Incorrect. According to Expert C Programming : Deep C Secrets by Peter Van Der Linden page 61: 'Table 2-2 The Truth About Two Famous Space Software Failur

Incorrect. According to Expert C Programming : Deep C Secrets by Peter Van Der Linden page 61: 'Table 2-2 The Truth About Two Famous Space Software Failures WHEN MISSION ERROR RESULT CAUSE Summer 1961 Mercury . used instead of , nothing; error found before flight Flaw in Fortran language July 22, 1962 Mariner 1 "R" instead of "R̅" $12M rocket and probe destroyed programmer followed error (to Venus) written in specification in specification' I have no idea whether the formatting of this table will be preserved, its inclusion is to save you looking for the book, you could either download the following .pdf and search for 'mariner' due to the lack of page numbers http://www.e-reading-lib.org/bookreader.php/138815/Linden_-_Expert_C_Programming%3A_Deep_C_Secrets.pdf http://www.e-reading-lib.org/bookreader.php/138815/Linden_-_... or just use what little Google Books provides http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4vm2xK3yn34C&q=fortran#v=snippet&q=fortran&f=false http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4vm2xK3yn34C&q=fortra... As you can see neither mission involved Mars and the faulty . being used instead of a , was found before it caused any harm. More information follows on the failed Ariane 5 launch - which Bertrand Meyer attributes to "insufficient specification": http://se.inf.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/computer/ariane.pdf http://se.inf.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/computer/ariane.pd... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501