$125 Million Mistake
What was the root mistake that caused NASA to lose a $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999?
Correct Answer
NASA lost its $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) in 1999 because it mixed up metric and English units when coding the software for the mission. Per NASA's report on the mishap, "the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software file" that was actually "in English units." This demonstrates that prestigious scholarly organizations can make this kind of simple human error and that virtually anyone can correct it before it causes harm. The lesson from this costly blunder - which has broad applications in many areas of life - is to verify your own work and that of others before using it. A 6-minute video with notes on how to skillfully do this is provided at the second link below.
DocumentationNASA Mishap ReportVideo & Notes