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NASA Sticking To Imperial Units For Shuttle Replacement
JerryQ sends in a story at New Scientist about the criticism NASA is taking for deciding to use Imperial units in the development of the Constellation program, their project to replace the space shuttle. "The sticking point is that Ares is a shuttle-derived design — it uses solid rocket boosters whose dimensions and technology are based on those currently strapped to either side of the shuttle's giant liquid fuel tank. And the shuttle's 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters. ... NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the 'International System' of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million — almost half the cost of a 2009 shuttle launch, which costs a total of $759 million. 'We found the cost of converting to SI would exceed what we can afford,' says [NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma]."
How many cwts of Mars Orbiters must be lost before we learn?!
My work here is dung.
Because of a unit conversion error.
I'm sure it would cost alot, but really. WTF 370 million? wow. I can only hope that we get away from the Imperial action sometime.
You know, a lot of Europeans probably think that U.S. reluctance to embrace the metric system is just another example of our arrogance. But a lot of Americans (like me) are genuinely interested in adopting this system. We even passed a law in 1975 trying to mandate it.
The real problem is that it is surprisingly hard to embrace a new system of measurement when you've spent your entire life thinking in different terms. Try as I might, I still can't picture a kilometer without converting it to a mile first, and still can't picture a centimeter without converting it to inches. The meter is a lot easier because it's pretty analogous to the yard. I think maybe your brain gets locked into a certain measurement pattern pretty early in life and it's very difficult to get out of it, even though many of us would happily embrace it. I'm still trying to think more in metric, but it requires a surprising amount mental effort to do so.
It's not that Americans are really all that arrogant or stubborn about the imperial system. We've actually been trying to embrace the metric system for some time.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1 foot = 0.3048 meters
There you go, NASA. That one's for free.
Proving once again the USA is right and everyone alse is wrong!
It must be some astronomic and powerful calculator they need for those conversions. I'm assuming that it's so expensive because it can calculate the highest prime number and last digit of pi in under a second.
But that still doesn't account for the costs they're making up.
becasue a conversion error would cost them a hell of a lot more.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd buy them a pint.
The sticking point is that Ares is a shuttle-derived design â" it uses solid rocket boosters whose dimensions and technology are based on those currently strapped to either side of the shuttle's giant liquid fuel tank. And the shuttle's 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters.
And in 20 years, that'll be the same excuse given for building Ares's replacement with imperial units.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Rhapsody in Numbers
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What the hell are they spending this money on? If they paid their engineers $150,000/year, they could hire almost 2500 engineers for a year-long project. It's not like they're building anything new or buying raw materials; they just need someone to re-draw plans with new measurements in a different system. The fitting/testing for the Ares should already be budgeted for so it shouldn't fit in with this cost. No wonder we're in debt...
-SaNo
Abe Simpson: The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
Need Another Space Agency.
Seriously, just burn it down and start from scratch. The shuttle is such an economic disaster. It isn't even close to being competitive. Why would we possibly want to build a new one?
And as far as anyone trying to do physics in Imperial units... it's just braindead.
It's mind-boggling that they say it could cost $370,000,000 to convert the drawings. Aren't they stored in electronic form? The cost should be almost zero if they are. If not -- well I don't even know what to say -- it's just unbelievable.
"the shuttle's 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters. ... NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the "International System" of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million" Nearly half a billion dollars to convert into SI units (I've added the required cost overruns)?! Wouldn't all the relevant drawings, software and documentation have to be converted into machine readable formats that are more appropiate for use with today's sofware and document management systems? Is the estimated cost for the SI conversion, or more likely as I suspect the cost of bringing the design information into more appropiate formats.
Research is what I doing when I don't know what I am doing - Werner von Braun
Pay Me Later.
The trick is that later will be twice the price.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Of course they have to use the imperial system, in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the world. Because they certainly aren't managing it by "innovation" nowadays.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Maybe they should be re-thinking their plan to use 30-year-old technology on their flagship 21st Century project. Really: what does it say about the technical competence of NASA that they admit to being unable to use SI units, even though they would like to?
NASA is trying desperately to hang on to its past glory and the accomplishments of the past 50 years. But it is time to move on and embrace the challenges of the future. It is time to dump the pipe dream of returning to the Moon and using it as a base from which to travel to Mars. At the same time we need to assess what it is exactly that we want to accomplish with continued funding and support of ISS. And the whole country, not just NASA, should be embracing the SI system as a step to take into the future. But NASA should be leading the way, not looking for excuses to continue using the Imperial System. When will they ever learn?
The old British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill once said: "You can depend on the Americans to do the right thing once all other options have been exhausted!"
No offense, Sir Winston, but after over a decade of living and working in the US, I have to change it to: "You can NOT depend on the Americans to do the right thing once all other options have been exhausted!"
Get on with the program and get rid of the antiquated foot, inches lbs and what not and move into the 21st century!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Metric's good for making some calculations by hand, but, any more, the alignment of metric units, like all relations around water to its mass and volume, all don't really hold that accurately any more, and you still need goofy constants. It's like, everything is "kinda based around 10", rather than, is based on ten.
As a consumer, I'm not really sure what the advantage to me is having to switch from getting gasoline or water in gallons and quarts, rather than in liters. Regardless of the unit of measure, the more important number, the $, is going to be the same.
I think the adoption of metric is ultimately just another statist thing. If you ask me, every country should have its own unit of measurement. Modern software can fix it all up.
I vote to start a country of Todds, where everything is measured in Todds.
the unit of mass of liquid measure, is a Todd, and that is based on how many sodas I drink in a day. You could say two 64 ouncers, or, 128 ounces.
the unit of height is a Todd, and that's about 6'1", and that's how tall I am. If I was a porn star, I would have a unit of length roughly about 1 foot, but, I'm not, so oh well.
