We need more software engineers like this.

Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

Today’s the birthday of Margaret Hamilton.

What I find fascinating about her work was the fact that she was building the field of computer software engineering as she went along. The brilliance of her work wasn’t so much that she build a system to help the astronauts reach the moon, but that she built it to basically save them from their own mistakes.

When NASA began its quest to send the first humans to the moon, there was immense pressure to make certain that whomever went up into space also came back down safely. Too much was riding on the success of the moon landing and any mistake could have dire consequences for the astronauts. It would be devastating to the space program if something terrible happened with millions of people around the world sitting on the edge of their seats watching each space launch and landing.

Astronauts are highly trained, intelligent people, selected for their ability to function under extreme pressure. But even astronauts make mistakes, push the wrong button, switch the wrong knob. How do you reconcile the absolute need for “no room for error” with the fact that “to err is human?”

Margaret Hamilton figured out a way.

Read more about her on the SRPS blog: https://selfrescuingprincesssociety.blogspot.com/2017/08/todays-birthday-of-computer-science.html