Story 39 – Illusion of Communication costs $125 million

The US government tasked the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) to study the atmosphere of Plant Mars. NASA built a robotic space probe called the Mars Climate Orbiter at a cost of $125 million & launched it on December 11, 1998. Lockheed Martin, an aerospace company was contracted to provide inputs through a Ground based computer.

After a 286-day journey, the engineers were ready to celebrating the craft’s entry into Mars’ orbit. However, the shocked NASA team saw the spacecraft go into the wrong trajectory & bursting into flames.

How did a group of highly educated & experienced space engineers lose a $125 million investment?

Lockheed martin used the Imperial System of Measurement whereas NASA using the metric system of measurement. Thus, the input received from ground was in miles & pounds but the probe received the data in kilometres & kilograms. No one bothered to check whether the data is converted properly from one system to another

To quote George Bernard Shaw – The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Adds Harini Sreenivasan, Affiliate Partner - SSI India, “Communication is not just about what is well said, it's also about whether it is well-received.”

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