This is my sig.
Far more damaging than being used to the Imperial system is the name of the metric system. SI? That sounds foreign! Who puts the adjective after the noun... Communists (Comrade Doctor... Doctor is being used as an adjective to modify Comrade)!
Seriously though, I had the same problem that you have. I was driving a car once that only had km on the speedometer. I had to convert miles to km to know if I was going at reasonable, nevermind legal, speeds.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
It was a pain to start with, but I adapted within a few weeks. Coming back to Europe I adapted back within days.
Most systems engineers in the space industry know that it's difficult to completely use metric for space missions. There are usually many components and subsystems that are designed by different vendors that have their own paradigms set up. These paradigms are usually kept do a legacy of proven use, and engineers will agree with me that if a product works well on-orbit, why on earth would you want to change a product simply due to unit conversions. You simply take note of the units and move on. I never thought I'd have to deal with microinches, to be honest, but it's no big deal since everyone knows 1 uin = 0.0254 microns.
the issue isn't just one of redoing the drawings along with the various checks and cross checks to make certain the units were converted properly. I'm sure they could that, but the resulting set of new drawings would be extremely prone to encouraging mistakes. As a minor example. Let's assume that on one piece they currently have a dimension of 12 inches +/- 0.01 inches. So they convert this dimension to metric giving a new value of 30.48 cm +/- 0.025 cm. Excuse me?!?!? That's a rather odd and strange dimensional target to hand off to the machinest. And you'll be getting these rather strange dimensions for everything on the original design. Frankly using the metric measurements would make that rocket utterly hell to construct. So the "proper" solution would be to use the original design and then stretch/shrink various dimensions in order to make the dimensions "rounder" and easier to manufacture. But upon doing that, they have effectively come up with a new design that has to be recertified.
Just double check those Imperial units to make sure they're not disguised Rebels,
or your shuttle could be used in a terrorist attack on the moon or whatnot.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I seriously expected imperial fighter units to be developed by NASA first, when reading the title.
Can't we just crowd source this and let all these bitching nerds do it? For free.
Here in Canada most regulators require measurements to be done in metric. Many people here still use imperial for common things, such as personal measurements (height, weight, waist size etc), but for any public projects people tend to use SI. Its an awkward mix of the two systems, but for the most part people recognize that metric is easier and more accurate. Temperature is probably the hardest one to convert. I think if the US converted to metric it would eventually phase out all imperial measurements within a generation or two. I'm rather shocked the scientists and engineers at NASA have been using imperial this whole time.
I think NASA should be considered for restructuring, as their budgets are incredibly bloated for what they're trying to accomplish. I'm all for government funding going to successful space agencies and letting the under-performers die out.
does it suck that the US generally uses different things (units, digital telecom carriers, etc.) than the rest of the world? yes.
does it suck that much?
no.
both SI and Imperial units are pegged to arbitrary things. In the case of Imperial units it was some king's foot. In the case of SI it is the distance light travels in some amount of time. whatever.
any system of measurement we develop is going to be arbitrary, and will probably break down at both extremes as we discover more about the nature of the universe.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I and my offspring have twelve fingers, you insensitive clod !
Not sure if you are joking or not, but 1 foot is exactly .3048 meters, because 1inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters.
And how much will cost a shuttle exploding because of an US unit (not imperial, mind you which is a different system) suckage? Way more i bet. The US economy has loses an incredible number of jobs because of the extra cost of their unit system nobody else uses in the world (yeah, think that for any product to be exported, 2 production lines are needed. One in US units for the US market, one in metric for the rest of the world)
$370 million to do undergrad-level (at most) grunt work? Isn't that what unpaid interns are for?
I'll do the job for only $170 Million, and I'll get it done on time and within budget, something that NASA is not used to.
For an extra $30 Million, I'll even make sure it's accurate!
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
The only units I would like to stick with in the U.S. are all automotive-Horsepower, Torque (foot pounds), PSI, Quarter Mile and 0-60mph. Yes 0-100kmph=0-62mph, but that's still not accurate. Some cars are designed to redline in second gear at 60mph so they only need one shift to do 0-60mph, while they may need to hit third for 100kmph. Otherwise, metric is fine for distances, weights, volume, etc. It makes doing technical business with international companies difficult, and although the U.S. doesn't want to change I believe it would be a good use of the stimulus money.
How many men are left?
We're just talking about units of measure. If it is easier to use imperial units because previous design and drawings were done in imperial, then that's the smart choice. I would be upset if NASA was wasting taxpayer money just so that the design could be done in metric. I actually applaud NASA for making a smart, cost/benefit engineering decision.
With the demise of both Emperor and Darth Vader, they might be able to get a good deal on a Star Destroyer.
(And Han Solo wanted too high a price on the Millenium Falcon)
The only real valid arguments I've ever heard for using metric are that (a) it's easy to learn the conversions, and (b) everyone else uses it for all science and egineering.
(b) is the reason that NASA should just use metric... And anyone else in the world doing any kind of science or engineering.
But for everyday life, imperial or American units turn out to have a lot of utility that most people aren't aware of, because most of us of the younger generation have just relied on calculators doing decimal calculations for us most of the time. If instead you picture fractions in your head, imerial or American units are quite handy. They also often match real world objects a bit closer. If you're dividing meters into centimeters, you can really only talk about tenths, hundreds, etc. If you're dividing yards into feet and inches, or pounds into ounces, etc. you have thirds, 16ths, 12ths, and all kinds of other useful fractions to use to think about the divisions. Find a carpenter who is good at this to see what I mean. Same with volume and weight; if you do a lot of cooking and modifying quantities in recipes you can get good at those conversions.
