Margaret Hamilton, NASA's First Software Engineer

When it comes to Margaret Hamilton's career, she literally shoots for the moon. Hamilton discusses joining NASA as their first software engineer and creating the software that launched the Apollo 11 first manned mission to the moon.

[@ChristopherMilnevcm]

I have taught my six-year old daughter about this woman. Ms. Hamilton is part of our 'pantheon of heros.' My daughter wants to be a scientist.

[@mcjones853]

I can totally tell your exactly the kind of parent I cringe at. Don’t dote on your daughter on social media. We get it you love and cherish your daughter. There are 6 billion people in this world and counting. I can promise you your daughter is average like the rest of us. But with great guidance. I’m sure she will be a great member of society. I wish you the best.

[@bozz1g]

@@mcjones853 exactly, pay attention to this guy Chris

[@bozz1g]

@@mcjones853 exactly, pay attention to this guy Chris

[@berndheiden7630]

@@mcjones853 No, we are not all average like the rest. And when you are honest you don‘t want an average brain surgeon and you don‘t want to fly with an average pilot and if you want it on a slightly smaller scale (and my turf) you don‘t want to have an average dentist surgically removing your wisdom teeth or put in an average crown on a front tooth. Never be content to be just average!

[@Pyllolla]

please let her do science

[@seniorlocalguide]

Margaret Hamilton is a real-life superwoman... Yet, she is so modest, endearing and low key. I can't even begin to fathom her impossible accomplishment on a 32K ROM in Apollo 11 and the Apollo program... And she's the one who coined "Software Engineering"!

[@MeriaDuck]

Why, having studied computer science in the nineties, being alive for the last 45 years, am I only NOW becoming aware of Margaret Hamilton?

[@MarquisDeSang]

Because the "Chosen People" want you to listen to brain damaging Hip-Hop and turn women into useless whores.

[@alvinsmith3894]

She's a woman. As a man it's a fact that women are always disrespected to this extent. Our fellow men need to reflect on how awful most of us are.

[@deborahlee8312]

Thank you Margaret Hamilton! I played this video for 3 classes today in middle and high school. I dressed up at Ms. Hamilton for Halloween, and we learned about her contribution to science and engineering.

[@lizgoldstein4256]

Extraordinary person. I can’t believe she’s 81 here.

[@om3galul989]

The pleasure of being involved in a historical achievement is immeasurable.

[@cutnuramna7243]

Amazing woman. And she did it while being a wife and a mother. Wonderful!

[@glennwoodruff2398]

The software she invented at the company she started in Cambridge is also clever and amazing and very difficult to do. But it works beautifully. She is a true programming genius. God bless her.

[@beakittelscherz5419]

She brought her daughter to work...and that saved a lot of lives...AND the moonlanding. Thats a movieplot right there...

[@missionpupa]

Quite funny how things turn out. The one thing she could have been discriminated against (being a female/mother) was what was needed in that moment. Adults are too careful to find errors.

[@dhairyabhatt3156]

We need movie based on this HOLLYWOOD

[@blonduose]

yes i am against hollywood movies but yes !

[@gregh7457]

@@blonduose yea knowing hollyweird they would do some fancy cgi and rewrite her life story. I'de settle for a pbs documentary

[@blonduose]

@FightWorldSlavery yea because women usually dont get credit for their work you dumba-s. Just because you are uneducated and don't know a thing you dont have to comment stupid things, when you have read approx 200 books and articles on feminism, like I have, we can talk. Meanwhie: shut up

[@blonduose]

@FightWorldSlavery yea sure you have much knowledge :D man you are another specimen of a dumb man. Good job on that really

[@rjl7655]

hollywood is to morally-corrupt and stupid to base a movie on her AS THEY SHOULD...

[@StevenBanks123]

Without her, or so body else, we would never have gotten to the moon. Love the story about her daughter being an accidental focus group and finding a possible error path.

[@FromFame]

She’s so cute and eternally youthful

[@gloverelaxis]

Let's not call genius computer scientists who pioneered programmed spaceflight as "cute" and "youthful", yeah? God I'm so sick of these fucking knuckledragging sexists in CS.

[@brianfoss571]

@Jake Stockton Would you describe an 80-year-old man who pioneered computer science by how cute he looks? No? Then why describe Margaret Hamilton that way? It's nice when STEM professionals care about how they look. But those aren't their main contributions to the world. Some people can't bring themselves to value women for their brainpower and grit to solve tough problems. Calling someone "cute" doesn't even compliment effort they put into their appearance - that's not a respectful way to describe a fashion designer, let alone a tech pioneer.

