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Story at CNN:
The first footsteps on the moon belonged to two men, but they may never have made it there if not for Margaret Hamilton.
The software engineer developed the onboard computer programs that powered NASA's Apollo missions, including the 1969 moon landing.
So, it's only fitting that in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, a portrait of the bespectacled pioneer reflected the light of the moon.
Not just Hidden Figures? Click on the full article to see the display.
Hamilton effectively invented the term "software engineer" with her work developing the Apollo guidance computer, the lifeline for astronauts that controlled the spacecraft, Google said in announcing the artistic honor.
She regularly brought her young daughter, Lauren, to work with her on weekends, according to the search giant. Lauren played in the simulator that her mother built to test in-flight programs and inadvertently led Hamilton to rethink her strategy.
Lauren once crashed the simulator, ending the mission prematurely by hitting a button while the craft was in flight.
So, Hamilton programmed backstops to prevent an astronaut from doing the same midflight, a mistake that would yield far more dire consequences in space, Google says.
"There was no second chance. We knew that," Hamilton wrote in 2009 for MIT. "We had to find a way and we did."
Whatever you do, do not push the big red button, M'kay?
See also: These 6 Accidents Nearly Derailed Apollo 11's Mission to the Moon
How to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 20 2019, @04:16PM (3 children)
Math and logic are fun, ain't they? Sub-saharan Africa largely gets isolated on this phenomenon though. It's not too unlikely you could have to go back before we started interbreeding with neanderthals (at least 40K years) to find a common ancestor with a random person from Hoboken, though that'll eventually change.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday July 20 2019, @04:53PM (2 children)
To a degree, but less so than you might think. There's been more or less constant gene flow via NE Africa from very ancient times. Going both ways.
IIRC you only need to go back to about 10-15kbc to incorporate most of sub-saharan africa as well. That gets you very near 100% of world population. Excepting pure blood Australian aborigines and isolated groups such as found on north sentinel island (and in that case I don't think there are any dna tests, we assume they have been genetically isolated since ~20kybc but that might be wrong,) everyone on the planet shares ancestors on that timeframe. Central asian nomads are a big part of that - they went everywhere, and not just in Gengiz' time, but long, long before. You can find clear evidence of them to this day in sub-saharan Africa, particularly Chad iirc.
And of course, american blacks are not sub-saharan africans. That's a mixed population with a pretty solidly established european component - descendants of Charlemagne, in other words.
"before we started interbreeding with neanderthals"
I'm still not convinced that actually happened, btw.
"random person from Hoboken"
Lul.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 21 2019, @05:30AM (1 child)
Oh come now... Their guys were slightly throwback-looking but neanderthal chicks were kinda hotties and it was a long, long time before anyone even suggested "hey, you know maybe we shouldn't do this rape thing".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday July 21 2019, @06:31AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?