In both high school and elementary school, we are taught the significance of following the grammatical rules of the English language.
While everyone occasionally makes a typo in text messages with friends, such mistakes typically don’t lead to significant consequences, especially not financial ones.
Unfortunately, such a minor error had major repercussions for NASA on July 22, 1962, during its inaugural planetary mission. This mission had been in the works for a long time, and many NASA scientists were eagerly anticipating its success, particularly in light of Russia’s concurrent efforts to launch rockets into space.
They were engaged in what was known as the Space Race with the US. On that morning at 9:21 am, the Mariner 1 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The objective of this mission was to perform a flyby of Venus, while also gathering data to aid scientists and astronomers in deepening their understanding of the solar system.
This data was crucial as it would also assist NASA in refining the design of future spacecraft for similar missions. However, the excitement surrounding this mission turned to disappointment due to a simple grammatical mistake.
Just moments after launch, Mariner 1 veered off its intended path towards Venus. Despite their efforts, the scientists were unable to regain control of the rocket.
If it had continued on its unintended course, it would have ended up crashing into the northern Atlantic Ocean, posing a threat to the busy shipping lanes there.
The flight officer was left with no choice but to destroy the spacecraft, which they did at 9:26 am.
The error that caused this deviation was a simple mistake in the coding program.
NASA had invested $80 million in building Mariner 1, and the absence of a hyphen from one of the guidance program characters led to the rocket’s failed mission and destruction.
This incident has been described as ‘the most expensive hyphen in history’ due to the enormous cost of the rocket.
A steep price for a grammatical error, and hopefully a lesson well learned.