How a Young Engineer Saved the Moon Landing

How Margaret Hamilton’s dedication to detecting errors saved Apollo 11. The first 1,000 people to use my link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/newsthink01211
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Thumbnail source:
Margaret Hamilton photo: Draper Laboratory/MIT Museum
Sources:
1:14 Chensiyuan., CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/... via Wikimedia Commons
Articles referenced:
3:35 The Guardian
www.theguardian.com/technolog...

[@Newsthink]

The first 1,000 people to use my link will get a 1 month FREE trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/newsthink01211

[@Folker46590]

Wow, talk about misrepresenting the facts. J. Halcombe Laning is the one who wrote that code, stop lying just to try to make woman look important, it's dishonest and third wave feminist b.s. She had her own accomplishments, you don't need to lie about her, it's sick.

[@antoniomonteiro1203]

@@Folker46590 According to Wikipedia, J. Halcombe designed the multitask software, which is a basis for the whole software. On top of that many people developed software and Margareth's team had an important role in the subject depicted in this video. I consider that some mention should have been done about Halcombe and many others. Nevertheless it doesn't justify the terms and tone of your comment.

[@sbkarajan]

LOL! Moon landing!!! Never happened people, wake~ up!

[@yt-sh]

@@sbkarajan psh you believe in the moon

[@yt-sh]

@comment sense touche

[@Glenn.Cooper]

Wow. Everyone should know about this story. Thank you so much for putting this out there!

[@power2084]

Let's not forget that Don Eyles is THE REAL PERSON who saved the moon landing when it happened. Not Margaret Hamilton.

[@the18thdoctor3]

@@power2084 stop spamming

[@physicalivan]

fake new

[@power2084]

@@the18thdoctor3 I do what I want

[@iamPROTOTYPE]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaHYfKhpe5V1rLs

[@TinRapper]

Now that's an inspiring woman.

[@power2084]

Ahem...Let's not forget that Don Eyles is THE REAL PERSON who saved the moon landing when it happened. Not Margaret Hamilton.

[@the18thdoctor3]

@@power2084 stop spamming

[@dailyclips475]

@@the18thdoctor3 he is right

[@wispaschannel]

Agreed Max

[@kestaskuliukas5296]

An inspiring fraud.. all frauds should look up to how she took credit for this and be inspired. J HALCOM LANING designed the OS to do multitasking

[@David-lb4te]

To be clear; it was Hal Laning who devised the Executive and Waitlist operating system that was utilised in the core register vector accumulator priority that saved A11.

[@THE-michaelmyers]

Absolutely, I get VERY nervous when one person gets singled out for "saving" these landings when there was almost an Army of engineers in those back rooms. Those computer errors were in the guidance computer and the 1201 and 1202 basically were the computer telling the crew it was being overworked. The "FIDO" controller simply made a call to the back room, they identified what the error was and made a quick determination the mission was a go on that error. BTW, that error also happened again before they landed. Just to be clear, I am a HUGE fan of ladies like Katherine Johnson who actually made the calculations that got these vehicles back to the earth. I am sorry, but I agree, I will credit Hal Laning for getting Mission Control through this. One more point! people really need to stop rewriting history!

[@THE-michaelmyers]

@southfijigal Not a problem. What pisses me off sometimes about NASA and the moon program is so many people are re-writing history OR trying to re-define it. In the case of Apollo there were people during those missions on duty all over the US. That guidance computer software was designed bt MIT and they had folks like Don Eyles who was yanked out of bed during the Apollo 14 mission to rewrite code to bypass an abort that would have aborted the landing that day. There were many people in the SPAN room and hundreds of backup controllers. People get the wrong idea about the number of people working those missions because all they saw was mission control. This girl spoken about in this video, I am sure she contributed to making those landings, but to go all the way to say she saved them? I will VERY quickly call bullshit on that one!

[@anti-apathy9715]

Thought so...many events are being re-written for females and blacks to *puff* them...guilt trip white males into allowing them into their 'group' structure. Purpose seems to be to not question LBJ's 1964 civil rights act (race/ gender nullification). Females biological purpose is to procreate. We should never forget that. Anything that is preventing that, or discouraging that, needs to be dealt with.

[@THE-michaelmyers]

@@anti-apathy9715 During the 1950s through the 1970s NASA was mostly a white male club. I am not proud of this and I will also not apologize for it either. Margaret Hamilton did most of her work while at MIT. She did make several contributions to making the landings safe. The primary issue I have is with taking a single person's contribution out of context. If Margaret Hamilton was not there another engineer would have caught it. As I have said several times now. By the time the landings started, there was an army of engineers all over NASA and the contractors looking at systems and subsystems. The SPAN rooms as well as Mission Control's back room had hundreds of people. I will always call bullshit on saying Margaret Hamilton saved the landings. Margaret Hamilton was an important person in place as part of a team. Another critical point to consider is all of the books that have been written by engineers and astronauts since the 1970s. Step by step they have told of the problems encountered. One such author is Andrew Chaikin! His book was the basis behind the TV miniseries from the earth to the moon. While I have not read all of the books I am speaking of, to date I do NOT remember anywhere in any of them where Margaret Hamilton's name is mentioned. It's important to remember. These books in some situations don't show NASA in a favorable light.

