Margaret Hamilton, the engineer who coined the term "software engineering" and led the development of on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program, died last week at the age of 90. Her work in the 1960s helped enable the Moon landing, and her contributions were recognized in 2016 when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Olivier de Weck, interim head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, described Hamilton as a fundamental contributor to the Apollo program's success. He stated that she developed advanced code and led a team in using nascent technology to build one of the most complex systems humanity had ever achieved. De Weck noted that calling her a pioneer or ahead of her time would be a dramatic understatement, as she worked in a field that was in its infancy at the time.
Hamilton's legacy extends beyond her technical achievements. In 2017, she was immortalized as a LEGO minifigure in the "Women of NASA" set, which also featured astronauts Mae Jemison and Sally Ride. Her influence on the field is reflected in the terminology she introduced, which remains standard in the industry today.
Hamilton was born in 1936 in Paoli, Indiana. She completed her studies at Earlham College in 1958, earning a mathematics degree alongside a philosophy minor. The choice of minor honored her father, a poet, and her grandfather, a headmaster. In that same year, she married her first husband, James Cox Hamilton. They initially planned for Hamilton to work while he finished his law degree, with the intention that he would later support her pursuit of a PhD in mathematics.