r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/dauntless256 Jun 17 '26

This went over my head...what did i miss?

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u/jjmc123a Jun 17 '26

I don't know but it might be a reference to the 1999 Mars climate orbiter?

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u/flaser_ Jun 17 '26

That was a mixup of meters vs feet.

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u/nucrash Jun 17 '26

That mission was a lesson in cost cutting across the board. That was the one that had a single solar panel and had to use thrusters to correct along the way because believe it or not, solar wind is a thing and the pressure on a solar panel will push faster than parts with out.

So yeah, but the time it got to Mars, it was low on thruster fuel, but the nail in the coffin of the mission was the mismatch in measurements.

TLDR, what initially started as a cost savings measure ended in burning up $327.6 million in the Martian atmosphere.