What?? $370 million to convert the drawings? No wonder a door knob or toilet seat costs $1 million. Oh sorry. I guess the toilet seat doesn't really apply to NASA, because of certain other parameters for that item. I'll leave that cost strictly as a Navy expenditure.
Can't they just hire unpaid interns to do this sort of work? Many college students would love an internship with NASA, even if they were just crunching numbers all day...
The replacement for the shuttle will be around for decades (relying partly on technology that is already decades old). Now is the only time that you have a chance for going metric, or keep on trying to avoid the inevitable. In ten to twenty years from now there will be no alternative. By then all the subcontractors will be busy converting metric to imperial to meet NASA's requirements (and that is as error prone as NASA going metric I'd guess) or - recognizing the unavoidable facts -NSA will start a conversion project which will a) be a major headache once the system is in operation and will b) cost a lot more. So: Jump. Just do it. And live happily ever after...
I assumed NASA had been using Metric for decades. Isn't Metric supposed to be the system of science and - just as importantly for the space program - international work?
Sure, Metric has serious drawbacks like all the names sounding the same and the dangers caused by typos (We needed to wait until the second spacecraft was three decameters away before firing the main rocket engines, not three decimeters, but someone typed in in wrong and that's why we lost the second spacecraft), and the ease of getting a decimal in the wrong place when making conversions, but whatever it's problems, our space program should have settled on a single standard by now.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
"Imperial" "shuttle" sounds like an homage to George Lucas to me.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
I'm from Australia, where we only use imperial measurements for song lyrics. You gotta make a clean break. I moved to Canada, which uses a mixed system just as you described, and it's *nuts*.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Nasa replacing the shuttle with TIE fighters... or maybe bombers...
I blame Bush for forcing NASA to use Imperial Units, Clinton for under funding NASA, Carter for drafting the requirement, and Cheney for inventing it!
If only Obama had invented metric earlier then Cheney could this all have been averted!
DAMN YOU REGAN FOR INVENTING SPACE FLIGHT!!!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I seriously doubt that NASA is using Imperial Gallons for capacity in place of U.S. Gallons. (Capacity, I believe, is the main area where the two systems diverge.)
That said, they should be using SI.
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
This article got my hopes up, for a second I thought NASA was going to stick with TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers and Death Stars!
Not this silly Rebellion Engineering!
Post the drawings online, and let the community work at it. Use the reCaptcha approach to prevent people messing things up. I can see every high school and intro college physics class being given the assignment of converting one shuttle drawing from imperial to metric units. Great context to use the probe fiasco as an example of why units are important.
Government money is paying for all this stuff anyway - let the public have the (non-security sensitive) drawings and we can start to do the metric conversion for them. They'll only have to validate that the results make sense (which should be done for ANY conversion, by anybody - pro or not; in fact, the original drawings need that sort of validation too for this sort of project) and do the ITAR restricted/security sensitive stuff themselves.
I don't know how many times I've tried to read a science forum only to have these "should be in metric" unit Nazi losers fill the thing up with pointless posts. Please, if you have nothing to contribute to a science article...just don't post. We also don't care about the billionth stupid post of "but but but, the earth is only 6,000 years old.
It never ceases to amaze me the resistance to going to metric here in the states for measurements but no one bats an eyelash at the fact our money is basically metric (base 10).
It is in fact soo damn easy that we can instinctively give somone a $5 and a penny for something that costs $4.01 so we can get back a dollar rather then 3 quarters 2 dimes and 4 pennies....
Boo metric it's too damn easy to use! Forget cutting a board 1.46 meters in half. it's too damn hard to cut it .73 meters! Better yet that 3 5/8th inch board needs to be cut in half so we need umm... err... need some scratch paper here....
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
1 kilonewton = 224.8089431 pound force,
and 224.8089431 pound force = 1000 newtons,
and 1 newton = 3.5969 ounce force,
How many figs are in a newton?
It's sad that half the price of a single shuttle launch is significant when compared with the budget for the DESIGN of the shuttle's replacement. To think that the reusable shuttle was originally chosen as a cheaper means of reaching space than disposable rockets.
The U. S. went to the moon on the standard system. The only time there have been math errors is when a conversion to metrics was involved. Simple solution? Toss the metric system, it was only "adopted" by Congress to appease Europe anyway. Or make all mechanics buy a second set of tools.
That's it, it was the Snap-On lobby!
Isn't the metric system where they measure in Mickey Mouses (MM).
Now watch someone with no sense of humor mod this down. So Sad.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The real problem is that it is surprisingly hard to embrace a new system of measurement when you've spent your entire life thinking in different terms. Try as I might, I still can't picture a kilometer without converting it to a mile first, and still can't picture a centimeter without converting it to inches.
So you're a lost cause. Fine, we accept that, but you'll eventually die off. But you should at least start teaching the youngin's about metric (the first generation may have to be dual-mode).
Note that Canada switch in the 1970s, and things were fine. There is still some mixed use here, but that's mostly because we're beside the US which exerts a strong force.
It will take some time, but you have to start.
In isolation, some NASA engineers may be smart. But they may not be the people who probably are making these decisions. Highly likely that it is some internal group that is charged with consistency or similar title. They may loose power or may even become superfluous, if NASA goes metric.
On a different note, how much confidence do you have in an agency like NASA that is charged with exploring space, when they cannot even do what school kids all over world do with ease?
drug dealers generally sell cocaine by the gram and pot by the ounce.
Under 0 C body temperature is way too damned cold, over 100 C way too hot.
If the data are stored in computer files, then it would be relatively easy to write a program that copies the file and converts the units from the imperial to the metric system.
