Recently, NVIDIA used the names Ada Lovelace and Grace Hooper to name its GPU architectures. This is a tribute by the company to some of the pioneers of computing, although there are many others who deserve recognition. We’ll tell you how Margaret Hamiltonwith a “simple” pencilgot to safeguard he Apollo space program.
The Apollo program was born in the 1960s, during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. What the project sought, above all, was to achieve the first moon landing in history, to be the first country in the world to send people to the Moon and set foot there.
As you probably know, the first moon landing took place on July 20, 1969 by the Apollo 11 capsule. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were traveling inside, who became the first to set foot on our satellite. But none of this would have been possible without the pencil of Margaret Hamilton.
Margaret Hamilton and a pencil saved the Apollo space program
The first thing to know about Hamilton is that he had no knowledge of computers or software, since at the time there was no such study. Like most of the pioneers of the time, she was a mathematician.
After graduating from Earlham College with a degree in mathematics, he moved to Massachusetts to pursue his studies in mathematics at Brandeis University. Interestingly, he began working at MIT. Specifically, he began working in Charles Stark Draper’s lab where he collaborated on the development of navigation software for NASA’s Apollo program.
His job was mainly to develop the software that would be responsible for running the Control module and the Lunar Module for the Apollo missions. In fact, she was the architect of the software that allowed Apollo 11 to land on the Moon.
It should be noted that the Apollo 11 mission was not exactly a calm and simple moon landing. Just during the landing process, the lunar module displayed a set of data overload alarms.
The positive is that Hamilton’s software was really robust and managed to identify and prioritize the critical tasks. Thanks to its design, the mission continued without major complications. Without this robust design, the mission would have been aborted and who knows if it would have resumed in the future.
During the process of creating the software, several of his colleagues were skeptical about the importance of software in space missions. Hamilton took one of the pencils he was working with and began writing a list of all the possible errors and problems that could arise.
Along with each of the problems, Margaret explained how her software solved them. The thoroughness and foresight of this mathematics for the development of your software. The truth is that without this conscientious work, the Apollo mission would probably have failed.
Throughout his long career, he has received numerous recognitions for his work. One of the most notable is the Presidential Freedom Awardthe highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States, which was awarded to him in 2016.