[@kbrown4ou]

@ Michael Meyers; Unfortunately, the attitude of a flawless system displayed by the statement “ If Margaret Hamilton was not there another engineer would have caught it” didn’t seem to work out so well for situations that led to tragedies such as the Apollo 1 fire nor the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

[@dewiz9596]

“Sending up a new program” intrigued me at the time. I was working with a 4-bit-word phototypesetting machine, which had a problem with its power supply, which was not recovering properly between typesetting each character. I was able to “reprogram” the machine to flash each character twice. We were able to produce our weekly newspaper on time. . . the next day the serviceman, who had to travel 200 miles, was able to repair the hardware. It was not the last time that I used software to work around bad hardware.

[@elivegba8186]

Wow🙂

[@owensmith7530]

I am currently writing software to work around bad hardware, it is still very common. Once the chip is made it is very expensive to fix the hardware, it's much cheaper to work around it in software.

[@haimbenavraham1502]

With all due respect to Magritte Hamilton; as soon as the error alarms came screaming into the L.M before touch down, Armstrong cancelled automatic control, and took the L.M . safely down manually. Saving everyone's day. R. I. P.

[@tonycook1624]

Not correct. Armstrong did move to the P66 phase early but it was some time after - 3 alarms had come and gone by then. You can follow the full descent here (see link) - see when the alarms come and the see when P66 (manual descent) is brought in. You can also hear when Steve Bales calls "go" to ignore the alarms and cancel the mission abort that was queued after the first alarm. Sure Armstrong landed Eagle but he didn't cancel the abort kzbin.info/www/bejne/rpSUhK2dfM2AgcU

[@jespermikkelsen7553]

It was impossible to control LM without AGC running. Armstrong was never 100% in control.

[@pleasepermitmetospeakohgre1504]

Apparently the landing footage was really film from the simulator.

[@peterlewerin4213]

Armstrong overrode the "autopilot" function of the AGC because he could see the ground before him and didn't like it. While he was flying manually, the AGC continued to work translating his control input to LM manoeuvres: if the AGC had been shut down the LM would have been "dead". Without Hamilton's work, even the first alarm wouldn't have been an ignorable alarm, it would have been the equivalent of a blue screen of death and a mission abort.

[@BRBallin1]

Even as a man in engineering, I know what it’s like to be a minority figure in a room and it’s definitely intimidating so kudos to her

[@serevinvukele8046]

You don't.

[@asmitaghorai7332]

@@serevinvukele8046 Do you?

[@josephg3231]

YUOUMUST BE WHITE,RIGHT

[@stevenhuckaby2902]

Dont get too caught up in the movement where for last 30 years there has been a rewrighting of history, shifting the achievments of man kind over to the women, and all the wrongs onto the men

[@mackk123]

the banks push for mass immigration because the banks can then open up more bank accounts, more accounts mean more lending with fractional reserves, causing inflation. amazon studied diversity and found that more diversity equates to lower chances of labor unionizing when being taken advantage of.

[@alfamaize]

Her innovation to let the program do the most important things when time got to be a problem has to be one of the most important things of all time WRT software engineering. As a automotive engineer, I know we used that structure to run engines- where at the higher speeds, there was not enough power to run everything. Her first obvious achievement was landing men on the moon, but her lasting legacy goes a LOT deeper than that.

[@kestaskuliukas5296]

It’s such shit, it wasn’t her it was J HALCOLME LANING

[@owensmith7530]

It wasn't Hamilton that designed the prioritisation, it was Hal Lanning. Hamilton made many important contributions, but not this one.

[@kestasjk]

@@owensmith7530 Thank you. I am interested what Hamilton did contribute, since based off her taking credit for others’ work I assumed not much.

[@owensmith7530]

@@kestasjk Hamilton's main contribution (in addition to being a leader) was if it crashed ensuring that when the system restarted it could carry on from where it left off, continuing the calculation it had been performing at the time. This required leaving enough data in RAM in a format that could be reliably re-used after the reboot. She tried to make a career out of that privately after leaving MIT, but it's time had passed. It was a stopgap solution which was a dead end in the real world. What the world of high reliability computing went with instead is what the Saturn 5 guidance system used for the LVDC (Launch Vehicle Digital Computer) which IBM designed using 3 duplicate computers which compared results and ignored the one that gave a different answer.

[@anti-apathy9715]

"her lasting legacy goes a LOT deeper than that." Stop the fawning... This ws no big deal. Not one think changed on planet earth b/c of that stupid moon landing ( if it actually occurred -- a woman in Australia while watching the astronauts prance around up there claimed she saw a *coke bottle* :: Australia received the supposed moon feed first then it was redistributed to the US.

[@GH-oi2jf]

Even if some of the details here are a little off, without question Hamilton was a key player whose brilliance helped the Apollo program succeed. Mission-critical systems were relatively new and sound intuition and insight were necessary to write the AGC code. And diligence.

[@Alowne217]

Can you mention what details were off? I'm doing my own research but it would help to see where I should look into.

