MARGARET HAMILTON WASN’T supposed to invent the modern concept of software and land men on the moon. It was 1960, not a time when women were encouraged to seek out high-powered technical work. But the Apollo space program came along. And Hamilton stayed in the lab to lead an epic feat of engineering that would help change the future of what was humanly—and digitally—possible.
As a working mother in the 1960s, Hamilton was unusual; but as a spaceship programmer, Hamilton was positively radical. Hamilton would bring her daughter Lauren by the lab on weekends and evenings. While 4-year-old Lauren slept on the floor of the office overlooking the Charles River, her mother programmed away, creating routines that would ultimately be added to the Apollo’s command module computer.

Then, as now, “the guys” dominated tech and engineering. Like female coders in today’s diversity-challenged tech industry, Hamilton was an outlier. It might surprise today’s software makers that one of the founding fathers of their boys’ club was, in fact, a mother—and that should give them pause as they consider why the gender inequality of the 'Mad Men' era persists to this day.

But as the Apollo project unfolded, the centrality of software in accomplishing the mission started to become clear. In 1965, Hamilton became responsible for the onboard flight software on the Apollo computers. It was an exciting time, and the US was depending on the work that she was doing.

The Apollo moon landing was nearly aborted when the moon landing module – the Eagle began to send out a warning alarm during landing. It was due to Hamilton’s priority display system that astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were aware there was a problem. As lead software designer for the Apollo flights, Hamilton had created a ‘priority display’ system. This meant that astronauts would be notified of any error or problem with the system.

The moon landing had been a success and the Apollo 11 crew got back to Earth safely. Thanks to the computer programming of the lunar module – the Eagle and its fail-safe’s, the mission was a success and humankind had landed on the moon.