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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: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday July 20 2019, @05:07PM
Well there you go. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Public safety hasn't been a great (or even tiny) concern of 'software engineering' so far as I can tell, and that's a good reason to deny the term legitimacy.
It *should have* been. But it wasn't. Still isn't.
We've got computers running critical infrastructure from power plants and trains and roadways (and self-driving cars on those roadways!) and also military systems; tanks and ships and planes and even hydrogen bomb tipped missile systems, and we *still* don't understand that public safety needs to be a dominant concern in designing and building those computer systems.
I laughed at the idea they would run a warship with windows. Then I laughed when it blue-screened and the ship had to be towed back to harbor. But you know what?
They're all running windows now, despite that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?