5 ms·

Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon

23 points by pallas_athena 3y ago

pallas_athena 3y ago
(2019), title was too long
carrolldunham 3y ago
This narrative has been questioned as a bit of feel-good manipulation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  For what it's worth, this narrative has been floating around for a minute, and conveniently ignores _how_ she became a junior programmer. Go look it up :) suddenly "brought on as a jr" becomes less an indictment of her skills, and more an indictment of NASA management undervaluing a woman.
  - defrost 3y ago
    BA in mathematics, followed by four years cutting code in non linear dynamics at MIT Lincoln Lab and Cambridge Research Laboratories. With that background why would hiring Hamilton as a junior at the Draper Laboratory be an indictment of NASA managaement?
    - Sterm 3y ago
      Because the majority of programmes today are uneducated.
      - Grum9 3y ago
        [dead]
    - parker_mountain 3y ago
      Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point?
      - defrost 3y ago
        Ahhh .. you should have expanded upon that. FWiW I did a pure applied mathematics degree + half an actual engineering course (it got too easy so I transfered to math as they were letting students work directly on control systems for robots rather than rote bookwork). Four years after graduation, with four years coding experience on things both numerical and symbolic I transferred into a geophysics position developing software for signal aquistion (from sat, sea, air, and ground units), processing, projection, interpretation (this was before Keyhole + google maps | google earth so the group was also writing their own world scale mapping software (late 80s | early 90s)). Long story short, I had similar experience levels to Hamiliton at that time and I was very definitely a Jr on the team as everybody else had way more eperience than I did. I guess such things are relative.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Just tell us _how_ instead of making us guess? I tried to find the answer but given your exclusion I guess rumours of sexual relations?
    - parker_mountain 3y ago
      Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point? Also, why would you assume "sexual relations"? That's just crass.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        Many times a "you know *giggle*" implies something sex.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  It's frustrating how often this happens. Exaggerating someone's achievements isn't helpful, it's undermining them and others like them, as now people will rationally be more sceptical of similar claims The story of Ada Lovelace seems to get more fantastic every time I hear it. Even Turing himself, who has no shortage of actual achievements, has his role in the Enigma cracking overstated at the expense of other cryptanalysts, especially those from other countries
  - jadamson 3y ago
    I only recently read about the contribution of Polish mathematicians in breaking Enigma. Fairly sure that wasn't mentioned when I visited Bletchley Park Museum as a kid. Ada Lovelace might not have been the "first programmer", but she was at least talented, a visionary, and an interesting character.
  - wrp 3y ago
    An ironic thing about the Lovelace story is that while the popular impression of her is quite twisted, the real story is just as interesting. Stephen Wolfram wrote a nice article a while back, after he spent effort to consult primary sources to try to grasp the reality behind the myth. As for the Poles who were actually the first to crack the Enigma code, they aren't alone among Polish mathematicians being ignored in the West. My top example of a Polish mathematician who unjustly lacks fame would be Helena Rasiowa.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  If it was really so controversial, you'd expect to at least find traces at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... (or in the archive at) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)/Archive_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... It seems that no one has so much as questioned the narrative on Wikipedia. And the only source we have questioning it is a nitter/twitter thread (above). Which is not saying that the questioner is wrong per-se, -it could be a niche of a niche thing-, but eh.
SquidJack 3y ago
Lol still believe she was the one created the program
- readingistuff 3y ago
  I didn't see that claim in the article. I saw a claim that she created an index of sorts, and that she led the program for a time.
jadamson 3y ago
Yeah, no. https://nitter.net/AnechoicMedia_/status/1629315139169075200 https://nitter.net/AnechoicMedia_/status/1629315139169075200
- jojobas 3y ago
  Next you'll say Katie Bouman didn't single-handedly image black holes. Or that Elisabeth Holmes.. eh.
- readingistuff 3y ago
  Not exactly the most unbiased source, that account has a number of obvious chips on its shoulders... Do you have a more neutral source that Hamilton didn't lead the team when the moon landing happened?
  - jadamson 3y ago
    I'm not sure why you're claiming familiarity with the author when you haven't even read the thread. She was the lead in 1969 when they landed on the moon, however she was promoted by her soon-to-be husband after the vast majority of the software had already been written.
    - cauch 3y ago
      I think the comment was referring to you saying "yeah no" to a thread subject that is "Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon". It is funny that your answer seems to blame or mock the commenter for not being hyper precise with their words and yet you also were not. (for example, you could answer me something like "well, the 'yeah no' did not refer to the title, that's just one interpretation" and blame me for not having accounted for that, while you yourself did not account at all that the previous comment can just refer to your "yeah no" juxtaposed to the title)
- defrost 3y ago
  Apollo 8 was unmanned and hardly the final version of the flight software. Hamilton was hired early, was a software director by 1965 and her and a team iterated development through the first crewed flights in 1968 until the end of the program in 1972. http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/apollo/public/conference1/hamilton-intro.htm http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_en... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

