More stupid tales from the bench

[amptramp]

One box was not checked off:

Remove Earth Sensor Lens Cap

They couldn't stabilize.  They lost the spacecraft and their $30,000,000.

Oh come on, seriously? Can't they send somebody up to take the lens off? I realize that's not exactly like driving out to the mailbox, but surely it would cost less than $30,000,000 in 70s money to fix that, no?

Nice stories, in any case. It does help us put our stuff into perspective - it doesn't really matter if our pedals don't work, compared to that. This is why I avoid situations in which I could make such an expensive blunder. I haven't ever been in control of a $30m machine, but I have lost/cut/bled on $20,000 works of art a few times. Somehow I got away with it each time, but even that was too much stress for me.

Send someone into synchronous orbit?  No person has ever been launched into synchronous orbit and once it's up there, it's gone.  Cheaper to send another one than fix the old one.  The story has to be true because I know the person who was telling it and it is just too stupid to make up.