The U.S.'s widely heralded, 36-million-mile Venus spaceship, Mariner I. last week climbed dead on course from Cape Canaveral with $4,000,000 worth of sensing equipment crammed into it. Then, after 3½ min. because of what was officially described as "a human error" in the information fed into a computer, Mariner wandered irresolutely off course, and a button presser on the Cape gave it the order to blow itself up.
That little mishap cost the taxpayers perhaps $20 million. But that is how the money goes in space. Canaveral's spacemen hope to try again before Sept. 10....
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