What an incredible rabbit hole. Margaret Hamilton, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "[leading] the team that created the on-board flight software" for the Apollo missions, wasn't even hired until after the completed software had already flown to the moon in Apollo 8!
A team of 400 men worked for years to create the software for the two Apollo AGCs. Sometime around the release date, Hamilton is hired and promoted *by her husband* from a beginner role to be in charge of command module software, on which her name does not appear until 1969.
The exact date of Hamilton's '68 entry level hire, and hasty promotion to software lead (both times by the man she married in '69) I haven't seen, but we know the first revision with her name is March 1969, months after the delivered product had gone to the moon.
Below is a contemporary source of Apollo computer hardware and software development personnel over the course of the program.
The software is finalized and delivered in 1968, and flies to the moon in Apollo 8. The first release with Margaret Hamilton in charge is at the end.
What incredible "courage" of this guy to hand Apollo CM software leadership over to the junior programmer Margaret Hamilton, the only woman on the entire team of 400, whom he would completely coincidentally end up marrying the very next year!
(Correction: Hamilton was probably first employed at entry level in 1965, then after the CM software delivery date, she was given control of it for the bug-fix phase sometime at the end of 68 or early 69. Sources often highly vague about exact dates.)
"I've encountered no discrimination at all" says woman with same last name as the man who hired and promoted her.
"Hamilton, Mrs. Dan Lickly": another women in tech success story.
The article completes the picture. 1968: Apollo software is done, transitions to bug fix mode, shrinks headcount, and is no longer a prestige project. The boss, Dan Likely, hires his soon-to-be wife, Margaret Hamilton, to take his place as he quits to start his own company.
Not only did Hamilton not lead Apollo software as implied, but her entire tenure in the program is suspect because 100% of it was arranged by her husband, who hired her, mentored her as she was given a small team, then promoted her immediately before their marriage.
Hamilton was employed from 1965-1968 at the lowest level of the CM org chart. After Apollo 8, she was promoted by Lickly to lead that department. After Apollo 11 LM and CM were combined into one org node with her in charge of both.
I'm not paying Elon $8 to edit the above tweet.
Both LM and CM software were completed and flew to the moon before Hamilton was put in charge of them. There are no grounds to say that she lead the development (Obama admin), or that it was "her code" (Vox article, various tweets).
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.