They should make all their drawing/code unit independent. Use "inches" instead of ticks for inches, etc. Always have the units present. Then when its time to switch its easier. Also they can switch sizes they are whole numbers in metric.
more impressive when you use centimeters rather than inches, no?
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
http://xkcd.com/526/
call me FOSS im the boss with the sauce and the source
Somehow the idea that U.S. units are called "Imperial" units has taken root. That term only applies to a system used in the British Empire/Commonwealth (hence the name) before they went metric. The U.S system is "English units" (because it's based on units that were widely used in England at the time of American independence) or "U.S. Customary Units." The two systems are very close (length and weight are the same) but not identical (volume units are quite different, even thought the names are the same).
In most other contexts, I'd just say, "OK, sloppy usage eventually becomes the standard, like 'broadband' instead of 'high-bitrate'. Been happening since language was invented, not going to change."
But in this case you have terms that are defined in standards. And miscommunication can cause much wackiness. For example, suppose I need 10 gallons of something. The nearest store is just across the border in Canada, and they're metric, so I use Google to convert units and come up with 45.5 liters. Nice and simple, right?
Wrong. I only needed a little less than 38 liters. The U.S. gallon is 20% smaller!
OK, this particular example is kind of artificial, because most people would just say "gallon" and Google assumes that "gallon" means "U.S. gallon". Still, you need to be careful with this stuff. Like, suppose you're putting fuel in an airplane!
Of course, all this extra confusion is yet another reason for the U.S. to go metric. I work for for a computer manufacturer that not only sells widely in metric countries, our actual production is outsourced to companies that are mostly in metric countries. Does this cause headaches? You bet!
Afterward the engineer at the NASA and the scientist at the NASA can speak to the rest of the world without having to convert, or FREAKING lose satellite, or mars orbiter.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Converting to SI would require a deep review of all the designs. We know how much that would cost, but have they estimated the potential future savings when considering the discovery previously unknown flaws and optimisations?
If these specs are really 30 years old as the article suggests, I'd say a deep review is long overdue, since the people who wrote it most likely aren't around anymore.
The cost will be higher than that - almost the entire US space industry uses Imperial units. If NASA changes, everybody else will have to, also. And remember - it was the Germans who started this mess.
I have a heat exchanger with a temperature change of 50 degrees F, the correct metric temperature change is 27.8 degrees C. If you got 10 degrees C, you used the wrong method.
Temperature differences aren't measured in "degrees Fahrenheit" or "degrees Celsius"; they're measured in "Fahrenheit degrees" or "Celsius degrees". These units are equivalent to "rankines" or "kelvins" respectively.
I think converting US to the metric system can be done in a very simple manner and the reason why it doesn't happen is primarily a political problem.
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Imagine that the .gov passes a law saying: In 5 years everyone must use the metric system exclusively.
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The law includes the following action plan:
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1. For the first year this law is made public through advertising on all kinds of media channels (tv spots (prime time not required), magazine ads, Internet ads, a prominent header with this decision and a countdown timer on ALL .gov website, etc.). Also, all .gov institutions where interaction with the citizens takes place must have on display at a prominent location special written explanations and physical reference measurement units.
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2. At the city boundary points of all major highways a special kilometer will be drawn using a standard method so that all the cities have the same thing. For example a big, specially decorated pole can be erected with the sign "START of ONE kilometer" and then another pole can be erected at the other end with the sign "END of ONE kilometer". Ideally, you should see the ending pole from the position of the start pole. Since America is all about crawling with the car for 3h each day, everyone will be able to get a feeling of a kilometer at various speeds.
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3. In all city centers a specially decorated 10m marker will be drawn with all the appropriate divisions. This will remind everyone that this thing is happening and it will also serve as a memorial in the years to come. "- Hey grandpa what's that? - Well sonny, your grandpa was alive and kicking in the great times when we switched to this meter thing! - Whoa, you're a real American hero grandpa! - Yes sirree."
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4. At all gas station pumps a special bottle holding a 1 liter sample will be displayed. Also, a recipient with 1 tonne of water will be displayed somewhere near the gas station paying counter.
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5. After the first year, all the citizens who have a social security number will receive a package from the US .gov in the mail. The package will contain a "metric conversion kit", a letter and a certificate of the type "Congratulations citizen #### for living in this great time when we'll switch to the metric system, a very big change for our great American country ... red white and blue ...".
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The kit will also consist of the following items:
- A specially decorated 1m ruler made out of wood and containing all the divisions.
- A specially decorated glass bottle with all the divisions of a liter embossed in the glass.
- A set of weights from grams to 1 Kg.
- etc. (other measurement references)
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That's the first version of the plan.
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The key of this plan is that .gov must make a special event out of this conversion and all the items involved must be special in that they must be of a high quality, nice design and have "collector value". They can license small shops where ma and pa can build these things by hand - which could be great in these times. Creating them this way will also convey the message that these things are American, made by Americans, in America so they are a good thing. Pushing for the feeling that this change is a "good thing" and it's "owned by us" will have a chain effect in all the smaller things of life and it will immediately start to cast a light of old and stupid on the previous units. Everyone wants a cool new thing.
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And here is the problem. The US .gov is not interested primarily to operate for the greater good of all its people. Instead, it operates to keep them dumb, fat and entertained so that they are easy to control and rally behind great American success stories like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, ? [to be continued].
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Too bad.
...and use scaled Planck units. It doesn't make sense to explore the universe with non-universal units.
a binary-based system, which is very convenient for human beings.
If a binary-based system were so convenient, then why didn't we skip counting on our thumbs and use octal numbers in daily life?
Snopes also said that cow-tipping didn't exist, because "no teenager could push over a cow that weighs so much"
It was years ago when I read it and dismissed the site forever. So when my wife was using it a little while ago (something about marshmallow peeps), I looked for the cow tipping thing, and couldn't find it, so I cannot provide the citation. In any case, Snopes sometimes relies on "reasoning" rather than research, and gets it horribly wrong.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
This is a good call by NASA.
