NASA

Writing for PBS’ American Experience about the women who helped ensure the success of the Apollo 11 mission, Nathalia Holt highlights the work of Margaret Hamilton, who led the development of software for the Apollo missions while at MIT.

WCVB-TV’s Chronicle spotlights how researchers at the MIT Instrumentation Lab developed the technology needed to successfully bring Apollo astronauts to the moon.

In this WGBH documentary, Prof. Jeff Hoffman, a former astronaut, discusses what inspired him to pursue a career in space exploration and recounts his experiences voyaging in space. “There is something very, very powerful about looking at the Earth from the outside,” says Hoffman. “It’s a different place than when you are actually standing on it.”

BBC Future reporter Richard Hollingham examines how MIT researchers developed the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), which helped Apollo 11 astronauts navigate safely to and from the moon. “The AGC was filled with thousands of integrated circuits, or silicon chips,” Hollingham explains. “NASA’s order of this new technology led to the rapid expansion of Silicon Valley and accelerated the development of today’s computers.”

CBS Boston speaks with Margaret Hamilton about her role in the Apollo 11 moon mission and her career at MIT. “I was the only woman in the beginning in the field,” says Hamilton. “I was oblivious to the difference between men and women. At MIT, they cared more about that you knew what you were doing and could help them solve their problem because they had a deadline.”

Fast Company contributor Charles Fishman explores the late Prof. Charles Draper’s instrumental contributions to making space flight possible, noting that Draper was so committed to his work that he volunteered to train as an astronaut so he could join an Apollo mission. “Space travel wouldn’t have been possible without Draper’s work and that of his group at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab,” writes Fishman.

Fast Company contributor Charles Fishman speaks with Margaret Hamilton about her work at MIT on the development of software for the Apollo missions. Hamilton, who is often credited with popularizing the term software engineering explains that, “Software during the early days of (Apollo) was treated like a stepchild and not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines, such as hardware engineering.”

In an article for Fast Company, Charles Fishman explores how MIT researchers pioneered the use of integrated circuits, technology that is an integral component of today’s digital technologies, in the Apollo 11 computer. “MIT, NASA, and the race to the Moon laid the very foundation of the digital revolution, of the world we all live in,” writes Fishman.

TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a system that can predict a perso's trajectory. The tool could allow “robots that typically freeze in the face of anything even vaguely resembling a person walking in their path to continue to operate and move around the flow of human foot traffic."

Writing for Fast Company, Charles Fishman explores how MIT researchers developed the computer that helped enable the Apollo 11 moon landing. Fishman notes that the computer was “the smallest, fastest, most nimble, and most reliable computer ever created,” adding that it became “so indispensable that some at MIT and NASA called it ‘the fourth crew member.’”

Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane writes about how TESS has discovered an Earth-sized planet orbiting a star 52 light years from Earth. “The new planet HD, 21749c, orbits the star HD 21749. It circles the star in 7.8 days,” Finucane explains. “The planet is probably rocky and uninhabitable, with temperatures on the surface of up to 800 degrees.”

Forbes contributor Jamie Carter writes that TESS has identified an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star 52 light years from Earth. The planet "takes about eight days to orbit the host star and is similar in size to Earth at 89% its diameter,” writes Carter. “A likely rocky world, it's thought to have surface temperatures as high as 800°F /427°C.”

The MIT-led TESS mission has discovered its first Earth-sized exoplanet, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time,” says postdoctoral fellow Diana Dragomir. “But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear."

Writing for Smithsonian, Alice George highlights Margaret Hamilton’s work leading the team at the MIT Instrumentation Lab that developed the software for the Apollo 11 mission. “She was a pioneer when it came to development of software engineering,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, and “a pioneer as a woman in the workplace contributing to this type of program, taking on this type of role.”

In an article for Wired celebrating 10 pioneering women in STEM, Emily Dreyfuss highlights the work of Margaret Hamilton, who led a team at the MIT Instrumentation Lab that developed the onboard flight software on the Apollo computers. Dreyfuss notes that without Hamilton, “the modern computing era would not be what it is today.”