How A Tiny Mistake Destroyed America's First Interplanetary Space Probe

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Scott Manley

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Published on May 16, 2019 5:14:38 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LJz-TWV3so

Duration: 12:08

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Many people have heard the story of how a small code error destroyed a rocket - the rocket was an Atlas-Agena B launched in 1962 and carrying Mariner I and the error is commonly reported as a 'missing hyphen'. However it's often misreported and I've always had questions, so I wanted to get to the bottom of the story and find out the real truths:
It's not a hyphen, it's an Overbar.
It wasn't a simple fat fingered typo by a programmer.
It required a hardware failure to expose the bug.
1950's rocket guidance technology was hella complicated.

The research for this took a long time but some of the important sources which lead me to the conclusion are detailed in my latest post at Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26887991