Imaginary interview with Margaret Hamilton
by Charactorium · Margaret Hamilton (1936 — ?) · Technology · Sciences · 4 min read
Two young visitors, each twelve years old, push open the door of an office filled with stacks of paper listings. A gray-haired lady greets them with a smile. She wrote the program that landed men on the Moon, and she's happy to tell the whole story.
—What was the computer you had to program to go to the Moon?
You know, my child, imagine a metal box weighing 32 kilos, heavier than your backpack full of rocks. Inside, there was barely 4 KB of memory. That's tiny, believe me! It was called the AGC, the Apollo Guidance Computer. It was like asking an ant to carry a mountain. Everything had to fit in that small space: navigation, landing, return. So every line I wrote counted double. No room for waste. I spent nights removing unnecessary words, like taking pebbles out of an overloaded sack.
It was like asking an ant to carry a mountain.
—And how did you put the program into the machine back then?
Ah, it wasn't like today! First we wrote our code on punched cards: large cardboard sheets with little holes. Each hole meant something to the machine. Then, the most surprising part: for the spacecraft's memory, women workers wove copper wires through tiny magnetic rings. It was called core rope memory. The program was literally sewn by hand, thread by thread! Imagine: my work ended up under a needle, like knitting. Once sewn, it couldn't be changed. So you had to get it right the first time.
The program was sewn by hand, thread by thread, like knitting.
—Is it true you brought your daughter to work with you in the evenings?
Yes, my little Lauren! Evenings and weekends, I'd go back to the MIT lab and bring her along. The quiet helped me think about failures no one had anticipated. Lauren would play nearby while I reviewed my printed code listings. One day, she pressed a key, as curious children do. And then, surprise: the entire navigation program pretended to crash! Instead of scolding her, I thought: if my daughter can make this mistake, a tired astronaut can too. She opened my eyes.
If my daughter could make that mistake, a tired astronaut could too.
—And after Lauren's mistake, what happened?
I wanted to add a safeguard, a kind of safety net in the program. But the people at NASA said no. They thought a well-trained astronaut would never do such a silly thing. I disagreed. So I secretly wrote code to fix that kind of error anyway. And you know what? In 1968, during Apollo 8, astronaut Jim Lovell accidentally erased important data, just like Lauren! My little net saved the mission. A child's mistake had protected men orbiting the Moon.
A child's mistake ended up protecting men around the Moon.
—During Apollo 11's descent to the Moon, is it true there was an alarm?
Yes, and what a moment! In July 1969, just three minutes from the lunar surface, the computer started screaming an alarm: code 1202. It meant the machine had too many things to do at once, like when you're asked ten questions at the same time. The poor processor was overloaded. But my program knew what to do: it set aside non-urgent tasks and kept only the essentials—landing the module. This is called priority scheduling, giving priority to what matters most. Thanks to that, Neil Armstrong was able to land smoothly.
The machine had too much to do, like you when you're asked ten questions at once.
—Were you scared at that moment, when the alarm went off?
Oh yes, my heart was pounding. Three minutes is very short when lives depend on it. But you know, deep down I had a quiet confidence. Why? Because I had imagined this kind of failure long before, during my nights of work. I had written that the program should always keep running, even when something breaks. It's called fault tolerance. It's like a tightrope walker: even if the wind blows, they keep their balance. When the alarm sounded, the module landed on the Sea of Tranquility. I could finally breathe.
A good program is like a tightrope walker: even in the wind, it keeps its balance.
—What was it like leading a team with many women in those days?
It was rare, you know. At that time, very few women were seen in the sciences. I led a team where many women worked, and I was proud of it. But we constantly had to prove we were right. The aeronautical engineers in white shirts doubted our software. And I, often in a printed dress among those gentlemen, would show them our tests, our proofs. In the afternoons, we debugged together, annotating listings side by side. I didn't ask to be taken at my word. I asked them to look at the results.
I didn't ask to be taken at my word, but to look at the results.
—How did you make sure there were no errors in the program?
With iron rigor, my child! I imposed very strict rules: test everything, write everything, double-check everything. My colleagues sometimes thought I overdid it. But when a program controls astronauts' lives, there is no room for sloppiness. Imagine a bridge: you wouldn't cross a bridge built "more or less." We repeated failures on a simulator, over and over, to see how the machine reacted. Result: in all 17 missions of the Apollo program, no critical bug occurred in flight. None! That is my greatest pride.
When a program protects lives, there is no room for sloppiness.
—Did you invent the term "software engineering"? Why?
Yes, in the 1960s, I started saying software engineering. At the time, writing programs wasn't taken seriously. It wasn't seen as a real engineering profession, like building bridges or engines. That angered me! My code controlled human lives, can you imagine? So I wanted a word that said: this work deserves the same care, the same rigor as the great engineering professions. At first, people laughed at me. Today, that word is used all over the world.
My code controlled lives: it deserved a real profession name.
—And later, was all that work finally recognized?
Yes, much later! In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded me the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor in my country. That day, a photo circulated widely: me standing next to a stack of printed paper as tall as I am. It was the entire Apollo software source code! People who didn't know my name suddenly discovered my story. You know, I had worked in the shadows for years. Seeing children like you take an interest in my work today touches me more than any medal.
All the code for the Moon fit in a stack of paper as tall as I am.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Margaret Hamilton's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.