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.
Bits ‘n’ Pieces
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