23 points by pallas_athena 3y ago

(2019), title was too long

This narrative has been questioned as a bit of feel-good manipulation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945

parker_mountain 3y ago
For what it's worth, this narrative has been floating around for a minute, and conveniently ignores _how_ she became a junior programmer. Go look it up :) suddenly "brought on as a jr" becomes less an indictment of her skills, and more an indictment of NASA management undervaluing a woman.
- defrost 3y ago
  BA in mathematics, followed by four years cutting code in non linear dynamics at MIT Lincoln Lab and Cambridge Research Laboratories. With that background why would hiring Hamilton as a junior at the Draper Laboratory be an indictment of NASA managaement?
  - Sterm 3y ago
    Because the majority of programmes today are uneducated.
    - Grum9 3y ago
      [dead]
  - parker_mountain 3y ago
    Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point?
    - defrost 3y ago
      Ahhh .. you should have expanded upon that. FWiW I did a pure applied mathematics degree + half an actual engineering course (it got too easy so I transfered to math as they were letting students work directly on control systems for robots rather than rote bookwork). Four years after graduation, with four years coding experience on things both numerical and symbolic I transferred into a geophysics position developing software for signal aquistion (from sat, sea, air, and ground units), processing, projection, interpretation (this was before Keyhole + google maps | google earth so the group was also writing their own world scale mapping software (late 80s | early 90s)). Long story short, I had similar experience levels to Hamiliton at that time and I was very definitely a Jr on the team as everybody else had way more eperience than I did. I guess such things are relative.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Just tell us _how_ instead of making us guess? I tried to find the answer but given your exclusion I guess rumours of sexual relations?
  - parker_mountain 3y ago
    Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point? Also, why would you assume "sexual relations"? That's just crass.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Many times a "you know *giggle*" implies something sex.
didntcheck 3y ago
It's frustrating how often this happens. Exaggerating someone's achievements isn't helpful, it's undermining them and others like them, as now people will rationally be more sceptical of similar claims The story of Ada Lovelace seems to get more fantastic every time I hear it. Even Turing himself, who has no shortage of actual achievements, has his role in the Enigma cracking overstated at the expense of other cryptanalysts, especially those from other countries
- jadamson 3y ago
  I only recently read about the contribution of Polish mathematicians in breaking Enigma. Fairly sure that wasn't mentioned when I visited Bletchley Park Museum as a kid. Ada Lovelace might not have been the "first programmer", but she was at least talented, a visionary, and an interesting character.
- wrp 3y ago
  An ironic thing about the Lovelace story is that while the popular impression of her is quite twisted, the real story is just as interesting. Stephen Wolfram wrote a nice article a while back, after he spent effort to consult primary sources to try to grasp the reality behind the myth. As for the Poles who were actually the first to crack the Enigma code, they aren't alone among Polish mathematicians being ignored in the West. My top example of a Polish mathematician who unjustly lacks fame would be Helena Rasiowa.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
If it was really so controversial, you'd expect to at least find traces at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... (or in the archive at) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)/Archive_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... It seems that no one has so much as questioned the narrative on Wikipedia. And the only source we have questioning it is a nitter/twitter thread (above). Which is not saying that the questioner is wrong per-se, -it could be a niche of a niche thing-, but eh.

SquidJack 3y ago

Lol still believe she was the one created the program

readingistuff 3y ago
I didn't see that claim in the article. I saw a claim that she created an index of sorts, and that she led the program for a time.

jadamson 3y ago

Yeah, no. https://nitter.net/AnechoicMedia_/status/1629315139169075200 https://nitter.net/AnechoicMedia_/status/1629315139169075200

jojobas 3y ago
Next you'll say Katie Bouman didn't single-handedly image black holes. Or that Elisabeth Holmes.. eh.
readingistuff 3y ago
Not exactly the most unbiased source, that account has a number of obvious chips on its shoulders... Do you have a more neutral source that Hamilton didn't lead the team when the moon landing happened?
- jadamson 3y ago
  I'm not sure why you're claiming familiarity with the author when you haven't even read the thread. She was the lead in 1969 when they landed on the moon, however she was promoted by her soon-to-be husband after the vast majority of the software had already been written.
  - cauch 3y ago
    I think the comment was referring to you saying "yeah no" to a thread subject that is "Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon". It is funny that your answer seems to blame or mock the commenter for not being hyper precise with their words and yet you also were not. (for example, you could answer me something like "well, the 'yeah no' did not refer to the title, that's just one interpretation" and blame me for not having accounted for that, while you yourself did not account at all that the previous comment can just refer to your "yeah no" juxtaposed to the title)
defrost 3y ago
Apollo 8 was unmanned and hardly the final version of the flight software. Hamilton was hired early, was a software director by 1965 and her and a team iterated development through the first crewed flights in 1968 until the end of the program in 1972. http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/apollo/public/conference1/hamilton-intro.htm http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_en... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program