Margaret Hamilton, scientist who worked on Nasa's Apollo programme, dies

Margaret Hamilton sitting in a mock-up ofthe Apollo command module in 1969. Thefamed Apollo programme allowed US tobeat the Soviet Union in the race to becomethe first humans to land on the Moon American scientist Margaret Hamilton, who led development of the computer system used by Nasa's Apollo lunar program, has died at the age of 90, her former employer said Wednesday. In a statement, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called Hamilton, who taught at the university from 1959 to the mid-1970s, a "computing pioneer" and said she died on Sept 30."To say Margaret Hamilton was a pioneer - to say she was ahead of her time - would be an understatement," said Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor and interim head of the MIT department of aeronautics and astronautics. "She was a software engineer at a time when that field was in its infancy, and she not only developed advanced code herself but also led a team in using that nascent technology to develop one of the most complex systems humanity had ever achieved," de Weck added.The famed Apollo programme allowed US to beat the Soviet Union in the race to become the first humans to land on the Moon. Nasa chief Jared Isaacman ...