[@YannCogan]

It was at a time the majority of people thought science wasn't for "women's mind". Her example, along with Ada Lovelace, helped humanity make use of that great resource !

[@AlanCanon2222]

And Grace Hopper, just to stay in the field of computing.

[@archiem654]

@Shubham Kanojia stop denying women's struggle?

[@archiem654]

@Shubham Kanojia when you werent really paying attention. Or maybe its because in Bihar even boys are not allowed to get education.

[@archiem654]

@Shubham Kanojia 😅😅😅😅 tera dimag nhi h sach sunne ka. Video me bta rhe h ladki ne kya kam kiya. Phir bhi bol rhe ho ke "when did women struggle?" And then replying with idiotic arguement that in bihar even boys arent allowed in higher education. They are well allowed. Par corruption nhi aage badhne deti to kya kre. But women are discouraged from pursuing careers and higher education because "aage ja ke ghar hi to chalana h". If you deny that, well... you are living in self centered ignorance bliss. And good move with abusive words!

[@archiem654]

@Shubham Kanojia are you saying girls from the same family are sent to schools and given time to study and pursue careers while boys from same family are sent to fields?

[@alancooper9632]

Why isn't this up there with everything else that's said about the moon landing, I was a young lad of eleven when they landed on the moon and this is the first time I've heard of it. What a remarkable brilliant woman.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

I just learned of her, recently!

[@aeg894]

I love my Apollo Astronauts, but these geniuses that made it all possible must have more recognition and gratitude. The moon landing was genius and courage working together.

[@guitarttimman]

I would have helped women first.

[@shaneintegra]

So amazing! Being old enough to appreciate what was going on back then would have been so awesome

[@crangel2183]

Such an amazing story! True heros are often those who work hard on the sidelines.

[@crangel2183]

Might want to check the story of Gwynne Shotwell of space X

[@judyl.761]

You are so right. Many of the greatest heroes go unsung. Thank you so very much to all of them!

[@ericephemetherson3964]

There was no man on the Moon.

[@Ed-eq8ui]

@@ericephemetherson3964 Maybe a show about space flight isn't for you. Maybe you should be elsewhere, like in a forest dancing around a tree.😂😂

[@ericephemetherson3964]

@@Ed-eq8ui When some one is talking about another person rather about what some one has to say, it automatically shows their own ignorance and low self esteem.

[@ronnydragon2211]

Wowwww, a lot of respect for her!!! So inspirational ✨

[@power2084]

Oh no.... Let's not forget that Don Eyles is THE REAL PERSON who saved the moon landing when it happened. Not Margaret Hamilton.

[@the18thdoctor3]

@@power2084 stop spamming

[@purebride8600]

You are sadly deceived

[@ericephemetherson3964]

There was no man on the Moon.

[@the18thdoctor3]

@@ericephemetherson3964 There were 12.

[@louismartin4446]

I have read many books on the alarm programs minutes before landing. He name never came up. She may have helped to design the programming but the call to GO and NOT ABORT was NOT HERS. The mission was saved by 2 other experts in the back room- Steve Bales and Jack Garmin. Many, many intelligent and dedicated people assisted in the whole moon shot- but only a few have the power to say “GO or NO-GO’ Someone had to have the balls, confidence and standing to make the decision.- and it was NOT her. So let’s keep things in perspective shall we?

[@AlDunbar]

The idea that "balls" are required to do a job is part of the problem that tends to keep women in the background. And it seems likely that "standing" is something reserved mainly for those with "balls". And without those two requirements, confidence alone seems insufficient.

[@tinutifriulano4576]

@@AlDunbar No one said the programmed was not dedicated or not skillful- but the outcome of the successful landing was not due to her. Many weaker people would have aborted and the first alarm. And that my friend required knowledge and leadership-smarts alone would not have landed them on the moon.

[@williamtippins3651]

Correct Sir .

[@peterlewerin4213]

Without Hamilton's contribution, the AGC would have "blue-screened" at the time of the first alarm. The LM would have been unresponsive and the mission would have to be aborted. The decision to "Go" was just a question of looking the alarm up in the book and repeating the recommendation there, but there would not have been any point in making a decision if the LM was dead in space.

[@louismartin4446]

@@peterlewerin4213 Without the engineer who designed the boundary layer in the space suit, they would have evaporated as soon as they cracked the seal on the Eagle’s hatch///etc etc….there were thousands of engineers who contributed to the success…writing code- albeit important- pales in comparison to other feats. And the flight management decisions to GO-NO GO were the ultimate life-or death decisions. There were plenty of women engineers who contributed. I find the article big on WOKENESS and puny on the actual perspective.

[@perpetualtech5906]

I just found your channel and love all your content so far. I just wish they were longer. Keep up the good work.

[@MeAndMyRoyalEnfield]

Another unsung woman. I'm sharing this with girls and young women in my life. Thank you for another very meaningful video.

[@power2084]

That because Don Eyles is THE REAL PERSON who saved the moon landing when it happened. Not Margaret Hamilton.

[@thisulwickramarachchi2380]

Actually, this is not true... The actual person who saved them was Don eyles search it up & see..... This video has false info....

