Lost in the Translation

Last week, NASA announced the loss of its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter. The error, it turned out, was a human one. Engineers exchanging data failed to convert English to metric measurements, and the probe veered so far off course it was destroyed in the Martian atmosphere.

“In a sense,” reported the Los Angeles Times, “the spacecraft was lost in translation.”

In a highly unscientific experiment, we took a selection of experts’ quotes from the Mars probe news story, and using https://www.altavista.com’s Web site, translated them into another language then back again into English.

Our hypothesis: Mortals aren’t the only ones who lose things in translation.

English: In a sense the spacecraft was lost in translation.

German: In einer Richtung war das Raumfahrzeug in der Ubersetzung verloren.

English: In a direction, the spacecraft was lost in the Ubersetzung.

English: People make mistakes all the time.

French: Les gens font a des erreurs toute l’heure.

English: People make has errors all the hour.

English: There seems to have emerged over the past couple of years a systematic problem in the space community of insufficient attention to detail.

Spanish: Se parece haber emergido concluido los ultimos pares de an~os un problema sistematico en la comunidad del espacio de la atencion escasa al detalle.

English: A sistematica problem in the community of the space of the little attention in detail looks like to have emerge concluded the even ultimos from anuses.

English: It is going to be the cautionary tale of all time.

German: Es wird die Vorsichtsgeschichte bis das Ende der Zeit sein.

English: It will be caution history to the end of time.

English: This is so dumb.

French: C’est si sourd-muet.

English: It is so deaf-mute.

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