Apparently the geniuses at NASA couldn't convert feet into meters? Yeah, right. Try again...

-- zzz (ha@@.com), October 01, 1999

Answers

I doubt it crashed at all.......

-- matt (whome?@somewhere.nz), October 01, 1999.

WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL. DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SPACECRAFT.

ALL THESE PLANETS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT PLUTO, URANUS, NEPTUNE, JUPITER, SATURN, MARS, VENUS MERCURY AND ALL THEIR MOONS. AND "YOUR" MOON - STAY AWAY FROM THAT, TOO. AND DON'T MESS WITH THE SUN, OR GO FIRING PROBES AT IT. AND STOP TRACKING MUD ACROSS MY NICE CLEAN GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBITS! JUST WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER COMES HOME!!!

GALDAREBZEBRILL 41493 POLYDIMENSIONAL POSTBOX 666 VAT 9, ROW 7 DORSET, UK

-- GALDAREBZEBRILL 41493 (galdar@vatrepository.mil), October 01, 1999.

There's no need to postulate other more technical errors, nor to imagine that the public is not being told the truth here--though that's always a possibility, I suppose.

The point is that in any large project computer project, which all space exploration necessarily involves, there are countless opportunities for error to occur. Smart people can make stupid mistakes. In fact, this happens all the time.

The news account I read quoted somebody as saying that it appears NASA doesn't pay such careful attention to detail as they once did. In fact, that's all it takes to cause any sufficiently complex system to fail. You have to have a process in place to guarantee that everything has been exhaustively checked and rechecked.

Although some software and hardware failures are due to fairly subtle errors, many systems crash each day because of really bone-headed mistakes that simply are not caught in time.

Taking the official explanation at face value, this incident should not cause us to have greater confidence in the robustness of, say, our nuclear power facilities.

-- Peter Harlan (pharlan@efn.org), October 01, 1999.

You guys still don't get it, do you? OBVIOUSLY, the Martians are fed up with being snooped on by extratesticular probes. You remember Marvin the Martian from Bugs Bunny? Don't mess with him.

-- profit_of_doom (doom@helltopay.ca), October 01, 1999.

Am I wrong, or is this not the first such probe that disappeared once it violated the airspace of the sovereign independent planet of Mars?

-- Scarecrow (Somewhere@over.rainbow), October 01, 1999.

Since January 1999, not one single satelite has made it to the proper orbit. This has to be a Y2K glitch! The same thing happened with the Mars orbit! Now we have Y2K on Mars!!! To bad they don't have the guts to admit it is a Y2K problem!

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), October 01, 1999.

I suspected all along that the measurement mistake story was a lie. Hmph. Those Martians just reached out and nabbed our spacecraft, and NASA is afraid to tell us. Martians are probably displaying our primitive technology in a museum somewhere. The more alarmist of them will likely be starting a movement to "keep those Earthers home" so we don't spread some Terran plague, or contaminate their computers with bad code.

-- Margaret J (janssm@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

Freddie,

You sure have found a home here at STINKBOMB 2000. You should fit in nicely and meet many kindred spirits here.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Delusional doomer dummies!! BWAAHAHAH!!!

-- Genius (codeslinger@work.now), October 01, 1999.

zzz,

nobody asked the guys at NASA to convert the english system to metric. I'm sure they'd know how to whip out their calculators and do so. What they HAD was failure to communicate. The metric users and the english users didn't check to see if they were working with the same system of measurements. Even with a quality control department. How disappointing that such an expensive, complex project could fail due to such an oversight. Unfortunately, sometimes the simplest explanation is the real one.

That, or the martians don't want us spoiling the neighborhood. And we would.

-- Penny (lost@in.space), October 01, 1999.

As soon as I heard this explanation I spit. Reminded me of the testimony attempting to justify the decision to launch Challenger.

Nonsense and obfuscation.

If true, then let Lockheed pay for the failure.

The absence of identifying the culpable party is more damning than the actual failure.

In dealing with fedgov, the most reliable information is that which they withhold until the FOIA suits.

The public statements are worth what you pay for them.

-- Tom Beckner (tbeckner@xout.erols.com), October 01, 1999.

It's quite possible that such a screwup happened, causing the orbit to be off and to so cause a crash. However, since governments and their agencies lie all the time, one can never know when, occasionally, they may be actually telling the truth. So, the only proper response is skepticism in all cases. The posts above well illustrate that; that so many can give credence to the apparently outlandish scenario of the Martians' objecting to us violating their airspace over the NASA explanation. Me too!

For someone -- person or organization to be trusted, they have to act fairly consistently in a trustworthy manner. Our government leaders and captains of industry fail miserably that test.

"Both respect and contempt are earned."

-- A (A@AisA.com), October 01, 1999.

In truth, the whole thing was caused by the NWO/Belgian bureaucrat crowd, who have pushed this metric crap upon us. If it was not for the metric crap, there would have been no need for conversion, and the mission would have been saved.

If our politicians had any spunk and brains, we would have rammed feet and pounds down the krauts throats years ago and the whole world would be happy with the pounds-feet-second system. After all, James Watt didn't need no meters.

dave

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), October 01, 1999.