It will certainly be cheaper and simpler to convert to the metric system in the future, as opposed to doing it now.
...or so I recall.
It's how we like to deliberately confuse foreigners :)
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
ounces or tons in that first paragraph, and knew in that second one. Yeash.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This is pure politics at it's most evil. Even if the budget allocated the conversion money to NASA, all the rightist wingnuts would say it's a UN conspiracy, and somehow serve as enough of a distraction or delay as to hurt other more pressing items, like healthcare reform.
Maintaining "imperial" measurements just gives away more jobs to emerging markets. Or rather, it SHOVES them away.
The US painted itself into a competitive corner long ago by clinging to "imperial" measurements.
If NASA can not do it, no other US agency will even try... no matter what the consequences are.
We just have to live with it for now.
France first adopted the Metric System in 1791 (according to Wikipedia). Let me repeat that... 1791.
The first public, commercial, industrial use of the Metric System in America was Coca-Cola; Coca-Cola bottles have always displayed their volume in metrics, and they have been around since 1886. Let me repeat that... 1886.
First shuttle flight was in 1977.
Now here's the surprise on my part. For as long as I have been alive, all science and math text always focused on the metric system. Aside from off-tasks in grade school of converting Celsius to Farhenheit(sp?) or inches to centimeter... gallons to liters... everything has always been in metrics. Growing up, the total icon of science and math has been primarily NASA. It is very hard to for me to conceive, that given the adoption of the metric system in acadamia and almost exclusive to intellectuals and professionals... that NASA has for so long, and so widespread throughout any of their projects, adopted anything other than the metric system. Had this article not been published, I would have refuted any claim that NASA didn't use the metric system. All I can say in 2009 is "wow".
Actually, horsepower is not in use just by the UK/US and adherents of the imperial system. It's in wide use even in countries that are fully metric (eastern europe for example).
... is to pay George Lucas for use of the term "Imperial Units"
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Slugs, poundals, what's the difference ?
First, I was taught that on this side of the pond they are called English Engineering Units.
Second, the cost of the Mars orbiter lost due to conversion issues was about that of the estimated conversion cost. This
foolishness will go on until another mission is lost, then the money will magically be found. Let's hope no one gets killed this time.
Also from the UK. Agreed we switch between metric and imperial in day to day measures but my experience is that all engineering, science, and other accurate work is done in metric. Also metric is uniformally taught in schools (disclaimer: I am an educational researcher at a UK university, I work alongside teachers in local schools so sit in on a lot of lessons).
All accurate measurement is done in metric (apart from maybe a few very traditional craft fields).
General trades like the electricians and plumbers work in mm.
Looking forward to your response: can you show me a big science or engineering project in the UK recently completed or underway that doesn't work in metric? Any new bridges, buildings, vehicles, satellites, etc. PR for said projects might give dual figures (BBC website is particularly keen to maintain imperial measures it seems) but for the actual builders on the projects, I can't think of an example where they are measuring in feet, inches, thousands of an inch etc.
I work as an ME in a US manufacturing company - though it is definitely not rocket science (at times it feels like a blacksmithy with CNC machines). We rarely use metric as our customers rarely do either for the various reasons of backwards compatibilty, machinery, tooling, and especially that steel plate, bar, and tube warehouses only carry a handful of metric sizes. And ordering a custom mill run requires around 3,000 pounds per size.
But I think another good reason we haven't changed to metric in the medium to small US manufacturing sphere is that no one has a real internal 'feel' for what is 30 kg, or how big is 140 mm. We weren't raised in metric, so we have no comfortable frame of reference. We could just take that leap and switch to metric - but our prices would be non-competitive and our customers (build to order, mind you) would reject them.
Ironically, while in Engineering Physics, I despised working the imperial unit problems (how many grindles in a kip again?0.
and you are replying to a sig....
If you drive someone along a road for a few minutes and then ask them how many miles they travelled I think you would find that people have no concept of a mile. Similarly if you asked them to draw an inch or cm I doubt there would be much difference in their accuracy.
I have a concept of a mile. And I'm sure it's also wildly inaccurate.
Finally some sanity. There are places in the tooling and gaging where the tolerances are tight and a change over to metric requires a complete re-engineering of the tolerance stackup.
Even still, there is no reason why the project should be driven by US customary units for every thing.
Re-state the external interfaces in Metric.
Build everything that is new in Metric.
Retain US customary units in unchanged assemblies.
DO THE PROGRAM LEVEL WORK IN METRIC.
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
There was NOT "significantly established manufacturing infrastructure" before Napoleon Bonaparte, unless you mean the occasional iron foundry.
There was NO fucking excuse for building the space shuttle in imperial units in the first place. It was a new machine.
Defending imperial units makes as much sense as defending pounds, shillings, and pence or measuring water consumption in Genoa hogsheads. It's all just bloody-minded sentimentality, the same attitude that keeps the UK using pounds instead of the vastly more convenient (and more stable) Euro.
I piss off bigots.
"Metric System Thriving In Nation's Inner Cities"
Apparently numbers like 9mm, key (for kilo) , cc's and liters are well known ;-)
The US uses Imperial Measurements for just about everything.
This makes the rest of the world cry. (Shrug)
If you want to ride on our rocket, cope.
If you really insist on the metric system, then hey, build your own space program.
-Styopa
I'm not too sure what the problem is. Up here in Canada, we use the American and French systems interchangeably. I buy a pound of butter and a liter of milk. It's a foot-long submarine sandwhich and it has 100 grams of meat in it, as does a Quarter-Pounder. We get water in half-liter bottles, and beer by the pint. We buy gas by the liter and our cars get good mileage with 35psi in the tires.