[@brianfoss571]

@FromFame Would it have hurt to describe her as *enthusiastic* , *passionate* , *energetic* , *sharp* , or *witty* ? I'm assuming you got all of these impressions from her interview, but is there any reason "cute" and "youthful" were the only two words that came to mind? You wouldn't describe an 80-year-old male software pioneer that way, would you?

[@HTML5Teacher]

Here is an old television commercial (from the Apollo era) which features a model who looks like her (sister? - almost _could_ be! ) : kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXTWnXyljLWChK8

[@jaydee5156]

I grew up with the space program, from Mercury to the Shuttle and followed it closely. Until the Shuttle, I think I watched and followed every televised launch. I had never heard of her until just a few short years ago and I'm angry. She should be every bit as well known as the men who flew.

[@bostonseeker]

The media also obsessively focused on the astronauts and a few top administrators at NASA. The army of engineers and others who had to invent all this stuff that didn't yet exist were barely noticed or understood. Another case was Hamilton's colleague at MIT, Don Eyles, who played the same critical role with the lunar lander. The internal NASA histories from the 1970s on did give ample credit to the unsung heroes of Apollo. There was also the massive industrial effort to build the Saturn boosters and make them work properly and not explode, which stretched aerospace engineering to its limit. Remember there was no CAD/CAM or virtual modeling with computers in those days. Look up "saturn booster fuel baffles." It was done with vibration sensors, some x-rays, and very smart guesswork.

[@RightCenterBack321]

Oh stop it. Most (as in nearly all) of the non-astronauts never receive the recognition they deserved. Most of them were men. Are you angry about that? Of course not. So, relax and understand, if anything, Hamilton was as obscure as the vast majority of those who never flew in space.

[@jaydee5156]

@@RightCenterBack321 I'm glad to see you're finally up from your nap. My comment was from LAST YEAR.

[@joeturner7959]

@@RightCenterBack321 She saved the lives of both Aldrin, and Armstrong on the Apollo 11, when the landing computers all went into alarm mode, and she told Gene Kranz, that he should tell Armstrong that it was GO, and Kranz listened to her. She saved the lives of Lovell, Haise and Swigert, and was represented in the movie Apollo 13.

[@JustSujC]

It’s the curse of the engineer. You work so hard for someone else’s dream and someone else will take all the credit. The blessing is that you give life to an object and you know the secret language between you and it. An unspoken bond for eternity.

[@gloverelaxis]

She's an incredibly impressive and inspiring figure.

[@tski3458]

I am in awe of what you and you're team did for us. Thank you!

[@uaalien]

Nothing but respect and admiration

[@LaplacianFourier]

Wow what an extraordinary person.

[@GetMeCoding]

Thank you for sharing this story! I have shared this with my students for many years and hope that they use it as inspiration as they go forward.

[@hamiltoncarraropinto3209]

Para minhas razões fico emocionado com Margarete Hamilton

[@TusharThakur]

WOW. Thanks for your service :)

[@RodmardosSantosVieira]

i love this, very happy in see this vídeo, thanks.

[@juliemcmanus8678]

Truly inspirational

[@ARTharbour]

I don't believe that there are 4 people disliking that amazing video of this AMAZING WOMAN FIGURE. I love you Margaret, adopt me!

[@parkpunk2]

That picture of her with her daughter is lovely.

[@laurencecope7083]

I'm a self taught hardware engineer. I migrated to software to do hardware testing rigs. Software is easy when you understand what it is doing. The get to know what to tell it to do and understand what it is doing is the difficult bit. A lot of companies I've worked for, had software engineers that did not have a plan for what they were trying to code for. They all failed.

[@marvismeng1953]

This woman is so inspiring

[@EthanLandwehr]

THANKS FOR HELPING ME WITH SOME SCIENCE PROJECTS!!!!!!

[@love-world579]

great scientist and engineer, thank you for your service to the world❤❤

[@ShanmukhAshikAribandi]

wow, positive vibes ..........things happen only and only when one starts just believe

[@missionpupa]

A real living legend, we don't have many of these anymore.

[@murielpereira4507]

you are fab Margaret

[@Selenitypilum]

THANK YOU Margaret for saving the apollo 11 mission.

[@bradleysitsandsipstea33]

She deserved that medal 🏅

[@siusanorourkezigzeitler6870]

Totally AWESOME!

[@NitinBansal85]

Wow...A true genius

[@lucielavigne7396]

She's amazing

[@CottonCookie]

Amazing!!!!

[@wellingtonjackson2473]

Muito bom legal sou fã dela ... AIM FROM BRASIL

[@juljams5760]

Amazing.

[@samaelcoral7297]

This woman should be more famous

[@jonesbbq307]

Such a nice video. Why so few views?

