Margaret Hamilton, software pioneer who helped put humans on the Moon, dies at 90

Margaret Hamilton, the pioneering American software engineer who helped NASA successfully land humans on the Moon in 1969, passed away on September 30 at the age of 90. Hamilton led the development of the onboard flight software for Apollo's command and lunar modules, which played a crucial role in the historic mission.

Initially assigned to write software for the Apollo abort procedure, Hamilton's work initially went unnoticed. However, when an unmanned flight aborted unexpectedly, she became known as the "woman who wrote the 'Forget It' software," gaining recognition among her peers. Hamilton's innovative approach to error prevention and recovery was crucial in allowing the Apollo 11 crew to safely land and return to Earth after the guidance computer raised alarms during the final minutes of descent.

Born in Paoli, Indiana, Hamilton grew up in Michigan and graduated from high school in 1954. She earned a degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan and Earlham College in 1958. After briefly pursuing graduate studies and working in academia, she moved to Boston in 1959 to begin her software engineering career at MIT.

Her contributions to the Apollo missions earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, honoring her groundbreaking work in developing fault-tolerant software and prioritizing human-in-the-loop decision capabilities.