A legendary life
Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Heafield Hamilton
Born 1936
Computer scientist who led development of the onboard flight software for NASA's Apollo program.
Her story
A life that changed history
Margaret Hamilton directed the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which built the Apollo program's onboard flight software. Her work helped establish software engineering as a rigorous discipline and supported the missions that landed people on the Moon.
“There was no second chance. We knew that. We took our work seriously, many of us beginning this journey while still in our 20s.”
MIT News retrospective on Apollo 11, 17 July 2009
“We had to find a way and we did. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.”
MIT News retrospective on Apollo 11, 17 July 2009
“It quickly became clear that the software was not only informing everyone that there was a hardware-related problem, but that the software was compensating for it.”
MIT News retrospective on Apollo 11, 17 July 2009