Functionality Mistakes Throughout History That Were Way Too Expensive to Fix

In the early 1980s, NASA, headquartered at the Kennedy Space Center, faced a debacle. They admitted in 2009 to losing the original moon landing tapes, revealing they had been overwritten, an action blending tragedy with a touch of humor.

Decades after the historic 1969 moon landing, the raw footage from the telemetry tapes vanished. Investigation revealed the Apollo 11 SSTV tapes were erased for reuse, as was NASA’s norm then. What remains are NTSC videos and Super 8 films of the original SSTV broadcast.