[@the18thdoctor3]

@@power2084 stop spamming

[@whatthehell7975]

@@power2084 stop spamming kevin...got triggered

[@whatthehell7975]

@@thisulwickramarachchi2380 meninist....this is about coding...whatch the video. .if weren't for her...this would be a complete failure

[@JonahNelson7]

As a software engineer I can tell you we still don't go to school to learn how to program haha

[@krishna_2019]

What a beautiful mind. I would really enjoy & appreciate a conversation with Hamilton. The software I've developed were not even close to being as mission critical as hers, but I can relate to her anticipating what could go wrong & how to recover from those problems elegantly. That was always one of my favourite aspect of software engineering, something most of my peers didn't place much importance on. It never hurts to make your systems idiot proof.

[@lemdixon01]

So Amstrong reported the alarm and asked mission control "should I abort" and Hamilton said "forget it".

[@peterlewerin4213]

No, the FIDO (Flight Dynamics Officer) backroom (assistants to FIDO) looked the code up in the manuals and told FIDO to "go" it. Hamilton's software kept the LM running instead of crashing due to the overload that caused the alarm.

[@BatMan-oe2gh]

Just like to point out, that While Margaret wrote a lot of code. It was more than her who saved the day on Apollo 11. But I am still happy that she got recognised for her achievements as so many Women who have contributed greatly to the Space program in the early days are only now coming to light. Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan are names that spring to mind who contributed greatly to the Space program.

[@aliciaasc4996]

Very inspiring, It's unbelievable how many other stories like hers is still out there.

[@youtuberdude2246]

Correct, it is not beleivable because it is an outgrowth of the mythology around this woman-- she did not write that massive stack of code nor save the landing all by herself.

[@szczacdoryja]

All people work hard to put us there...Unbeliveble... THX 4all

[@jmctigret]

Did not know this, she amazing . Thanks for sharing!

[@deeestuary]

Margaret Hamilton no doubt did a great job leading the software team. But many others were involved and Don Eyles probably wrote and tested more of the software than anybody else for the Lunar module. But as far as those particular alarms are concerned SimSup should take great credit for bringing the significance of the computer alarms to the attention of Apollo mission control during a training session not long before the Apollo 11 launch. When those alarms went off during a simulation they, wrongly, aborted not realising it wasn’t a critical condition. After that they went away and made sure they knew exactly all about them!

[@STho205]

Well said.

[@williamtippins3651]

It was Jack Garman who recognized the problem during an earlier simulation and had worked up the procedure's to deal with it. Indeed, one could say MIT caused the problem by sending in a late Crew Procedures Change Sheet, and later not sending in another to cancel the first one when they (MIT) discovered that the first one was not necessary .

[@c.a.g.3130]

I am so proud of Margaret Hamilton. To think, that someone who began as the Wicked Witch of the West could rise to become so essential to our successful manned landing on the moon. Truly inspiring. I guess Hollywood has something to offer after all.

[@tomsanders5584]

I had heard about this feature of the code but never knew about the engineer behind it. Great story!

[@rodgerrodger1839]

It's amazing how we never ever heard about her. We all remember the 1201,1202 alarms and Niel's voice going up a few octaves when he asked about them. Another slap in the face to women and their contributions to getting us into space. Sick really. Very sick.

[@hypercomms2001]

I would say that the software engineer that was in mission control and who had the foresight to write down the error messages and appropriate responses, is the real engineer that saved the mission..

[@tonycook1624]

Steve Bales probably shares 50% with Margaret Hamilton on this. Steve had asked Margaret's team for the error code list and meanings (after seeing those codes in an earlier rehearsal simulation) so he knew the 1202/1201 codes signaled a restart from last checkpoint (Margaret's invention) so it was safe to continue and called that.

[@hypercomms2001]

@@tonycook1624 And also Jack Garman.... "During the Apollo missions Garman worked in a support role, advising flight controllers in Mission Control on the operation of spacecraft computer systems. A few months before the Apollo 11 mission he suggested that simulation supervisors at Mission Control test how flight controllers might react to a computer error code. Guidance officer Steve Bales responded to the simulated error by calling an abort, which was found to be a needless reaction for that particular code. Gene Kranz told Garman: 'I want you to study and write down every possible program alarm whether they can happen or not.' Garman made a handwritten list of every computer alarm code that could occur along with the correct reaction to each of them and put it under the plexiglass on his desk"... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Garman

[@williamtippins3651]

@@hypercomms2001 It was Garman who had studied the problem from a previous SIM and knew how to react.

[@JaiRudraNath]

Loved her story.. Inspiring..

[@decafmocha211]

An amazing story ! Thanks

[@mt-qc2qh]

I thought it was actually Don Eyles who wrote the landing code. He was on Hamilton's staff, and as a rookie the landing code was his first assignment.

[@power2084]

It was. This video is very misleading. Don Eyles is the real person who saved the landing when it happened.

[@com-ev5wq]

Yeah. I think this is one of the "kill all men " campaign by feminazis...

