The Achievements and Legacy of Margaret Hamilton Essay
Margaret Hamilton had many remarkable accomplishments while at NASA. She was an American computer scientist who was one of the first computer software programmers. Margaret helped write the computer code for the command and lunar modules used on the Apollo missions to the Moon in the late 1960s and early ’70s. She also taught math for a short amount of time. Even though Hamilton was just 32 years old, NASA's mission control staff trusted her software and helped make the Apollo 11 mission successful.
More than anything, Margaret was dedicated to the missions and worked side by side to solve challenging problems and meet critical deadlines. During the early days of Apollo, software wasn’t as serious as other engineering disciplines. “Though in fact, they had a complex system of systems, she wasn't getting credit for what was a legitimate field.’’ Margaret tried her best to work hard, even though she wasn’t getting any credit for any of her work, and tried her best to get problems done before the deadlines. However, Margaret was making the Apollo 11 mission happen with software and other technology and tried to make the enormous accomplishment of having the first man on the moon. Margaret sought to design Apollo’s software to be capable of dealing with unknown problems and flexible enough to interrupt one task to take on a more important one. Margaret got help from a female math professor that helped her desire to pursue abstract mathematics. Margaret’s work was outstanding for the time, especially since she was a woman working on Apollo 11 in the late 60s.
Margaret not only had many accomplishments, but she had many awards along the way. Margaret Hamilton co-founded Higher Order Software in 1976 and later founded Hamilton Technologies ten years later. She got awarded NASA’s “Exceptional Space Act Award” in 2003 and Former President Obama later presented Margaret with the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” in 2016. “The lab had received the NASA contract to build the onboard flight software for the Apollo project, having already been selected to design the computer hardware.” Margaret had to persevere through the times of getting a job at NASA and not ending up as a computer scientist. Later, Hamilton has been credited with popularizing the concept of software engineering.
During the time of Apollo 11, Margaret Hamilton was the person to make the mission a success. She did this all while being a woman in the late 60s when women were expected to be “computers.” Margaret Hamilton was dedicated to the missions and made Apollo 11 happen with both software and math. During the time of Apollo 11, Margaret had to pursue her dream of being an engineer at NASA, creating a new era of technology.
