When the very first men landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, more than
half a billion people around the world were watching. They were amazed
at what they were seeing on their television sets. The journey to the
moon had taken years of skill, wisdom, and effort. It had also taken a
huge team of more than 400,000 people--including a young woman named
Margaret Hamilton.
Margaret loved numbers from the time she was a child. As an adult, she
was fascinated by creating computer software, long before the rest of
the world had ever heard of it. After graduating from college in
Indiana, Hamilton moved to Massachusetts. One day she heard that NASA
(the National Aeronautics and Space Association) was looking for
computer coders. They wanted to put men on the moon within a few years.
Margaret was thrilled to get the chance to work on something this
monumental. At that time, space flight was still an idea that was mostly
found in science fiction books and movies.
At first, NASA primarily gave Margaret the jobs that others did not
want. She spent countless hours handwriting notes and computing formulas
with paper and pencil. By the time the Apollo missions were heading for
the moon, Margaret was a constant member on the team--and the only
woman. When Apollo 11 was only minutes from making its world-famous moon
landing in 1969, it was Margaret who was behind the fact that it
happened correctly. A last-minute malfunction almost ended the mission.
However, her software program came to the rescue. The Apollo's lunar
module gently sat down on the moon surface.
For many years, Margaret helped NASA achieve its main goals. Her talent
for numbers and for creating software played a very important role in
making space travel a reality. Even after she left NASA, Margaret kept
producing software. She developed a universal computer language that
made online communication faster and easier.
