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ESA and NASA Establish a Joint Mars Exploration Initiative
Matt_dk sends in a Spacefellowship article: "The ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood, met NASA's Associate Administrator for Science, Ed Weiler, in Plymouth, UK, to establish a way for a progressive programme for exploration of the Red Planet. The outcome of the bilateral meeting was an agreement to create a Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI) that will provide a framework for the two agencies to define and implement their scientific, programmatic and technological goals at Mars."
Europe is not a country. It is a continent. Even more so; The US uses Imperial while most of the world uses Metric, not just another country.
FYI Volvo is also Swedish ;)
You wouldn't think I'd make that error when posting, since I drive a Volvo, but yeah... realized it a little too late. Was intending to put down Volkswagen.
Well, I think this graphic explains it very well.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Besides, the British are part of the EU too, and they insist on using the imperial system too...
This has not been true for science and engineering for many many years.
Please don't assume that, because the bulk of the population exhibits the natural human characteristics of unwillingness to change when the current system 'works', and are encouraged by the more rabid press (who have such a distrust of 'Johnny Foreigner' and his evil doings) that we don't do real work in metric.
BTW there was a parliamentary select committee (in 1862) recommending a switch to metric units so this is not a new thing -- we just don't like to rush into things too quickly :-)
Indeed a lot of our shopping is done in kilogrammes, litres... and legal work uses hectares rather than acres.
It's just some older measures are retained - partly for nostalgia [beer in pints], partly because pandering to sentiment / distrust of the new is [sadly] seen as a vote winner.
There is also the psychological issue that comparative measures tend to be slightly bigger in metric units (eg 500g is approximately 10% bigger than 1 lb) so shops selling packaged items had a 'perceived' price hike when switching over to metric - again another resentment easily stoked up as a price increase soundbite (without the compensating increase in delivery being mentioned) is always a winner in newspaper circulation.
A lot of people (me included) work quite happily with both systems - sometimes even mixing them in creative ways (eg fuel consumption in miles/litre). For practical purposes I use metric - for domestic use then either metric or imperial or both