When it comes to the landing on the moonthe collective imagination immediately runs to Neil Armstrong And to his famous “small step for a man, but a great leap for humanity”. But behind that goal there is much more than the heroism of the astronauts involved in the Alonunaggio: there is also the silent but decisive intelligence of men and women who have worked behind the scenes. Among these there is Margaret Hamilton. At just 33 years old, Hamilton was a head of the team which developed the Software of the Apollo 11 lunar modulewhat in July 1969 allowed to Armstrong And Buzz Aldrin to rest their feet on the lunar soil.
A few minutes before the fateful landing, something went wrong, however: the on -board computer began to launch alarms due to a data overload. At that critical moment, The software written by the Hamilton team did not stopbut he did something revolutionary for the time: he recognized what tasks were not essential and ignored them, giving absolute priority to the most important function of all, that is to land.
Without that priority management system, today we would tell a very different story. Hamilton, with his vision and meticulousness, not only made one of the greatest companies in human history possible, but contributed to founding a new scientific field: thesoftware engineering. In this deepening we bring you to the discovery of his work, the cultural context in which he operated, technical solutions that changed the history and inheritance that his contribution left in theinformatics and in thespatial exploration.
Margaret Hamilton and the software that allowed the conquest of the moon
As mentioned, Margaret Hamilton was a head of the team which developed the Software of the Apollo 11 lunar module. The July 20, 1969during the last moments of the descent to the lunar surface, the computer of the lunar module or LM (Lunar Module) He went overnight: he received too many useless data due to a radar erroneously activated. This involved the activation of a series of alarms: a few minutes from the landing, the software was literally in crisis. It was at that moment that the code designed by the team of Mit (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), under the direction of Margaret Hamilton, showed all his resilience. The program automatically recognized the problem, discarded the homework at low priority and focused exclusively on the landing. This principle – known as Priority Schooling – It is now the basis of any modern operating system, but at the time it was an absolute novelty.
Hamilton herself, interviewed years later, remembered that moment with a mixture of relief and satisfaction: more than for landing itself, it was happy that the software had worked. Interviewed by Time Hamilton said:
I remember thinking “Oh my God, he worked!”. I was so happy. But I was happier than (the software) worked than the landing itself.
In fact, there was no certainty that everything would go as expected. The software was written by hand on perforated cards: a rigid paper support used in the past for memorize and process data where the information was represented through holes practiced in precise positions of the card itself. Each change could have potentially disastrous consequences. For this reason, Hamilton insisted from the beginning on one rigorous test methodologywhich expected numerous tests on the ground. Most of the errors that emerged during these tests derive from interface and synchronization problems, such as conflicts between the timing of the commands or the insertion of new instructions in already calibrated sequences.
It was she who coined the expression “Software engineering” To describe the seriousness and complexity of a job that, until then, did not enjoy the due respect. At the time, the computer field was dominated by men and widely underestimated in its design aspects. The excellent job that
After the end of the Apollo program, Hamilton did not abandon the world of software: in 1986 founded the Hamilton Technologies Inc.where he continued his work with an innovative programming language called USL (Universal Systems Language). This tool was designed to prevent errors already in the design phase. The concept was simple but powerful: to predict critical points before they become real problems. A philosophy that, applied to space exploration, allows not only to avoid tragedies, but also to contain the costs of future missions.
The excellent job that Hamilton did the vallershipsExceptional Space Act Awardwhich was conferred on her from NASA in 2003 And which also included the most substantial cash prize ever awarded by the famous space agency to one person.
The future of spatial exploration passes from the software
Hamilton is convinced that the key to future of spatial exploration – Mars included – Passing right from software quality. The tests are expensive and every error that can be avoided in advance represents a saving in terms of time, money and security. The legacy of his work today is visible not only in the NASA laboratories, but in every critical system that requires absolute reliability, from air flight to medicine, from rockets to interplanetary probes.
