Margaret Hamilton and the printed code for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Draper Laboratory

A few days ago, on September 30, 2026, pioneering computer scientist Margaret Hamilton died in Cambridge, Mass. at age 90. Hamilton was the leader of the team that wrote the code for the computer used on the Apollo missions to the moon in the late 1960s and early 70s.

Hamilton invented the term “software engineering” and led the software engineering team at MIT that developed the software for the Apollo guidance computer (AGC). Her savvy ideas built into the AGC software prevented the a disastrous computer malfunction on the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. Could the landing have been done without her?

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