As NASA began using computers, women textile workers at Raytheon manually hardwired the code into copper ring and wire “core ropes.” Much of the code they meticulously translated into hardware was written by Margaret Hamilton, who directed the team in charge of the onboard flight software.
Behind the scenes, they contributed to wide-ranging projects as chemists, coders, mathematicians, technicians, and even welders.įor years, all-female calculating teams provided the mathematical computations for everything from rocket trajectories to propellants and engine performance. Though few are as visible in historical images, thousands of women were working on the Apollo missions for NASA in the 1960s. This was JoAnn Morgan, the mission’s instrumentation controller, who later became the Space Center’s first female executive. In archival photos of the firing room at the Kennedy Space Center during the moon landing, only a single woman is present-a break in a wall of button-up shirts and ties. Though women remained invisible in the iconic images of the Mercury Seven astronauts and in the mission control room, they contributed in innumerable ways to the immense feat of engineering that made the landing possible, and to the public diplomacy efforts that boosted an image of the American way during the Cold War.
Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” was the most watched event in television history, and projected American power, ingenuity, and culture to a global audience. This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, not only a crowning scientific achievement of the 20th century, but a critical milestone in American foreign policy. The following is a guest post by Rebecca Hughes, research associate, Women and Foreign Policy program, and Rebecca Turkington, assistant director, Women and Foreign Policy program, at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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