[@kristofszabo666]

Am I correct, that her daughter was (one of) the first manual QA tester in the world? 😄 Margaret is fantastic!

[@hakunablossoms9533]

Such a amazing woman

[@SC-RGX7]

Can't wait for Emma Stone to play her character in a movie about her. We definitely need this, her story, Oppenheimer style.

[@shaylawatson1244]

She a legend

[@rkrw576]

Awesome woman.

[@5000IU]

What a hero :)

[@nisharoka]

Respect ❤️

[@cx4vr1dh4j]

Great 👍

[@flower5396]

What an extraordinary woman.

[@durenajaf9633]

How come there is no movie on this amazing lady???Pick up the idea WB, Paramount or Universal Pictures. I want a movie on her❤😭

[@slordmo2263]

Yes, known about her accomplishments for along time.... intelligent women were coming of age in the 60s.... we, as a nation, truly recognized this, and gratefully accepted their help, and ingenuity.... I am sure there are many untold stories like this, and as we have seen the 50th anniversary of the 1st moon landing this year, we can look back at the 1960s as a paradoxical decade....war, women's liberation movement, drugs, and stupendous technological innovation... I just hope, and pray, that we can rekindle that need for innovation... or we may be on the decline.... just my 2 cents...

[@angelicaquirarte]

Agree

[@lesrecettesdulrikeetnico7112]

Great !

[@taimank]

Wow, we need to put this in a movie, just like Hidden Figures

[@richardheinz]

I can't believe NASA put an ad in the paper.

[@AlexanderDolokhov]

What a woman!!!

[@gloverelaxis]

kill all nazis

[@febriansyahramdani9078]

Beautiful

[@user-wf9mi3kt1j]

At 2:41 you can actually see a piece of a source code on a whiteboard.

[@phenom5817]

I loved her in The Wizard of Oz

[@shawnaburns5158]

Yeah I didn't know she was a engineer/designer very cool❤

[@anakinskywalkerrr]

down the earth lady with down to moon intelligent.

[@alanhoffman-mp2es]

Margaret!!!

[@anthonyaddo8837]

❤

[@jakobole]

On Apollo 11 - that switch was not in a "Wrong" position. It was the checklist that told Neil and Buzz to do so, and THAT was the error.

[@blueskies8834]

It’s more complicated than that. Buzz was the rendezvous expert and he wanted the rendezvous radar on in case they aborted the landing. That way it would be up and running as they looked to find Columbia. They discussed it among the astronauts and sim people and decided to make the checklist change. There was no formal procedure at that time for checklist changes. This change gave the computer to many tasks to do and generated the 1201 & 1202 alarms. The alarms said, I can’t get all the things done you have asked me to so I am only doing the most important ones now. After this all checklist changes had to pass through all departments. The beauty of MS Hamilton’s Programing was that is prioritized all the tasks since the computer could only do so much in a given time.

[@jerrybear6440]

Wow.....

[@JonathanCalkins]

Wow, the amount of knowledge she must hold. Crazy

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Cool to see her daughter who helped with debugging.

[@naeemx1823]

and here I am worried about joining a coding bootcamp because I have no coding experience.

[@peterhaitch7507]

when obama was giving her that award , I noticed ellen , tom hanks de nero etc , omg how are they anything like this woman?? they pale in comparison

[@missionpupa]

Sure, Tom didnt go to the moon or anything like that, but he inspired people in a lot of ways. So, I think he has a lot of value because of that.

[@missionpupa]

@MichaelKingsfordGray You replied to almost a 2 year old comment buddy, you better have a good fuckin excuse for why you replied to me after almost 2 years. Im listening.

[@renatashp]

a great heroine! ❤❤❤

[@pasisovi]

The mass needs a show, a believe, doesnt matter if it is untrue

[@smowzer]

tHE DOWNVOTES ON THIS VIDEO ARE JUST AUSTRALIAN VIEWERS GIVING IT A THUMBS UP

[@PeopleHealthTru]

The title is intentionally deceptive. She was one of many programmers, and not the primary programmer. She was one of the first to call her job a computer engineer.

[@thirdeyetv.]

We need a movie, 2016 when America was great

[@nithuk3712]

She is amazing. Also one more amazing thing is her dressing and hair style looks modern. Like today's generation.

[@isrj01]

⚘💜

[@peterhaitch7507]

4:10 denero is acting very well there to look interested, if its not about him i doubt he gives a hoot

[@snakemansnakes1]

Such a beautiful person and beautiful mind

[@alanhoffman-mp2es]

Margaret Hamilton 😮😮😮....😅😅😅 Any Questions???

