Business Finance Homework Help

Post 1: Initial Post

Preparation

In 1999, NASA launched its Mars Climate Orbiter, a $125 million satellite that was supposed to gather data about the weather on the red planet. But the spacecraft failed to make it into orbit, instead of burning up in the Martian atmosphere. After investigating the cause of the failure, NASA determined that there was a discrepancy in the measurement units used in the software controlling the orbiter’s thrusters–one piece of software used metric units, while another piece used English units (pounds). The difference in units appeared to be the result of a miscommunication between NASA’s engineers and those at Lockheed Martin, who had been hired as a contractor to build the spacecraft.

Watch the following video for more on the Mars Climate Orbiter failure:

You can view the transcript for “NASA Measuring Failure” here (opens in a new window).

For Discussion

Please respond to ALL of the following questions in your initial post:

What barriers to effective communication do you think might have contributed to the Mars Climate Orbiter failure?

Based on what you learned from the video and any additional research you conducted, identify the factors that you think played the biggest role in the communication breakdown.

How do you think a miscommunication like the one responsible for the Mars Climate Orbiter failure could have been avoided? What practices could NASA implement to make sure this kind of miscommunication doesn’t happen again?