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NASA Will Go Metric On the Moon
An anonymous reader writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA has decided to use the metric system for its new lunar missions. NASA hopes that metrication will allow easier international participation and safer missions. The loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter was blamed on an error converting between English units and metric units. 'When we made the announcement at the meeting, the reps for the other space agencies all gave a little cheer,' said a NASA official."
The metric system is the tool of the devil! My spaceship gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!
The loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter was blamed on an error converting between English units and metric units.
And to think when we were learning the metric system in school, the teacher told us it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
I guess he was wrong.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
when the first McD's is built on the moon, I have to order a "Royal With Cheese" ?
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
I'm confused - are they only going to use the Metric system on the Moon?
or is it more like: "Dude, did you see that?! NASA totally went Metric on the Moon's ass!"
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
I imagine this will assist the U.S. is its conversion to the metric system, something it has been trying to do for many years now.
Yeah, they started with the 2-liter bottles of soda about 20 years ago, so it looks like they're working their way down the list.
I wonder what comes next, after beverage containers, and interplanetary spacecraft.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'm British, so I deal with both systems on a daily basis and I think we've got it pretty sorted. Doing something important, where you need accuracy do it in metric doing something fun, do it in imperial.
Distance to the shops in miles, distance to the sun in kilometers
I measure my weight in stones and pounds, but I cook in grams.
Size of my wang in feet (ok, ok inches) size of my windows in cm.
I'm not sure why Americans feel the need to stick to imperial, especially in light of computers. At least NASA has now seen the light.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I think the only car companies still making cars in America are the Japanese. :-D
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I mess around with electric guitars in my nonexistent spare time. Last time I ordered a guitar neck from a US manufacturer it was described as being 43 millimetres wide and 0.85 inches thick, with tuning-machine holes pre-drilled at 11/32 inches.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Metric_system.
Watching that would be ever so slightly more amusing than watching one of my European customers when maintaining one of my employer's half-metric half-imperial products. It's fun hearing things like "This wrench won't fit, and this one is too big. Is this a 9.5mm nut? Oh shit. It's American."
They'd read the instructions, but when they tried to print them out the printer just sat there flashing "PC LOAD LETTER"...
But the Death Star would almost certainly use Imperial units, would it not?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
What the fuck does that mean?!
But if they were only going to do it half-assed (0.196850394-assed for metric folks),
I've always heard people talking about "a metric buttload" or "a metric assload" of this, that or the other thing. I never knew how much they were talking about, and I've been too embarassed to ask. Thank you for clearing up the conversion factor between a metric and imperial ass load!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's 30.48 cm, correct?
Just like we buy meat by the pound, but cocaine by the kilo!
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Not so fast... that's only true if you're using the regular "Avoirdupois" pounds. In the Troy system, which is used for precious metals and gems, a pound is only 12 ounces!
I read a "brain teaser" once that asked: Which is heavier, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers? Of course, we've all heard a variation of this question (usually bricks and feathers), and know that the answer is that they weigh the same -- one pound. However, a pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold, because feathers are measured using the avoirdupois system (1 pound = about 453.59 g) while gold uses Troy (1 pound = about 373.24 g).
Q: So how are you going to implement this change to the metric system?
NASA: We will do it inch by inch.
Life is wet, then you dry.