In 1999, the $125million($172 million in 2014 dollars) Mars Climate Orbiter flew off course and disintegrated after spacecraft engineers forgot to convert from English to metric measurements. While Jet Propulsion Laboratory's navigation team used the metric system (millimeters and meters) in its calculations, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, which built the craft, provided measurements in inches, feet, and pounds.

"That was so dumb," John Logsdon, a member of NASA’s advisory council, later told The Los Angeles Times. "There seems to have emerged over the past couple of years a systematic problem in the space community of insufficient attention to detail." Carl Pilcher, ex-Director of NASA’s Astrobiology institute absorbed the mistake with an air of familiarity, referencing Mariner I’s 1962 plight. "People make mistakes all the time," he said. "I think the problem was that our systems that were designed to recognize and correct human error failed us.” 

In the annals of mistakes, Mariner I will forever serve as a reminder -- for everyone from lowly blog editors to NASA engineers -- of the universal importance of proofreading. In the meantime, we’ll take solace in the fact that our typos at Priceonomics haven’t yet set us back $80 million.