The course of action:

The Mars Climate Orbiter Spacecraft was due to do research on Mars. Two different teams worked on the project simultaneously from different locations.

The result:

The Mars Climate Orbiter Spacecraft was lost because one Nasa team used imperial units while another used metric units for a key spacecraft operation.

The lesson:

The confusion over units was identified in preliminary findings by JPL´s internal peer review. The transfer of information took place between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California.

Further:
Reading this article made me come up with the idea of FlexMind: asking ´laymen´s Feedback´ on projects ideas processes etc. Now I call it “dross over feedback´! Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/462264.stm

Published by:
Tomas Jansma

OTHER BRILLIANT FAILURES

Vincent van Gogh a brilliant failure?

The course of action: It may seem strange at first glance to find the impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh among the cases at the Institute for Brilliant Failures… It’s true that during his life [...]

The Norwegian Linie Aquavit

The course of action: The concept of Linie Aquavit happened by accident in the 1800s. Aquavit (pronounced 'AH-keh'veet' and sometimes spelled "akvavit") is a potato-based liquor, flavored with caraway. Jørgen Lysholm owned a Aquavit distillery in [...]

Why failure is an option..

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