[@Anicius_]

How disgusting are you people. Never wanting to learn always resorting to bigotry and irrational innuendo. Don eyles worked on the lunar module not the coding. Don Eyles is a retired computer scientist who worked on the computer systems in the Apollo Lunar Module vehicle (basic info from wiki). Margaret Hamilton, renowned mathematician and computer science pioneer, is credited with having coined the term software engineering while developing the guidance and navigation system for the Apollo spacecraft as head of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. The mission could have been aborted but thanks to Margaret Hamilton and her code to prevent user-errors, the landing was safe and three minutes later a human placed their feet on the moon for the first time in history. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program. She later founded two software companies-Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are major differences in their work read a few articles at least before speaking

[@power2084]

@@Anicius_ Oh you just said that Don Eyles worked on the lunar module, not the coding? Well let's see if that's true ! Let's check Google. Search string: "did don eyles write code". Oooooh guess what appears as the first search result ? "Don Eyles, in his Boston loft, was just out of college when he went to work for MIT's Instrumentation Lab and helped write the code that guided men to the moon". You're busted ! Second search result: "Don was responsible for writing code for the Lunar Module, specifically about 2000 lines that actually landed man on the moon". You're busted again !!

[@chair6180]

@@power2084 my great great grandparents helped Armstrong on the moon by planting a flower that had produced an oxygen molecule he breathed.

[@1900s_forreal]

Now that's a software engineer ❤️❤️❤️

[@kristelpi652]

Why do random men think they can be the judge of who is a real software engineer??

[@thisulwickramarachchi2380]

@@kristelpi652 both men or women can judge anyone if they r good at something.... U r just misandric..... & besides if u search it up it was actually don eyles Who saved them.... this video is quite misleading....

[@josephrogers5337]

Quite a story and a great achievement showing women can do what ever regardless to their gender. I can also think of another one about a woman who was hired for the Dayton Project. She quickly became head of the accounting lab. She had a major in math from Miami University of Ohio. She also had a minor in Physics (not much known about radioactivity then. She was the one who insured the quality of the Alpha trigger on the two bombs that were dropped on Japan. She was under contract to Monsanto and when she retired in1976 she was in Who's Who in America as nuclear Physicist. with 20 published papers and was in the top 5 in her specialty. My Aunt Mary Lou (Rogers) Curtis. All this before women's lib.

[@josephrogers5337]

Mistake Counting lab, carried on the works of Marie Curie.

[@georgeworley6927]

Magnificent lady. She was talked about when I worked @ Johnson Space Center. I do have a bone to pick about Paoli, IN. I am glad I had CC turned as I could recognize where you said by the way you said it. The city is pronounced like this: pay-o-lay Less than 100 miles (161 km) from where I live. George

[@MIflyer5124]

Okay, now here is the Rest of The Story: During the development of the software someone decided that the LEM software should be tasked to track the location of the Command Module so that in the event of an abort on the way down they could very quickly accomplish the required rocket motor burns to enable the CM and LEM to dock. But this was the straw that broke the camel's back. On the way down the computer began to signal that it could not handle all of the required tasks simultaneously. Margaret Hamilton recognized that the error message was that, and could be ignored. Now, who was it that decided to add the feature that overtasked the LEM computer? Margaret Hamilton, that's who.

[@BatMan-oe2gh]

I checked your assertion and in fact she designed the system so that when it did become overloaded it would just do the important critical tasks, which it did. Remember, computers were limited in what they could do. So everything was still in it's infancy and mistakes would be more common. The simple fact is, her program worked. It shut off anything not important and just did the main tasks. To me, that is just awesome engineering to be able to use such limited resources and technology to ensure that everything that had to work, did work.

[@MIflyer5124]

@@BatMan-oe2gh When I was in the USAF we were working an joint briefing with KSC showing what we could do for the X-33 program. All kinds of things were added to the briefing based on many suggestions, including a background that showed a picture of Cape Canaveral Rocket Row at dusk. Then they pushed the key on the computer to run the briefing for the first time. Nothing happened. The briefing had overloaded the computer. Perhaps what she really did that was important was design the software so that it would keep running despite all the overload of "good ideas" that had been put into it? With some organizations it seems that overloading processes with Good Ideas is endemic.

[@davidfeldman4067]

Uh, yeah - no. That's not even close. The LEM had a ranging radar that was there to help the process of docking the LEM to the Command Module. It was not needed at all during the landing - but it was designed so that it wouldn't send data to the computer when there was nothing within a specific range. Because of this, it was always left on, though there was a disable switch. Unfortunately, there was a hardware error in the data module. Because of that, it sent data to the computer even when there was nothing to see. Even though the data was null, if it was sent, the computer had to process it. Thus there was an extra operation running during the landing. It was that extra operation, dealing with the extraneous radar data, that caused the overload. And Overload isn't really the right term - because the system had more to do than it had time to do it, it attempted to schedule an extra process. It's process stack was 8 deep, and it tried to schedule a 9th process. That is the 1202 error. If you want to know the truth in detail, watch all of this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGKtY4WDpNd9jq8

[@kallewirsch2263]

In addition to what David Fledman said: It wasn't Mararet who recognized the error message. It was a flight controller at the trench in mission control who know the error message. The story is this: During mission training the controllers were constantly charged with unusual situations and had to decide if an abort is needed or not. This decision had to be made fast. On the very last simulation training the simulation supervisor gave them a computer error to deal with. The controller called an abort, which was the wrong action. Gene Kranz was furious, because usually the last simulation training before the actual launch is one without any major problems to build up confidence in the flight controllers that they can handle the job. But this time it was different. To make a long story short, the controller made it a habit to gather all informations he can get on specific computer errors, compile them in a list and he did this in the nighttime between the last simulator training and the actual launch. That is why he knew what the correct action was and how to deal with that error. His name is Steve Bales and he was the GUIDO during the landing attempt of Eagle.

