Five major engineering screw-ups

Cracked magazine has a cute article about 5 major engineering screw-ups (profane language). Rather than force you to check out the article I will list them here:

1. The Mars satellite that crashed because one team used metric and the other English.
2. The B2 bomber crash caused by flight control sensors that were sensitive to humidity.
3. The Hubble telescope mirror, they attribute to a fleck of paint (news to me).
4. The 1977 New York blackout, blamed on an operator error.
5. The 2006 AOL user search results accidentally posted to the web.

It is relieving to note that other than ancillary loss of life in the NY riot, there were no deaths from the actual incidents themselves, although NASA might have died of shame after the Hubble and Mars observer. There is an overview of the Hubble here, I slightly more technical article contemporary to the fiasco here, and a harsh evaluation from the NY Times here. Since the Old Grey Lady will go behind a pay-wall next year, I will quote the article:

• Washers had to be jammed under the main optical test equipment for the mirror to make it focus properly, which should have alerted technicians that something was wrong. Perkin-Elmer was to have filed a report of such drastic action, but Federal investigators could find no written evidence of it.
• An ancillary tool raised questions about the integrity of the main test equipment, which were ignored. Again, the problem was unreported.
• Readings from a second piece of test equipment that suggested the mirror was faulty were ignored.
• A technical advisory board at Perkin-Elmer called for an independent test of the mirror to uncover any "gross error" that may have slipped in. None was ever done.
• A new type of mirror examination with the first piece of test equipment yielded surprising evidence of a problem, either with the mirror or the test equipment. It was ignored. Moreover, Mr. Colvin testified that evidence of this problem was cut from a test photograph that Perkin-Elmer gave to a NASA official in 1981. Wavy lines that indicated a flaw were trimmed away, leaving only straight lines that gave no clue of the mirror’s spherical aberration.
• Final checkout of the mirror was rushed, with no time being taken to resolve the obvious discrepancies.

Also from the NY Times article, a nice overview of the 10-year contract to build the mirror:

Independent optical experts who reviewed the Government’s evidence, Mr. Colvin testified, found the actions of the contractor "incredible," "unconscionable," "grossly negligent," "criminal," "irresponsible," "deliberate" and "reckless."

I remember reading NASA Tech Briefs at the time. The month of the launch Perkin Elmer had an ad bragging about the mirror. No ad the next month, no surprise there. I also have heard that the fix to the Hubble never did really bring the specs to what they should have been; it was a kludge to salvage whet they could. Perkin Elmer paid $25 million for a multi-billion dollar screwup, its nice to have friends in high places. I also have read that the by the time they launched it, ground based telescopes could do as well, since they were using adaptive optics, where the mirror is servoed to null out the effects of atmospheric distortions. That technology was a government secret for a decade. It was used in the other direction, to take the distortions out of spy pictures from satellites pointed at the ground. Researches familiar with the top-secret technology begged our government to declassify it, since they knew what a boon it would be for astronomy. I assume it was declassified 5 years after you could read about it in Pravda.