Aeronautical and astronautical engineering

In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine’s Diane Tedeschi, alumnus Mike Massimino SM ’88, PhD ’92 discusses working on NASA’s space shuttle as a mission specialist and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. “Nothing can really prepare you, though, for the overwhelming beauty that you see—the emotion of it [space],” says Massimino. “When you see the beauty of Earth and the stars and the Moon and everything around you, it’s so inspiring. But as far as your job goes, you’re 100-percent ready.”  

MassLive’s Liesel Nygard spotlights the late Margaret Hamilton, “a pioneering computer scientist who helped establish the field of software engineering and led the MIT team that developed the onboard flight software for NASA’s Apollo moon missions.” Nygard writes, “Thanks to priority-driven ‘defensive’ software [in the lunar module’s computers] engineered by Hamilton and her team, the system automatically shut down unnecessary background tasks to focus on the landing, avoiding an emergency abort [of the Apollo 11 mission].”  

The Washington Post’s Juno Carmel details how the late Margaret Hamilton “developed early computer software that helped pave the way for the digital world as we know it today” and led the team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab that programmed the alarm code that played a crucial role in the Apollo 11 mission. Hamilton “was the lead developer for the software that powered the Apollo guidance computer, which weighed 70 pounds but had only 72 kilobytes of memory, a fraction of today’s smartphones,” notes Carmel. 

Margaret Hamilton, “best known for her major contributions to the Apollo missions” at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab, “died on Sept. 30 at age 90, leaving behind a trailblazing legacy of problem-solving and entrepreneurship that paved the way for a new branch of computer science and engineering,” writes reporter Margherita Bassi for Smithsonian Magazine. Hamilton’s “coding foresight and prowess really made that mission a success,” says Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Andrew Meade McGee. “She created the logical software basis for many of the critical systems we use to maintain our infrastructure today, and that silently power today’s modern aerospace world.” 

Margaret Hamilton, who developed the software that helped the Apollo 11 mission land safely on the moon and “whose historic accomplishments focused attention on the work of software engineers,” died on Sept. 30, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “She gave me, from the get-go, this notion that I could do anything, that there were absolutely no gender barriers,” says Hamilton’s daughter, Lauren. Hamilton’s life and work conveyed to her great-granddaughters “that very clear idea that they could have whatever future they wanted to create for themselves.” 

For The New York Times, reporters Carolyn Y. Johnson and Kenneth Chang spotlight the late computer scientist Margaret Hamilton and her role in the development of the field of software engineering, highlighting her work as a “trailblazing woman who played a crucial, largely unseen role.” MIT Presidential Advisor Maria Zuber shared: “When you see someone like her who went for it and lived her dream it makes it a little easier for the rest of us to dare to reach for the moon as well.” 

“Groundbreaking researcher,” Margaret Hamilton, “whose code helped land NASA’s Apollo astronauts on the moon to win the 20th-century space race has died,” reports CNN’s Jackie Wattles. “Through her work, Hamilton is also credited as one of the founders of the field of software engineering — a term she coined — by helping to establish it as a professional practice,” writes Wattles.  

The Guardian’s Uwa Ede-Osifo spotlights the life and legacy of the late Margaret Hamilton, “the computer pioneer whose software powered the first moon landing,” at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab. Prior to the Instrumentation Lab, Hamilton worked “on the software that could detect enemy aircraft,” at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory,” writes Ede-Osifo. “When the institute received a Nasa contract to develop the Apollo onboard flight software, she jumped at the opportunity.”  

Margaret Hamilton, “who led the 100-person team [at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab] that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon,” died on Sept. 30, reports Trip Gabriel for The New York Times. “Her skills led to her promotion to director of software engineering on the project, which developed the two 70-pound onboard computers for the Apollo flights: one in the command module, which carried the astronauts from Earth, and the second in the lunar module, which set down on the moon’s surface,” writes Gabriel. 

In a video, Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw speaks to NBC News about floating, magnetic tiles that could be used to build structures in space. “We could self-assemble these [tiles] on the Moon,” says Ekblaw. “We could make habitats for the Artemis program. Once we have this idea of modular space tiles, there’s so many different things that we can do with self-assembly.”  

MIT researchers have discovered that peptides can remain stable and form into, reports Earth.com’s Eric Ralls. “First, we were astounded that peptides remain stable at all in concentrated sulfuric acid, for many weeks on end,” says Prof. Mei Hong, an author on the study. “Even more remarkable was that they adopt specific three-dimensional structures instead of random shapes.” 

MIT researchers have discovered that peptides “not only survive in highly concentrated sulfuric acid but take on stable 3D conformations too,” writes Chemical & Engineering News’ Fionna Samuels. “The project started with a new collaboration between [Prof. Sara] Seager and the MIT chemist [Prof.] Mei Hong,” notes Samuels. “In the years since finding phosphine signals in Venusian clouds, Seager had been working her way through the building blocks of life—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—to see if any survived concentrated acid exposure.”  

MIT researchers have developed a design tool to highlight the environmental factors that can reduce anxiety, homesickness and boredom during long-duration stays in space, writes Earth.com’s Luis Arrais. “Much like how in our homes the arrangement of our furniture, the size of our rooms, the people we live with, even the shelves we use to store our belongings all contribute to our sense of wellbeing,” says graduate student Mich Lin. 

Prof. Danielle Wood speaks to the Scientific American’s Tom Metcalfe about how the current models of space travel, that have created trash and debris in Earth’s atmosphere and orbit, are unsustainable. “Sustainability in space means that we are able to leave to future generations something like the natural state of the Earth, the moon and the solar system,” says Wood. 

Prof. Danielle Wood joins Edgar B. Herwick III, host of GBH’s “The Curiosity Desk,” to discuss the growing problems posed by space junk, and how space technology helps support our critical infrastructure. “Technology from space helps make life safer on Earth, supports our weather forecasting [and] our daily transportation. All the technology that lets us get deliveries and Uber—that's all coming from space,” says Wood. “We definitely need space to be safe—to keep our lives safe.”