Mae Jemison
ENGINEER / NASA ASTRONAUT
(1965 - present)
In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first
African American woman to travel in space.
She has been inducted into the National
Women's Hall of Fame and the International
Space Hall of Fame. After serving as an
astronaut for six years, she left NASA and
started the Jemison Group, a company that
focuses on science, technology and social
change. She was the first real astronaut to
appear in an episode of Star Trek. In 2001,
she published a children's book featuring her
own life story. Jemison is currently leading the
100 Year Starship project, which aims to
ensure human space travel to another star is
possible within the next hundred years.
Margaret Hamilton
COMPUTER SCIENTIST (1936 - present)
Margaret Hamilton was one of the first
computer software programmers and is best
known for having led the NASA software team
that landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin on the moon. She did this during
her time working for MIT, leading a team
responsible for developing software for the
control systems of the in-flight command of
one of the Apollo missions. Software
engineering was not taught at the time, so any
problems that occurred they had to resolve on
their own. In the mid-70's, Hamilton left MIT
and co-founded the companies Higher Order
Software and Hamilton Technologies. In 2003,
she was awarded NASA's Exceptional Space
Act Award and in 2016, Obama presented her
with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In
2017, a Lego action figure was made of
Margaret Hamilton as part of their Women of
NASA collection.
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