[@davidfeldman4067]

Thank you kallewirsch2263. You are absolutely correct - and I thought I knew the name, but couldn't remember it. That's why they got the "1202 is a go as long as it's only intermittent" response so quickly - because on of the guys in "the trench" did his homework and was ready when he was needed.

[@yogibarista2818]

Sorry, but that's not correct. The process scheduling and prioritization was due to the the custom operating system designed by J. 'Hal' Laning - and it's the reason the famous 1201/2 alarms were thrown - as it discarded low priority tasks to retain the important ones, such as controlling the craft. There is a well known documentary that can be found on KZbin - The Moon Machines: Navigation Computer - that contains many interviews with the Apollo programmers, including Margaret Hamilton and her comments on the 1201/2 alarms.

[@sinebar]

Well as I scrolled through the comments I anticipated some man would try to belittle the accomplishments of a women with lies and sadly I didn't have to look far.

[@flynahull]

Yes, more details can also be found in Don Eyles' memoir "Sunburst and Luminary" about the codes that he and Allan Klumpp wrote that guided the LM to the lunar surface. He gives credit to Hal Laning for his groundbreaking work in originating the concepts of "asynchronous software" and "priority scheduling".

[@rockpadstudios]

@@sinebar Typical - making decisions based on emotion. She was one of 1000's of engineers that made the moon landing possible. To say the entire Apollo program was saved because of her is laughable. Someday you are saying in my lifetime I'm going to see a company like KZbin, thought off and implemented by all women? It's never going to happen, they all fight and bicker about how each other dress - from the storied I've read so far. She was smart women at the right place standing on the shoulders of giants. This re-writing of history is a laugh - she did her job well great but saved the Apollo moon landing come on.

[@joshuahunter2825]

Very cool. Need to get a Margaret Hamilton T-Shirt

[@mariodasilva8729]

Hamilton was well deserving be recognized, and its never too late. Happy to know. She got her award before her passing...which is rare for famous persons.

[@albertbatfinder5240]

It’s really not necessary to rewrite history in order to honour Margaret Hamilton. You can read and hear the real story, in Margaret’s own words, in plenty of places in the Internet. The story described here does not describe her role in what happened. She herself, a brilliant engineer and scientist, would be sickened by the sloppiness. But heck, who cares, eh?

[@strategymythbuster910]

gimme that link

[@albertbatfinder5240]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WoZaedZdF3brM. Around minute 34 they start the lunar descent, but the whole video, and the whole series is great.

[@strategymythbuster910]

@@albertbatfinder5240 tq bro

[@DeathValleyDazed]

Totally inspiring!

[@perpetualgrin5804]

Still the best thing I've seen on TV.

[@Rudransh63]

Thanks for Explaining something new to me ...

[@manasid5052]

This story got me goosebumps. Hats off

[@gerardomata.costarica]

I love these stories, I love newsthink.

[@adrianomoura5397]

There should be a movie about this woman.

[@tonbopro]

thx for sharing

[@divinelyh]

Respect 📈 😌and still so many of these names go unheard of . And people are still fighting that it's actually an desert and humans never landed on moon . lmao 😂

[@tomhummel2641]

Getting the Turing award is far from being unheard of!

[@1900s_forreal]

Cindy Pom: Margaret Hamilton Me: I know her But also Me: Am Gonna watch it tho, your videos organization from beginning to end is always filled with news_think 😀 besides you always blow me away how you integrate your videos with your sponsors, great job Sister

[@europaeuropa3673]

Who invented the priority interrupt system? Carel Scholten and Bram Loopstra filed a patent for a priority interrupt system in the Netherlands in June 1958 and in the U.S. in June 1959. The patent was granted as U.S. 3,079,082 in February 1963. The Atlas introduced a paged virtual memory. Margret Hamilton used interrupt priority programming that was invented 10 years earlier.

[@kallewirsch2263]

Actually it was Hal Lenning who came up with the OS-core and the tasking/waitlist system in the AGC. This video is very misleading as it make it sound like Margaret singlehandedly landed the LM on the moon. That is a gross exaggeration of reality.

[@europaeuropa3673]

@@kallewirsch2263 their agenda is to glorify minorities as if they walked on water.

[@hiteshtanwar6113]

made me cry🥺

[@paulfrombrooklyn5409]

This may not be true. There is another YT video that disputes this. Here is some of the description: Perhaps the most dramatic moment of Apollo 11's mission to the moon was when the Eagle began its final descent to the lunar surface and the Apollo Guidance Computer became overloaded. Few were more nervous than the young computer programmer who had written the code for the landing. On the Apollo 11's 50th anniversary, WSJ sat down with programmer Don Eyles. Here is the video : kzbin.info/www/bejne/sGXGn2xpfZumg5I

[@jonglewongle3438]

The other KZbin video would be far closer to the truth.

