Decisive Moment in the exploration of Mars.

On July 4th, 1997, one half hour before the landing of Mars Pathfinder on Mars, a question came up. What version of the software on the craft was in use? There were multiple versions of the code in the spacecraft. No one was sure in the stress of the moment. Nevertheless, it was an important question because the new one had important changes.

We had about 15 minutes to decide to switch the version if it was necessary.

Was the first mission to land on Mars in over 20 years going to fail over a stupid mistake? Unfortunately, over…