Countdown Institute

We like to highlight women who code and this story really caught our eye: Margaret Hamilton was 31 when the Apollo lunar module landed on the moon running her code.

She worked at NASA to gain hands-on experience during a time when computer science and software engineering courses or disciplines were non-existent.

Not only did her software navigate to/from and land on the moon, her work prevented a last-minute abort of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

In 2003, Hamilton earned a NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific and technical contributions. The award included $37,200, the largest amount awarded to any individual in NASA's history.

Now that's impressive!

We're inside the launch window for the Orion Exploratory Test Flight 1. If the ground wind dies down a bit, we'll be good to go.

Here are 8 things to look for during the flight.

8 Things to Look for During Orion’s Flight | Orion 8 Things to Look for During Orion’s Flight Posted on November 4, 2014 at 11:00 am by Steven Siceloff. 23 Replies Graphics by Aimee Crane, words by Sarah Schlieder Orion is launching December 4 on its first test flight. This launch involves more than just a rocket that goes WOOSH! Orion will reach a…

At 7:05 Thursday morning, NASA is scheduled to take a huge step toward advancing the human space flight program.

The much-anticipated first test flight of the Orion spacecraft is a compilation of the riskiest events that astronauts will face.

Orion will face extreme conditions, from space radiation to 4,000 degree temperatures when it hits the atmosphere at 20,000 mph.

Thursday’s test flight will help “put Mars within the reach of astronauts in the 2030s,” NASA says.

Read more ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/02/nasa-prepares-to-test-the-spaceship-that-could-take-us-to-mars/

Do you think it is important for women to learn to code?

Mattel recently pulled their newest Barbie book off the shelves, “I Can Be A Computer Engineer." In the book, Barbie has to depend on her guys friends to do all the programming for her! ( READ MORE HERE; http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/19/mattel-pulls-sexist-barbie-book-i-can-be-a-computer-engineer-off-amazon/)

Countdown institute is a strong supporter of female coders. Recently we have been inspired by this report from 40 Female Y Combinator, the famous startup accelerator:

"One of the most consistent patterns is how many founders wished they'd learned to program when they were younger. Some wished they'd even known it was an option, and many others knew it was an option but were either intimidated or felt they’d somehow missed the window."

What We Learned From 40 Female YC Founders We’re excited to launch Female Founder Stories, a collection of interviews with 40 of Y Combinator’s female alumnae. We asked them about things like how they got started, their experience at Y...