NASA's Mars Orbiter Mystery

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Red mars - red faces at nasa. But who were the mystery pair that were caught red handed?

Anyone following the mainstream press has probably heard about NASA's embarrassing set-back when the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) was diving into orbit around the red planet - only to go missing and never to appear again.

The story that has been passed to the press is that the vessel flew too close to the atmosphere and broke apart.

This was due to an error involved in the fact that the British team who programmed it were using Imperial measures while the US receiving team were using metric measures, or some such.

The £75 million Climate Orbiter was sent into space at the end of December 1998 and was set to become the first Martian weather satellite, scanning weather patterns for a couple of years.

The MCO was also going to act as a relay platform for the Mars Polar Lander, due to hit Mars' atmosphere later on in December this year. Some other, rather more strange facts, have now come to light though.

The day before the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) was due to arrive, miffed NASA staff - speaking off the record - commented that they had noticed a pair of unknown programmers remotely updating the flight telemetry.

Something about the newcomers behaviour aroused suspicions in nearby staff, and a passing member of security was asked to check the pair's identity.

This was done, and the surrounding personnel were reassured to hear that the programmers did indeed hold valid identity passes in the names of Graham McCoist and Laurence Wright, and they had appropriate clearance for the area.

Nothing more was thought of the matter until the Orbiter disappeared. Worried scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did some checking with personnel and guess what, nobody called Graham McCoist or Laurence Wright work on the NASA payroll (either as contractors or full-time staff).

The PR gonks at NASA now deny that any member of security carried out a spot check, or that any developers were working to update the Orbiter's programming the day before the craft was lost.

Putting aside the obvious question of how two strangers with seemingly valid Ids could penetrate the heart of NASA, there is a more interesting question.

Is this just some bizarre NASA admin tale of mislaid staff and crossed wires, or is there something about the Martian weather that someone closer to home doesn't want the citizenry getting a closer peep at?

And if so, what? Like the Martian Climate Orbiter, we suspect the answers may stay disappeared for a rather long time.

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