1969.
The girl wrote all the codes manually, then they were printed out and combined into programs. This method of software development was called "LOL memory" or "little old ladies memory" (memory of little old ladies). Such a strange name appeared because the printing of codes was mainly done by elderly women.
The women who worked in the Apollo team not only wrote code and programmed, but also gave practical advice to men on improving the equipment they manufactured.
When Armstrong and Aldrin almost reached the lunar surface, a critical failure occurred in the system. The station's radar began transmitting huge arrays of information unnecessary during landing to the lander's computer, which caused the device to overload. If Hamilton had not foreseen such a scenario, the astronauts would have been waiting for imminent death.
The pilots launched a quick reboot function, clearing the computer's memory of unnecessary data and giving the system the opportunity to operate with the information necessary for landing the module. Thanks to this, the space mission was completed and the Americans returned to Earth victorious.
Now Margaret Hamilton is 85 years old, but she continues to work in her specialty, heading her own company Hamilton Technologies. The merits of this remarkable woman in space exploration are undeniable, although she is always in the shadow of astronauts and spacecraft designers.