Biography of Margaret Hamilton, American scientist, notable computer scientist who worked at NASA in support of Apollo missions. "[13] She appeared as herself in three episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, between 1975 and 1976, because Fred Rogers wanted his viewers to recognize the Wicked Witch was just a character and not something to be afraid of. The crowning mission, Apollo 11 in July 1969, saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descend all the way to the surface in the lunar module, safely return to the command module (piloted by Mike Collins) and make it home to Earth. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist, Space.com - Margaret H. Hamilton: Apollo Computer Programmer, Wired - Her Code Got Humans on the Moon - And Invented Software Itself, Margaret Hamilton - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Margaret Hamilton - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Margaret Hamilton Biography, Facts & Life Story. She went on to appear in These Three (1936), Saratoga, You Only Live Once, When's Your Birthday?, Nothing Sacred (all 1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), My Little Chickadee (with W. C. Fields, 1940), and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (with Harold Lloyd, 1947). She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and practiced acting doing children's theater while a Junior League of Cleveland member. New York, [17], Hamilton's early experience as a teacher fueled a lifelong interest in educational issues. Margaret Hamilton Biography | Fandango Only co-star Frank Morgan played more roles (five) in the film. She loved and doted upon children all her life. Apollo 9 tested out the lunar module and command module together in Earth orbit for the first time, and then the two spacecraft were tested again in lunar orbit for Apollo 10. The meaning of those almost mysterious codes was available to very few. Danko sat on a smoking pipe configured to look like the Witch's broomstick. Margaret had already built her resume with several performances in film before she came to her most memorable and astronomically successful role, Almira Gulch / The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939). "Hamilton was honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development," NASA wrote in 2016. '[8], Hamilton's stand-in and stunt double for the Witch, Betty Danko, also suffered an on-set accident on February 11, 1939. While a decision was made in the moment to let the astronauts land, Hamilton pointed out that a fault analysis was done to see where the error was made. Hamilton herself specifically concentrated on software to detect system errors and to recover information in a computer crash. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Hamilton also toured in many plays and musicals, even repeating her role of the Wicked Witch in specially written stage productions of The Wizard of Oz. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hamilton appeared regularly on television. We knew that. Both those elements were crucial during the Apollo 11 mission (1969), which took astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon. This system played a crucial role just before the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. "Kindergarten Lost Margaret Hamilton." Margaret Hamilton - Biography - IMDb Hamilton also appears as an unidentified flying witch during the tornado scene, which may have been the Wicked Witch of the West or her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. So I was assigned this program and I actually got it to work. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Hamilton led the software engineering division at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Instrumentation Laboratory. Her solution: when you see a priority display, first count to She appeared on Broadway in the musical Goldilocks opposite Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch, gave a lighter touch to the domineering Parthy Anne Hawks in the 1966 revival of Show Boat (dancing with David Wayne), and was the tender Aunt Eller in the 1968 Lincoln Center revival of Oklahoma!. The computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to recognize that it was being asked to perform more tasks than it should be performing. Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. At MIT, Margaret Hamilton was on the staff of the Draper Laboratory, founded in 1932 by Dr. Charles Stark Draper. [20] Hamilton's team was responsible for developing in-flight software,[21] which included algorithms designed by various senior scientists for the Apollo command module, Apollo lunar module, and the subsequent Skylab. But a software incident almost derailed the landing, as Hamilton recalled in a 2009 interview with MIT. She was best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch, in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz.A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in . Dishonored Lady. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers. It turned out that the astronaut checklist, which governed the actions the crew had to do before landing, had the crew set the rendezvous radar hardware switch in the wrong position. [47] In 1980, British-Israeli computer scientist David Harel published a proposal for a structured programming language derived from HOS from the viewpoint of and/or subgoals. Margaret Hamilton Biography - Topics referred to by the same term She later founded two software companiesHigher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hamilton, now an independent computer scientist, described for MIT News in 2009 her contributions to the Apollo software which last month was added in its entirety to the code-sharing site GitHub: From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission. Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 - May 16, 1985) was an American actress and educator. She notably wrote software for a program to identify enemy aircraft. Margaret Hamilton Career Profession: Computer Scientist, Systems Engineer and Business Owner Known For: Director of the "Software Engineering Division" of the "MIT Instrumentation Laboratory", which developed "On-board Flight Software for NASA's Apollo Space Program Debut: Film debut: These Three (1936) Movie poster Net Worth: $12 Million Approx Margaret Hamilton | Computer Scientist - NASA Solar System Exploration The Directors verdict reached Neil on the radio: GO, Go ahead, free. She lived in Manhattan for most of her adult life, and summered in a cottage on Cape Island, Southport, Maine. On December 23, 1938, Hamilton suffered a second-degree burn on her face and a third-degree burn on her hand during a second take of her fiery exit from Munchkinland in which the trap door's drop was delayed to eliminate the brief glimpse of it seen in the final edit. She portrayed the sister of Witchiepoo from H.R. [30][31][32] The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. So, how much is Margaret Hamilton worth at the age of 83 years old? Margaret Hamilton Full Biography | Broadway World The studio hired a new stunt double, Aline Goodwin, to finish the broomstick-riding scene for Danko.[9]. UConnToday, 23 April 2013. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program. MIT's instrumentation lab received the contract for the Apollo guidance and control systems on Aug. 9, 1961, when the United States had accomplished only two spaceflights both with just one crewmember on board, and both in suborbital space. While her acting career developed, her marriage began to fail; the couple divorced in 1938. and he said 'Maggie, they want you to play a part on the Wizard.' The couple then moved to Boston. MIT Museum: Margaret Hamilton Apollo Photos. She appeared, uncredited, in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's People Will Talk (1951) as Sarah Pickett. It meant that if Aldrin, say, hit a button on the priority display too quickly, he might still get a "normal" response. She strove to work as much as possible to support herself and her son; she never put herself under contract to any one studio and priced her services at $1,000 ($18,800 with inflation[4]) a week.[5]. Margaret Hamilton Biography, Celebrity Facts and Awards - TV Guide [18] In 1979, she was a guest speaker at a University of Connecticut children's literature class. [48] Others have used HOS to formalize the semantics of linguistic quantifiers,[49] and to formalize the design of reliable real-time embedded systems. [10] She says her poet father and headmaster grandfather inspired her to include a minor in philosophy in her studies. Hamilton, now an independent computer scientist, described for MIT News in 2009 her contributions to the Apollo software which last month was added in its entirety to the code-sharing site GitHub: From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission. Margaret Hamilton (publisher) - Wikipedia Had one child, son, Hamilton Wadsworth Meserve, on June 12, 1936. As an adult, she worked on NASA's Apollo program, creating computer programs to guide spacecraft to and from the moon. Her Gramercy Park neighbor Sybil Daneman reported that Hamilton loved children but they were often afraid to meet her because of her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton: 'They worried that the men might rebel. They didn't They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. Social Media Lead: When asked about her experiences on the set of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton said her biggest fear was that her monstrous film role would give children the wrong idea of who she really was. She subsequently directed and supervised the developments of the Skylab space station mission. [38] Paul Curto, senior technologist who nominated Hamilton for a NASA Space Act Award, called Hamilton's work "the foundation for ultra-reliable software design".[23]. 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When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. [14] On October 30, 1975, she guest-starred on the radio revival series CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science since 2015. She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and practiced acting doing children's theater while a Junior League of Cleveland member. One of the many contributors to this effort was Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist who led the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which in 1961 contracted with NASA to develop the Apollo programs guidance system. Three minutes before the lunar lander reached the Moon's surface, several computer alarms were triggered. What followed next were brief messages from Apollo 11 to Robledo de Chabela in Spain; and from Spain to Houston, where Margaret was; from Houston to Robledo; and from Robledo to Apollo 11. Moore Boeck. Byla editelkou oddlen softwarovho inenrstv v MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, kter vyvjela letov software pro Program Apollo.V roce 1986 zaloila spolenost Hamilton Technologies, kter sdl ve mst Cambridge ve stt Massachusetts. And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.