Page "Mariner 1" Paragraph 5

The probe's mission was later completed by Mariner 2.

However, the cryptic nature of the problems that led to the decision to abort Mariner 1, as well as the confusion in various reports on the incident, gave rise to an urban legend of sorts.

Indirectly, this confusion also contributed to some software engineering folklore about the role of supposed Fortran code in the guidance systems.

This folklore has persisted at least as late as 2006, despite a lack of evidence that Fortran was even in use for real-time guidance computations for the Mariner missions.