The only downside is that our toolboxes have twice as many tools in them.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Oh wait, you already have... lucky it didn't have people on board. Maybe shift to metric before you do another collaborative project and somebody dies.
I assume the International Space Station is a total nightmare because of this, all partners but the Americans working in metric and everybody having to dual-measure to deal with the US parts of the ship. Anybody got any information on how that's all dealt with?
The Imperial System of measurements is not the same as the customary measurements used in the United States. The legal arbiter of measurements in the United States is the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Apendixes B [PDF] and C [PDF] to their Handbook 44 provide a good overview of the structure of the respective standards and their relationship to SI (the science based International System, which was based on the Metric System).
The word system seems misleading when applied to US customary measures. For example:
Does this make a difference? From one viewpoint, no, when do you ever need to keep something accurate within 2 mm over a mile? From another, yes, repeated iterations of computations based on incorrect conversions can produce just plain gibberish. Another bit of measurement chaos to keep in mind:
We also must remember that NASA has proven itself incapable of managing the different systems of measurement before. Ten years ago NASA crashed a Mars bound probe because of botched conversions from customary to SI units. You would think that having paid $125 million for that lesson, they would want to avoid a recurrence. But, I suppose that they are from the government and they do not have to care.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Tell me about it... for the record I thought Europe was strange for measuring drinks in centilitres which is a measurement NO ONE ever uses here in Canada, but I got used to it (divide millimeters by 10, not hard).
The grocery stores sell here produce by the pound, but have to list the price/kg on the sign, usually in fine print near the bottom. Price/lbs is always a nice number like $1.99 or something, per kilo it's like $4.46.
Home construction (probably commercial and industrial too) is still in imperial units (2x4's, 4x8 sheets of plywood, etc). Property frontage is in feet, home size in square feet.
Temperature is in Celsius, but older Fahrenheit-thinking people like my parents always say crap like "Oh it's 90 above outside!" which, to me, means that water must be almost boiling. At least we can all agree when it's -40 out (for real!).
Driving speeds are in KM/H and distances in KM and meters, but western Canada was surveyed in miles, so we have mile roads, townships, acres, etc.
Vehicles are marketed in miles per imperial gallon for fuel efficiency. They do list in L/100km too but never advertise in those units. FYI, imperial gallons are 4.55L, 20% larger than the 3.78L US gallon, which just adds to the confusion since American channels (who also advertise vehicles) make up a huge chunk of our TV offerings. Power is measured in Horsepower, not kilowatts, and torque in Pound-Feet not Newton-meters.
Liquids are usually sold in the metric equivalent of whatever ounces or gallons it is in the US. What should be a 1L bottle of engine oil is actually 946ml. A bottle of beer is 341ml, a can is 355ml. A jug of good juice like Tropicana is typically 3.78L (a US gallon since it's imported), but jugs of milk (product of Canada) are 4L.
People are measured in feet/inches and generally weighed in pounds, sometimes in kilos though.
Bars serve shots in ounces, and it's been my unfortunate experience that when asking for a pint of beer in this country to receive the lowly 16oz (473ml) American pint, not the proper 20oz (568ml) Imperial pint. Have we forgotten our heritage so quickly? Naww.. it's just bars being cheap and making you pay for that extra 4oz of beer but not giving it to you.. jerks.
I'm sure there's more absurdity, but despite what some may think, you can get used to the silly hybrid system. Most new tape measures have inches on one side and centimeters on the other, so things are changing slowly I guess.
The thing I find the most confusing is clothes sizing. Nearly every single country has a different scale or numbering system. Shoe sizes are even worse. Why they can't come up with a UNIVERSAL clothes sizing guide for every place is beyond me. Why can't they have a standard SI Size 10 Mannequin or SI Size 10 Shoe Form that stays in the vault with the kilogram weight and the meter stick in Paris there that all the world's size 10 mannequins have to be a copy of? One for every size in both genders. Who's with me? Who's bloody with me? SI prevails because I say it does. Good guys win, bad guys lose, SI prevails!
Yes, I realize that there are as many different body and foot shapes as there are people, it was more tongue in cheek than anything else, especially given the V for Vendetta reference.. still it would be nice to standardize this stuff to some extent.
Here I thought they were going to buy shuttles from Emperor Palpatine...oh well.
What we really need to do is switch our numbering system to base 12.
A big percentage of us have already changed it to base 2, base 8 and base 16, and look at the mess that's gotten us into.
Great. The Mars Climate Orbiter got fucked up and the space shuttle is a millstone around the necks of future spacefarers because NASA relied on mom-and-pop machine shops with antiquated gear and leftover bits and pieces from other space missions. Wonderful. No wonder it's such a dangerous kludge.
As for SI: it was an international standard long, LONG before 1960. Napoleon imposed it wherever he could, which meant the French Empire and other places he conquered, which was most of Europe. By 1900 most of the world's population was using what became the modern SI system.
The only reason this is even an issue is American economic hegemony. Anybody with half a brain can see that imperial units are stupid. Entertaining, but stupid.
I piss off bigots.
Over 30 is way too damn hot, under 0 is way too damn cold (or whatever you feel better for me it is -10, +20). And what is the temperature of ice in fahrenheit scale at standard PST ? Temperature of bopiling water at standard PST ? Without consulting anything I know it is 0/100 for pure water. Fahrentheit it is 32 to 212. Bah.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Uh, what? I just can't fathom that number. That much money... Jesus Christ. How much real, actual, physical, digestible FOOD could we produce and deliver to people across the world for that much money? How many tens of thousands of efficient vehicles could we manufacture? How many tens of millions of doses of malaria vaccine could we produce that would save many, many lives?
