Not checking your code can cost millions of dollars

The story of the bug in the Fortran code that caused the biggest stumble in the space race

It was 1962, and the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its peak. The goal? Moon. But by that time no American had reached space, but they did have in mind who did: the Soviet Yuri Gagarin who a few months earlier, in April 1961, became the first man to be in outer space, by overcoming the Kármán line, which indicates where the earth’s atmosphere ends. In other words, the USA was second in a two-opponent race.

Of course, the occidental country would not give up. And they were aiming to launch the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. More haste than they already had was added by the fact that the USSR in February 1961 managed to send a spacecraft to Venus, which when getting close the planet in May of the same year, lost all communication with Earth. It was a failure for the USSR, and the US had to prove that it can do better. So Venus was targeted for this mission.

More than a year passed for the deadline to launch the sounding line called Mariner I. On July 22, 1962, the rocket that would take Mariner I out of the Earth from Cape Canaveral, Florida, was launched. The expectation turned to confusion when the ship shortly…