I guess it is useless to point out that the program which used the english or metric measurements was probably less than 1% of the programming, less than 1% of the spacecraft and probably was not considered to be "mission critical." If it was it would have been checked. If all of my assumptions are correct, how could it have possibly crashed?

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

Look, NASA tried very hard to cover up the Challenger disaster facts. Also, remember that NASA stands for: Never A Straight Answer.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

Challenger was the result of a brittle O-ring. This was a s/w glitch. What's the debate?

It underscores the fact that expensive complex systems can be turned into a pile of worthless crap by the most innocuous no-brainer. Remember that billion dollar satellite last year they had to blow up on launch because of an itsy bitsy electrical short?

Get ready for 2000 - The Year of Murphy's Law.

-- a (a@a.a), October 01, 1999.

Don't they test this stuff? How can this type of error go undetected?

Maybe they just test components, and don't do "end-to-end" testing?

Something ain't right here...

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Sysman,

What ain't right is listening to any explanation that NASA gives you about any failure. Who knows what really happened? All you know right now is what NASA is saying happened, and you're right, it's a stupid answer. Imagine that such a complex, long term, project like this has a simple metric/imperial gremlin in it that has been there all along, but only rears its ugly head right now. Pulleeeze. The Russians did a much better job trying to explain the loss of their Mars probe just prior to its going into orbit.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

The English measurements have often been at odds with "that other" system.

Space: the infinite nomenclature...

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), October 01, 1999.

Reading this read made me remember the beginning of the video we just bought for my little girl...My Favorite Martian...has anyone seen where the huge city is over the hill just beyond the rock that our cameras were looking at? Too cute.

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), October 01, 1999.

It crashed because Y2K Pro wrote the code.

-- Mr. Adequate (mr@adequate.com), October 02, 1999.

"a" is absolutely correct. Look, as we have ATTEMPTED to convince the pollies (including and especially Hoffy and Maria), unless you TEST, TEST, TEST the WHOLE SHEBANG, you have NO REASON TO BE CONFIDENT that its actually going to work when it needs to work. That has always been a fundamental principle of implementing ANYTHING into a production environment (and why, this time last year, everyone was emphasizing how the remediation would be done by 12/31/98 so as to leave a FULL YEAR FOR TESTING!).

The differing units of measure offered by NASA is perfectly plausible. Unfortunately.

(And if they were going to invent a reason, they surely could have come up with one that does not make them look so silly. Like the world is going to look like come January 2000.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 02, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

Of course, the first thing I thought of when I saw this story on the news last night was, "I wonder if that was really a Y2K glitch." But how could that be? I'm not saying it can't be, but, doesn't that seem unlikely. Can we come up with any plausible ways in which that might be true? Not that we want that to be true, but if it is true, it would be nice to know that. By thinking of how it could have been due to a Y2K problem, we might uncover some pieces of the puzzle. Of course, it really could be a stupid metric conversion, but that's not real encouraging, either, is it?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 02, 1999.

Ok, Ok, maybe you've already heard this...

Q: Why can't NASA men satisfy their women?

A: Because they tell them this much [fingers to indicate 10 cm] is 10 inches!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

-- Nemo (noname@thistime.com), October 02, 1999.

Oh yea, Hubble, that's the one they spent years and years grinding the wrong spec(k)s on, isn't it? Geez don't they ever learn, without end to end testing, it's a crap shoot. Snake eyes again? Eyes wide shut! Oh well, just another $billion or so out the window.

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), October 02, 1999.

The majority of you folks are very gullible. Richard Hoagland is right. NASA has an agenda, and they are loathe to share what they know.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 02, 1999.

The majority of you folk are very sharp. Richard Hoagland is a total fruitcake, (who's done some amazing work.) NASA has an agenda, and they are loathe to share what they know.

Both the Mars probe stuff-up and the Japanese nuclear stuff-up are being attributed officially to really stooopid human error. I think that maybe these stories are both accurate, but they are both sourced from accomplished and motivated liars. So who knows.

-- number six (Iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), October 02, 1999.

Hoagland may be a fruitcake but I don't think he's a TOTAL one :)

The coincidences of NASA cock-ups regarding Mars are just too impossible to believe...

Occams' razor...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 02, 1999.

I heard for a fact that there were white busses and black helicopters at NASA that day too. Run for your lives! Buy gold! Head for the hills!

-- . (.@...), October 02, 1999.

On behalf of English people everywhere I wish to protest the misnomer "English system," which casts nasturtiums on those of us of the English persuasion. We've been metric since the early 70s, so please call it what it is--the AMERICAN system. Thanks awfully.

Now, has anyone checked Dieter's pod? I'll bet he's at the bottom of this.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 02, 1999.

Hoagload is a TOTAL fruitcake, and the most simplest answer is obvious.

NASA is telling the truth (mostly).

Anyone who thinks NASA would publize evidence that they then decide to coverup needs to think a little bit more about the scenario.

Why make yourself look stupid? Why be such a moron?

Are they really so stupid to do these asinine antics, but be so intelligent to know how to research/manage/execute a project that has a remote unit sending pictures of things MILLIONS of miles away from any human civilization?

Occam's Razor, indeed.

-- b (b@hotmail.com), February 08, 2004.