NASA Measuring Failure [MUSIC PLAYING] [Text on screen: “1st Thing’s 1st”] NARRATOR: In the 90s, NASA experienced a number of spectacular mishaps on more than one highly public mission. It's not that things blew up those days were gone. But more often than not, things were simply swallowed by the galaxy. And their funding slid down into the darkness right along with them. In no time, the entire program came under stringent review. After all, expensive submissions were fine if they were successful, but not when they wasted taxpayer money especially when that wastage was right out there where people could see it. The high-minded Clinton administration pressured the space agency to find a new way of doing business or stop doing business. To get approved, all missions would have to be faster, better, and cheaper. Biting the bullet, the new and improved NASA redesigned its entire approach to the upcoming Mars missions. Functioning like the ideal space agency, programs and missions were decided and then put out for bids with economy, the new watchword. The 1996 Discovery program featured low cost, high return robotic missions, involving launches on a much tighter schedule than the space agency had ever tried before. Each mission came in on budget and each one met with roaring success. The Mars Global Surveyor delivered the first high resolution surface maps of the red planet. The Mars Pathfinder, a landing mission, carried the first martian rover named Sojourner, who became an instant media darling as it drove donuts around the landing zone and sent color pictures home. NASA riding high on their return to glory, quickly followed with the Mars Climate Orbiter. Designed as a weather mapping satellite, it also doubled as the main support relay for the upcoming Mars Polar Lander. Part of newer, faster, cheaper meant outsourcing projects previously done in-house. It also meant reduced budgets for wasteful system redundancies and testing. So it's not surprising that no one realized that one team of programmers was working in metric while another was working in English units. The difference between the two systems is small in most things. But once the Climate Orbiter finally crossed the freezing black vacuum of space and reached Mars, that minor math error amounted to more than 90 kilometers. Let's see, that's about 56 miles in English units. But by either measure, it proved to be the difference between traveling above the atmosphere or in it. Orbiters are designed to, well, orbit not fly. The Mars Climate Orbiter promptly burned up in the Martian atmosphere. [MUSIC PLAYING]