[@nomadexplorer6682]

Imagine math, programming and a lady called Margret Hamilton doing a life saving task in 1969 for that 'Giant Leap for Mankind.' My salutations to her. Brilliant ! 👍

[@stifler4eva1]

NASA'S PR TEAM IS WORKING HARD TO PROVE MOON LANDING WAS REAL

[@anuj31416]

I know they will just not stop. Its amazing to see such liars at work.

[@vikasmanav3715]

Truly inspiring...

[@manojsubramanyam]

She's awesome! She'll be remembered.

[@sjorlando7282]

In the movie “Hidden Figures” the women who did the math work were called “computers”.

[@satos1]

Fantastic movie.

[@tomfull6637]

Thx. Interesting story!

[@williammacdonald9271]

Great story…thank you

[@martiddy]

She's one of the most influential women in the field of computers along with Ada Lovelace.

[@davyroger3773]

And Barbra Liskov

[@tomhummel2641]

@@davyroger3773 Barbara Liskov, (born Huberman) that is. Add one more 'a'! But Barbra Streisand.

[@Dave-sw2dm]

Ada got a programming language named after her. Too bad it is no longer used.

[@m.chumakov1033]

Last year my kid's class (Canada) received a list of "less well known" scientists to choose from and make a presentation about them be cause "they also deserve to be known". There was even a lady on the list who calculated trajectories at NASA. But despite her marvelous achievements Margaret Hamilton would not have made the list due to... the tone of her epithelium.

[@ethansocrates4252]

what does epithelium mean?

[@hermanrobak1285]

@@ethansocrates4252 I believe it's the outer layer of the skin. Translation: (@M. Chumakov claims) ms Hamilton was not on the list because she is white. Sounds plausible.

[@ethansocrates4252]

@@hermanrobak1285 ohh, i understand thank you for explaining

[@GeertDelmulle]

I learned from several documentaries that Prioritising commands was a concept built-in in the OS of the computer. Not the Application SW. Another guy was responsible for developing the OS. Having said that, M. Hamilton was indeed a pioneer of SW-engineering and will be forever remembered for it. If only she would have chosen another metaphor that that of the root canal… ;-)

[@ozanpress]

Love you with great respect

[@josephmartin1543]

Wonderful ! Margaret Hamilton at NASA

[@dave5833]

Now our smart phone have a ton more computing capabilities than back in the day. This doesn’t take anything away from this young woman.

[@BrandonKent136]

wtf does that have to do with literally anything? What she did is far more impressive.

[@mwanikimwaniki6801]

@@BrandonKent136 It is impressive that guys went to the moon with such little processing power.

[@kallewirsch2263]

The question is not how much more computing power we have today. The question which needs to be asked is: What jobs had the computer to do and was the computing power sufficient to do them. And the answer is yes. Todays computers spend at least 80% of their time drawing fancy graphics. None of that was necessary to fly to the moon.

[@rozaparvin-1387]

kudos to her🤩

[@markoconnell804]

Thank you Margaret Hamilton. Thank your daughter too.

[@BedsitBob]

"Three minutes before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface." The 1202 and 1201 alarms didn't happen minutes before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. They happened minutes before the Eagle landed. Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface, six hours and 39 minutes after the landing.

[@pleasepermitmetospeakohgre1504]

Allegedly.

[@JP-sx9nf]

I once saved this planet from an alien, we just didnt film it.

[@justinsurla6043]

I saw it too

[@alanhoffman-mp2es]

Margaret was the pinnacle of the mission, It wouldn't have happened with out her... American Hero, She's up there with Edison Bell and Musk😂 Take care, Margaret!

[@cosaosa2855]

Without her, to this day we still would not be able to land on the moon.

[@The_SSS]

Wow. I'm proud to be a software engineer

[@power2084]

Let's not forget that Don Eyles is THE REAL PERSON who saved the moon landing when it happened. Not Margaret Hamilton.

[@thepeddle]

Dude stop commenting the same damn comment...we get it you think Don was more important.

[@power2084]

@@thepeddle well the important thing is that you read it at least once. For me, it's mission accomplished, the Eagle has landed.

[@dreambig6422]

Then please explain how she got such a high middle of honor? did they gave it to her to be nice? of course not. All the team of course played an important part, but give credit where credit is due, Margaret Hamilton was crucial for landing.

[@power2084]

@@dreambig6422 You certainly won't get a medal of honor in spelling, seeing how you murdered the word "medal".

[@whatthehell7975]

@@power2084 you did not ans tho

[@kspavankrishna]

Legend

[@guitarttimman]

I didn't I know about her? She's awesome!

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Genius, she was definitely a pioneer.

[@cheegum6296]

As a wintel systems admin I generally try to stay as far away from writing code as I can. This is why. Bravo Margaret!

[@sirmeowcelot]

A true inspirational legendary Woman. My sincere respects.

