Slashdot Mirror
How To View the Antares Launch
An anonymous reader points out NASA's info page on the Anatares rocket launch happening later today. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and Virginia's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport are set to support the launch of Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket at 6:45 p.m. EDT, October 27. The Antares rocket will carry Orbital's Cygnus cargo spacecraft, loaded with some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments, to the International Space Station. The launch may be visible, weather permitting, to residents throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the United States. Here's a visibility map of launch. Public viewing of the launch will be available at the NASA Visitor Center at Wallops and at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge/Assateague Island National Seashore. Here's more information about the Visitors Center, including directions, and information on viewing sites recommended by the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission. Live coverage of the mission is scheduled to begin at noon on the Wallops Ustream site."
"...loaded with some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments..."
It feels like an organisation such as NASA, which is hopefully respected for its scientific contributions across the world, could set an example by moving towards the metric system in its press releases. This would emphasise the importance the metric system (and the complete intolerance of imperial measurements) in science and allow the move to the metric system to be driven by the scientists (i.e. those in society that lay people respect as being intelligent).
If the battle between metric vs imperial is just fought over what people prefer in the present, then nothing will change and a backward and overly complixated system for measuring everything will remain.