[@szeredaiakos]

Hmm, want to hire Lauren as tester. :D

[@Daclaem]

[@jasonwilliams7973]

AYYY THATS MY N1GGA

[@benheideveld4617]

Software Engineer, there are hundreds of thousands calling themselves that job title, and no one without pride!

[@fredgrimley8883]

As much as a movie should be made about this, they (hollywood) shouldn't make it unless they get the right actress. Don't go for the biggest name, go for the right one. The ONLY ONE I see doing it correctly is Mayim Bialik. She has an UNCANNY resemblance to Margaret Hamilton, right down to the oversized glasses, and she's an actual scientist to boot.

[@jasonvai4951]

I am really jealous of people who are born with such an intelligent mind.

[@Lemmebeurrasputin]

who thinks she is pretty ??

[@uaalien]

Who thinks that "pretty" is for kardashians and other nonsense and has nothing to do with people who really make some difference?

[@missionpupa]

@@uaalien Since when are we not allowed to appreciate both beauty and brains? I didnt know they approved a legislation to ban compliments like this, I wasnt notified. P.S. stop watching the Kardashians, they are turning your brain into mush, and never bring them up in the same sentence as this lady. In fact, dont bring them up at all.

[@oscars968]

If you form my school and mr James set this for you like 😂😂 a

[@diouranke]

What was she coding in, just curious

[@dougbadgley6031]

Naͣfiͥsaͣhͪ Oury Bah That’s a good question. I’m not sure either but would like to know as well.

[@bostonseeker]

@@dougbadgley6031 Assembly. I think they tested out ideas in higher-level languages. But coding of the navigation was assembly and stored on the woven core. The astronauts interfaced through the DSKY panel and an architecture that featured a 16-bit word and a noun-verb structure for fixed list of commands for orientation, starting and stopping the engines and thrusters, etc. Digital was essential for getting to the Moon, because analog wasn't accurate enough. Analog was fine for Earth orbit, where just an astronaut with his watch could do basic navigation by hand. Going to the Moon was much more complicated. It involved too many interdependencies for the astronauts to do manually (list Mercury) or even with a simple analog computer (like Gemini). Equally crucial was the introduction of integrated circuits (ICs). Only ICs were light enough to beat the weight limits crucial for getting to the Moon. ICs had never before been used in a full-scale engineering project. At one point, I think NASA was consuming 80% or more of the ICs in the US, stimulating the rapid expansion of the industry. All of this (digital, ICs, Margaret Hamilton and Draper Lab, the mission-saving stack overflow/restart system) were among the reasons the US made it to the Moon when we did and the Soviets didn't.

[@Neon-lt5jl]

Dang 1:42 she was bad though

[@wymank]

Praise God He performed His will through you Margaret, the moon was your mission in mind but advancement in technology and knowledge is a fulfilment of His Prophetic Word that has blessed lives in the medical field and Technology to broadcast His Word, the Good news to a growing world population... My dad worked for NASA then, contributed and learnt much from the Gift God gave you 🙏

[@cheypam]

It was insulting to watch Obama hand out such a prestigious medal of honor to Ellen Degeneres right after this amazing world- changing, brilliant, hard working woman!

[@guitarttimman]

Margaret is one of those women who never lost her beauty. I think she's still very beautiful. I couldn't BELIEVE how damn pretty she was back in the days of the Apollo design. If she'd even touched my hand I would've straight up tingled and probably fainted from the excitement. Excuse me for loving that side of life, but I always will.

[@HTML5Teacher]

Here is an old television commercial which features a model who looks like her (sister?) : kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXTWnXyljLWChK8

[@emilywestbrook9248]

Anyone else noticing there is ellen, bill gates, and tom hanks.

[@Cats4life111]

Also 4 black women helped that time There was racism and white people and black People white people were treated cherresied! And black people were treated badly…

[@raccoon874]

janitors don't count

[@paulinegallagher7821]

@@raccoon874 black men and women were engineers and data configurators and analysts for NASA but were never talked about until recently.

[@raccoon874]

@@paulinegallagher7821 *they probably stole a lot of shit*

[@danielriotercero]

Wow... Lady! You're knows yourself its the beatifull think of the earth?

[@srinidhiarekal3483]

When you spend so much time in coding and don't bother about external stupid stuff ... You end up looking younger even after 80's !!!

[@heinzchmielorz4146]

Zierbedrüse

[@guitarttimman]

If only we could kill the devil.

[@beakittelscherz5419]

@FightWorldSlavery "omg a woman did something lets stand up and make a huge deal!!!! " YES LETS DO THAT! CAUSE 99.99% OF TIME MEN TAKE THEIR CREDIT , OR BE GREEDY ABOUT IT! BTW QED!

[@anshumalikumar3955]

God is a girl.and we must respect God.

[@dand.v8123]

Moonlanding fake