[@silentblackhole]

The more I read on the Apolo missions, the more I appreciate how sketchy this was. Everything being pushed to limit.

[@maninthemiddleground2316]

Though I am having a hard time thinking otherwise I hope this video isn't trying to push an political agenda. Don't get me wrong what Hamilton did is great and worthy of praise and probably even more so. However, saying she "saved" the moon landings may diminish other contributions by other people. She contributed her share that helped the US win the space race to the moon. Like the people who figured out how to mitigate combustion instability by installing baffles. Minimizing pogo. The entire space program was built on incremental developments, inventions and discoveries. There wouldn't be a space program without an rocket program and this wouldn't have without a aircraft program.

[@carloskarbat]

Congratulations, very good observation, they want to politicize everything, but from that came softwear and small computers for ordinary people, from that came a multitude of companies like apple, microsoft and others, thanks to Apollo

[@Drnehaprasad]

Thank you so much for this. I so wish you were my teacher

[@dougmacmcclelland1323]

I am a Software and hardware EE. In my micro controller designs over the last 30 some odd years, I have always expected my servo control system to fail and put code for recovery so as to always keep the controller software in control.

[@kcinkg]

One of the boldest milestones? Are you serious?, name one that even approaches the moon landing. Ok, this is an edu channel so I must point out….them the rules. 1- it was 3 minutes before landing not walking. Small error 2- Apollo 11 missing the landing would not have left the door open for the Russians, they were never even close. Glaring error.

[@Tampapix]

I agree, I caught that right away. Reporters and educators should be held to a higher standard of accuracy because they have the power to influence the the thoughts of a great number of listeners. For me, Landing vs. Walking is a huge error. Look at all the people who posted here that were misled by that small error.

[@kcinkg]

@@Tampapix 👍 i suspect that Cindy is only on KZbin to make money, rarely any engagement with subs. She seems to be in a hurry to get to the Brand deal advertisement.

[@joejohnston2035]

There's never been a man from Earth on the moon.. period

[@chezman3892]

Brilliant woman. She did amazing things using her own intuition considering no type of formal education yet existed for the work she did.

[@franklinegbuche7097]

Brilliant

[@ivanichianus683]

Too bad we never went to the moon.

[@davidmacphee8348]

I don't get the joke.

[@Z3nHolEminD]

Room 237

[@ivanichianus683]

Cool David even though we all know you do - GOOD ONE.

[@the18thdoctor3]

You’ll be delighted, I’m sure, to learn that we actually did - nine times! At least, if that’s what “too bad” means, and you’re actually willing to open your mind to correct information.

[@b43xoit]

You weren't included, but men went.

[@bobrennan1]

What moon landing?

[@davidmacphee8348]

You are joking, right?

[@WRXMAN-ms2mm]

So this women’s amazing mind was the one that made the program that allowed a NASA controller to have a written list of error codes at his console to make the mission critical call. This software coding and the computers ability to prioritize and deal with computer overload thought of by Hal Laning made this computer truly amazing for its time from an operational perspective.

[@someonejustsomeone1469]

Thank you, Harry Potter. Your contributions won't be forgotten.

[@rajarka3619]

RIP to viewer's who think we went to the moon 41 years back, we don't have enough technology or computer's not powerful enough to land on the moon and come back from the moon to earth

[@the18thdoctor3]

Computers aren’t the problem, it’s money. Rockets are still just as expensive as back then, but now NASA’s budget is a fraction of what it used to be. Try thinking.

[@zoogl]

we're going back in 2023 as a part of the artemis program..

[@b43xoit]

Every time you use an apostrophe to make a plural, a puppy dies.

[@ThanosChin]

I thought moon landing is a conspiracy

[@davidmacphee8348]

Now you know it wasn't

[@b43xoit]

Many people breathed together when they were planning it, so, yes, conspiracy figured into achieving it.

[@CONTACTLIGHTTOMMY]

She didn't SAVE the moon landing. It was a huge effort on the part of dozens of programers. She played a vital role, but so did many others. She was a brilliant person, but Hal Lanning probably deserves more credit for developing the Executive Overflow routines in the software.

[@frankdavidson644]

Yeah Lady Awesome job.

[@MAbdullahMomen]

It was faked tho

[@federalinvestigation9962]

yup but many still dont think so. earth is not a ball. little boys clothing has spacemen and dinosaurs for a reason, they want to indoctrinate the youth early

[@Aaron-hh8nx]

Nope it wasn't

[@Aaron-hh8nx]

@@federalinvestigation9962 🤦‍♂️

[@Aaron-hh8nx]

@Terry Winter what

[@WB8BRA]

These untold stories should and must be told... This is why America is great. the people who perform miracles..

[@DrHydro-mq7sw]

Endlich mal eine Sendung, welche nicht die Rolle von der Fr. Hamliton unterschlägt. Ich habe schon Beiträge über das Rechnersystem von Apollo gesehen, welche sie tatsächlich nicht ein einziges mal erwähnt.

[@Fluffyllama001]

This story was so inspiring. Makes me want to self-teach myself programming 🧑‍💻

[@h.dejong2531]

Go for it, programming is fun.