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Another English/Metric "Spacecraft" Problem

Posted by Hemos on from the oh-the-joys-of-system-management dept.

SuperDry writes "There's been another spacecraft failure that's been attributed to an English/Metric units problem, this time at Tokyo Disneyland's Space Mountain. An axle broke on a "spacecraft" (a.k.a. roller coaster train) mid-ride, causing it to derail (nobody was hurt). The final investigation report has been released, and the root cause has been determined to be a part being the wrong size due to a conversion of the master plans in 1995 from English units to Metric units. In 2002, new axles were mistakenly ordered using the pre-1995 English specifications instead of the current Metric specifications. Apparently size does matter, even if it's only a 0.86mm difference."

4 of 748 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who's at fault here, really? by agentZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So in other words it wasn't a metric/inches conversion problem, but rather just using the old blueprints instead of the current one?

  2. About time America left the stone age by GileadGreene · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Sigh. When is America going to ditch its archaic measurement system and use the same standard as everyone else? I work in the space industry, and I see this idiocy going on all the time: half the team works in metric, the other half in english. Most of the time everyone manages to keep it straight. But every now and then, a mistake happens. Scientists all use metric. Most engineers are trained in metric. Let's just switch to metric for everything and be done with it.

    A side note: in New Zealand (and possibly other Commonwealth countries - I haven't checked) they don't even refer to "English units". Their term is "Imperial units". Which tells you how long it's been since they made the switch...

  3. America versus the rest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some things that would be nice to standardize (but will probably not happen in my lifetime)

    - imperial - metric
    - Letter paper - A4
    - Fahrenheit - Celcius
    - AM/PM - 24 hr notation
    - month/day/year - day/month/year

    Anything I left out?

  4. Re:Who's at fault here, really? by hoofie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually you are wrong !!!

    In 1983 an Air Canada flight ran out of fuel mid-flight. Disaster was averted due to a long-enough disused runway being available.

    Its now know as the "Gimli Glider" named after the abandoned air-force base where it landed. It was luck that one of the pilots was a glider pilot. Apart from the complete-cock up, it showed some fantastic flying and emergency management.