All that much money to... switch from one numbering system to another? Something is terribly fucking wrong at NASA if this is the real amount of money it would cost. Jesus Fuck. I'm sure glad they decided against doing that, because if they seriously spent this much money on something as ridiculously trivial, I would rage out of my mind.
There is no mechanized ground transportation before 1825.
You must build your roads - and canals - around the limitations of the horse, the mule and the ox.
The ordinary craftsman's materials are wood and leather.
Iron and steel is expensive.
That also sets a limit on what you can do with a sledge or wagon.
The American railroad didn't begin with a standard gauge. You changed gauge when you changed lines.
Wide gauge rail implies very gentle curves and gradients, broad cuts, bridges and tunnels.
Wide gauge demands sophisticated corporate fiance. Steam technology. Heavy industry. Heavy traffic.
The nineteenth century.
The Camino Real - The King's Highway - is a military road.
The army always wants a vehicle that can turn on a dime and give five cents change -
as does the farmer. The teamster.
Standards don't survive because they are historical curiosities. They survive because they make sense.
Advanced workcenters machining exotic alloys even have force sensors so they can predict when the tools will need changing, and can identify faults such as incorrectly annealed materials. My guess is that in reality this is about not wanting to have to first replace all the drawings, and then recode all the machining tapes. As I note, the machine doesn't care what system of units it is using; they're just numbers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You buy a set of SAE or Metric wrenches to bloody you knuckles, not Imperial.
Have they gone nuts? Can't they make some scripts to do most work for them? A few days and nights of ruby, python or perl work should do wonders and spare them millions in the process.
In the United States, the prevailing use is North American Engineering units of measure, not Imperial units of measure. North Americal Engineering units of measure has lbm (pound-mass) for mass, lbf (pound-force) for force, and Gc = 32 lbm*ft/s^2/lbf. Imperial units of measure has lb (pound) for mass, poundal for force, and Gc = 1 lb*ft/s^2/poundal.
Here Gc is the constant that converts the units in the equation for force f required to accelerate mass m at rate a :
There are two reasons the US has not yet converted to the Metric System. 1) Americans are too lazy to bother learning a new system of measurements and 2) America is the wealthiest nation in the world, so nobody can force us to switch. But, as I tell my students at the beginning of the obligatory "Intro. to Earth Science - Lab 1: The Metric System", if we continue being lazy, we'll stop being the wealthiest nation in the world.
And, honestly, I think that came true about 10 years ago anyway.
I moved to Canada, which uses a mixed system just as you described, and it's *nuts*.
I can second that, coming from Russia, which had been strictly metric for over 90 years now (before that we had our own weird system, which also had pounds and feet and stuff, but which were different from them dirty foreign Imperial or US pounds and feet). Pretty much the only way we got exposed to inches is when measuring floppies and computer monitors (TV screens are measured in cm).
Yes, it's definitely nuts in Canada. You go to a supermarket, and sure enough, all labels are metric, but they aren't round, and clearly are just metric conversions of traditional units (e.g. 453g or 1.98L). All road distance signs are in km, and speed signs in km/h, and my car - bought in Canada - has km/h on speedometer, but they still use MPG when talking about cars. And so on...
"I had to convert miles to km to know if I was going at reasonable, nevermind legal, speeds."
If you need your speedometer to tell you if you're driving at a safe speed, perhaps you shouldn't be driving.
Obviously, since the USA has had several different rail gauges, your post cannot be literally true. US Civil War buffs will recall that rail gauge had major military significance in that conflict.
But anyway, the so-called "ruts" in Roman roads were not "formed by Roman war chariots" - quite the other way around. The grooves were placed to control traffic movement, and were a part of the road design.
Archeologists apparently need to read more history. Or, you know, basic primers on Roman road construction... it's an extremely well documented subject.
So, how tall are you?
Who's with me?! I SAID... WHO'S WITH ME!!??
It may be half the cost of a launch to convert, but what will it save in the long run? Using English measurements (or at least the relevant miscommunication) has already cost an entire mission. Better to just get it over with than pay for the continuous QA of double checking specifications, conversions, etc..
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Base 12 would perhaps be better because it divides nicely by 3 and 4. 10 is a goofy unit math-wise. Damned fish ancestors, you missed it by one finger! Either that, the Big Dude Upstairs slipped up his CAD drawing.
Table-ized A.I.
you're right, "I would walk 804.672 kilometers and I would walk 804.672 more" just doesn't have the same ring to it
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Twelve-fingered alien says: "All your base are belong to us!"
Fahrenheit is an awful scale for human consumption. It's incredibly wasteful with its numbers - the change of 1 unit is absolutely meaningless (and anyway, why "100" is somebody with fewer?...)
Celsius is also wastefull, but to a much smaller degree (no pun...), thanks to it being based on highest consistent "natural" temperature we might encounter and lowest consistent natural temperaure.
BTW, Fahrenheit scale was developed in the area where I live, so me thinking it's worse is not a matter of local "patriotism".
One that hath name thou can not otter
It is unfortunate, but the whole program is set for failure. The old guys who created the workable systems are gone and no one has stood up to take their place. Now the contractors who delivered working systems are now referred to as technicians and the politically empowered have seized control.
Ares is a mistake. All it takes is one look and the untrained eye can pick up on it. Take a thin stick; put a heavy weight on one end and energetic vibrations on the other. Test found the vibrations delivered to the capsule to be possibly unacceptable, well no duh.
The old guys sacrificed allot in the name of Country to create the marvels we see today. With the Cold War on, they put God and Country first. I just do not see the dedication anymore. More over, I do not believe they would have sacrificed their livelihood the way they did for this Country as it stands today.
It is sad.
