Hi David,
I found this:-
A missing punctuation mark in a guidance equation led to a much greater
national embarrassment when
the rocket carrying the Mariner 1 space probe exploded shortly after
liftoff on July 22, 1962, in
what is widely believed to the most expensive typographical mistake of
all time. Some reports
attributed the rocket failure to a misplaced decimal point, an extra
semicolon or a comma that was
entered in place of a period in the coded mathematical instructions that
guided the steering systems
on board the spacecraft. However, NASA investigators traced the cause of
the accident to the omission
of a single hyphen (or superscripted overbar) in the guidance control
software, which transmitted a
series of incorrect course correction signals that threw the vehicle off
its flight trajectory. The
range safety officer had no choice but to order the intentional
detonation of the spacecraft less
than five minutes after liftoff to prevent the vehicle from crashing
into a populated area.
The high-profile failure of the Mariner probe to reach its intended
destination underscores the need
for periodic proofreading, peer review analysis and rigorous testing for
performance problems at all
stages of computer coding and programming. The syntax of a programming
language requires a highly
specific sequence of symbols and characters to process information,
specify external machine behavior
and direct a computer to execute a set of commands. A simple typing
error or misplaced character
could preclude the operating system from translating coded language
accurately, render an entire
application useless, or lead to unpredictable or even disastrous
consequences.
There was intense political pressure to hasten the schedule to launch a
planetary expedition ahead of
the Soviet Union and to establish spaceflight supremacy. The single
missing FORTRAN coding symbol was
not detected during preflight preparations as a result of the
accelerated timetable and was largely
responsible for the loss of the first American spacecraft destined to
explore another planet. The
mission failure was a setback for interplanetary space exploration and
dealt a significant blow both
to national morale and to the prestige of the space administration at a
time when the United States
was losing the space race. When calculating the adjusted costs of
research, development, training and
construction, the total losses connected to the accident are estimated
to exceed $620 million. Never
in history has so much money or so many resources been squandered
over the exclusion of a single punctuation mark.
On 2022-03-30 01:31, David Spiegel wrote:
Hi Robin,
I searched, but, am not yet successful in finding it
If I find it, I plan to let you know.
Regards,
David
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