"Driving speeds are in KM/H and distances in KM and meters, but western Canada was surveyed in miles, so we have mile roads, townships, acres, etc."
Fascinating... Canada has its own unique unit, the township, which apparently isn't in use anywhere else. In the US, a township is a political or organizational area which may be of any size. Actually, it looks like it is that way in much of Canada as well; it's only in a few provinces where "township" refers to a 6 mi × 6 mi square.
davidh
The down-side of 12 fingers is that it's hard to give somebody the middle finger. At least such an alien wouldn't be able to flip us off, reducing the chance of an interplanetary war.
Table-ized A.I.
Seeing the discussion here, I wonder why nobody has brought this up yet:
http://xkcd.com/526/
One of the most common calculation errors is the decimal place error, and it is easy to miss in the SI because the digits seem correct. If you make a decimal place error in the Imperial System the result just looks wrong--a built-in trigger for a recalculation.
Its those damn stonecutters!
"We're the ones who keep the metric system down"
Because people in different countries have, on average, different body shapes. This is reflected in different (and not entirely convertible) sizes.
What I don't get, however, is why we didn't move to a measurement-based system. Have people know their basic measurements (really, it's not that hard to know at least rough estimates*) and specify all relevant clothes measurements in centimeters. For example, you don't buy a shoe in size 47.5 but for 30 centimeters (30x11 if we measure foot width as well).
We can still classify but then it's just things like measuring in 5 cm steps. The important thing is that we don't use arbitrary sizes but actual measurements. That also prevents size creep like in the States where they introduce negative numbers for sizes that were positive before...
* I think of something like bust, waist, hips, leg length, foot length. Measures like arm length or foot width are only neccessary to know if you do fall outside the local norm. Torso length might be neccessary, too, but I can't tell right now.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"Try quartering a cm - you end up with fractions of mm"
Whats wrong with 1/4 cm?
Or to put it another way .25".
It makes no diference which system you use you can express fractions in both.
176cm
1:25.4 scale and find tiny astronauts.
Nullius in verba
Since then we've switched from measuring petrol (gasoline) in imperial gallons (4.54litres) to litres. We've switched food and drink weights and measures from pounds and pints (20oz) to kilogrammes and litres (except for beer which is still served in a 20oz pint). We've switched from inches, feet and yards (3ft), furlongs, miles to centimetres, metres and kilometres (except for distances and speed limits). We've switched from acres to ares. We've switched from imperial tons (2240lb) to metric tonnes (1000Kg).
My children don't get taught the imperial stuff. They don't have to learn base 12 (inches to the foot) and base 16 (ounces to the pound) maths.
One day we'll ditch the old crap and stick with Napoleon's nice French, decimal units.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
Anyone who is relatively young will adapt very, very quickly.
I do agree there will be large costs in changing things like speed limits and road signs.
However, before dismissing road changes as impossible, we should consult with our Australian and Canadian friends who did exactly that.
Glad to see that in 2009 USAnians are still defending the pile of shit that is the Imperial System. Fine, the booster math has no cheaper solution than sticking with Imperial for the current systems. But none of this would be necessary in the first place if people weren't so hung up on the doing what's familiar than what's easy and better. And democracies are unfortunately super great for perpetuating stupidities people are comfortable with...
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
what's the real cost when considering the time spent by engineers converting backwards and forwards between the international standard?
A Cold War Institution finally fails, falls, and sputters excriment.
Burn the corpse.
This is not surprising. The aerospace industry just isn't able to support metric parts as there isn't enough push to have two types of everything made. Airbus uses imperial fasteners on their planes because that is all they can get in aircraft grade parts. The Comanche helicopter was originally intended to be the US military's first great foray into all metric design. Unfortunately, when it came time to build the first prototypes they found that suitable metric fasteners couldn't be sourced. The solution was to upsize everything to the next largest imperial part which caused a large increase in weight and was a big factor in the delays that led to its downfall.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
US gallon or Imperial gallon?
The old plans are going to have to be digitised and imported into modern design software, at which point all the units have to be checked for consistency. Once the plans digitised and validated, unit conversion is a non-issue and the real problem is the trade-off between manufacturing precision and rounding errors in the conversion.
Last night in a TV interview with Barney Frank he said in order to pay for everything the Obama administration is cramming down our throats that they are going to take the money from NASA. He said we don't need to be going into space. (in so many words)
"Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk."
~Joaquin Setanti
Idiots, all of them. Anyone who refuses to convert to metric from that stupid obsolete archaic imperial system, just because it's "too hard" to wrap their brain around the simple concept of "add a zero or move the decimal point", is an idiot. And that especially includes all the americans who insist that their way is somehow better and then attempt to rationalise it.
Idiots.
The US doesn't use imperial units.
Imperial is not the same system as US customary.
For example, a US pint (16 US fluid ounces, or 473mL) is not the same as an imperial pint (20 Imperial ounces, or 568mL).
Just because neither one is metric doesn't mean they're both the same.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I live in London. Never had a problem.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
it is surprisingly hard to embrace a new system of measurement when you've spent your entire life thinking in different terms. Try as I might, I still can't picture a kilometer without converting it to a mile first... your brain gets locked into a certain measurement pattern pretty early in life and it's very difficult to get out of it
This is exactly why, when I was on a committee to reform the math curriculum in my school district, I urged them to ensure kids become very familiar with metric units at an early age.
The math teachers on the committee didn't seem to "get" my point, and I was ignored.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
4.19 in is a decimal counting. (doh!).
All those imperialists should try to be consistent and represent that with halfs, quarters and eights of an inch...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Use 4 3/16 inches and do the exact calculation .
The rest of us, in the other 200+ countries that use metric, will sit down and laugh.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
1/4 cm
IANAL but write like a drunk one.