It's not actually about privacy. It's about being a Common Carrier. As opposed to a Content Provider.
No telling how Canada works. In the USA, being a Common Carrier exempts you from being liable for what you are "carrying". That is, it's not YOUR fault that someone else committed a crime using your service. The phone company is an example, of course - you may not sue the phone company if you receive an obscene phone call, or a threatening phone call.
However, a Common Carrier cannot discriminate. It may charge a fee for service, but may not refuse to take anyone's coin for that service. If it chooses to say "we do not accept money from people who do X", then they stop being a Common Carrier, and become a Content Provider. Which leaves them open for suits for content. So, as an example, they could be sued by a mother whose ten-year old downloades some porn.
Being sued for content doesn't apply to Common Carriers. They have neither control over nor interest in the "content" accessed with their service. But, in order to remain Common Carriers, they must not discriminate.
Now, the first response pointed out, quite correctly, that opt-in spam-filtering is perfectly legitimate, even for a Common Carrier. That solves the spam issue quite nicely. But if they take it upon themselves to filter out spam sent to me (who hasn't opted in), then they are liable to being sued as a Content Provider (which means I could sue them for the spam I get, as well as the porn sites my daughter views).
In the USA, at least, ISP's spent quite a lot of effort establishing themselves as Common Carriers, just to avoid the lawsuits implicit in being Content Providers. This Canadian ruling looks like Canada's Courts are affirming that ISP's are Common Carriers, with all the freedoms and limitations inherent in that position.
While it is true that it requires less deltaV to go from L4/5 to Mars than Luna to Mars, it actually requires less deltaV to go from a low-lunar orbit to Mars than from L4/5. So if we were considering a space station as a waystation (no doubt there will be several - Earth Station, Luna Station, Mars Station, though the latter might very well be at one of the Martian moons), Luna Station would be preferable to L4/5.
Big problem with a station is that it has to import EVERYTHING from somewhere. Except sunlight, of course. Always plenty of that.
And bases on the Jovian L4/5 points are silly, except as places to ship things to Earth. Launch windows to the hypothetical 500Gm radius asteroid orbit come about once every six years, as opposed to once every 14 months from Luna or Earth.
Note that I am assuming minimum-energy transfer orbits for everything except manned-missions. I tend to prefer free return orbits for missions carrying people.
You missed something. I was referring to the difficulties (or lack thereof) of growing things on Luna. Which we weren't talking about terraforming (it may be possible, but it certainly is pointless).
It is worth pointing out that Luna is a better place for solar power than either Earth or Mars - no weather. Clear and sunny, all day, every day. Course, those two-week nights require some significant power storage. But in many ways, it is still easier than Earth or Mars. On both of those planets, you have to design for an uncertain amount of storage (what if it rains for three weeks straight? Or dusts, as the case may be on Mars...), whereas on Luna, it as predictable as the sunrise....
Better still would be orbital solar arrays, beamed to ground. But it is unlikely that we'll have such on Mars for a long time after we first go there. Or on Luna, even if they are available around Earth.
On Mars, however, you have ample hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, and aluminum already known (plus a whole lot of other stuff). So, perhaps if you shipped in nuclear fuel or huge amounts of solar arrays, you might be able to produce aluminum products and oxygen on the moon... but I can't see how you'd economically produce fuel there. On the other hand, it is quite feasable, and actually rather simple, to do so on Mars.
You liquify O2. That accounts for ~5/6 of the fuel mass required for an H2/O2 rocket. You lift the H2 from Earth. For the first trip. Later on, might make sense to import it from Mars. Since the fuel (and oxidizer, yes I know the difference - and I know when it stops making a difference) is most of the mass of the spacecraft. Reducing the amount of that "most of the mass" that has to be lifted from Earth to the spacecraft is a significant thing.
Admittedly, in the long run, you'll be using nuclear rockets, and have no real use for lunar oxygen. Even then, it is possible that it is worthwhile. Consider, a 60t (dry) spacecraft, nuclear propelled, would require ~50t of H2 reaction mass. The same 60t spacecraft, using conventional rockets, would require ~135t of H2/O2. But only 22.5t of that 135t is H2. As opposed to ALL of the 50t. You'd have to have a nuke rocket with an Isp of 1600+ to match the cost-effectiveness of the H2/O2 burner, if only the H2 had to come up from the ground.
Alternatively, it is possible to design a rocket to burn a slurry of Al dust and O2. Both of which are available on the moon. Performance of an Al/O2 rocket is crap, but crap that doesn't have to be lifted from Earth at all. Might be worth using, in some cases.
Please note that I'm not arguing that we shouldn't go to Mars. Or even that Luna is more important than Mars. Luna will never be more than a convenient waystation between Earth and other places. But without that waystation, getting to other places will be painful....
if this means that Canadian ISP's are now in a position such that spammers can bring suit for infringing on their privacy if the ISP's try to prevent spamming.
Common Carrier means non-discriminatory, usually. If some content is restricted, and other content is not restricted, you stop being a common carrier.
So, rather than worry about a failure-prone rover, we can worry that the whole base is a failure-prone rover?
Probably, better idea would be to make base decent-sized, underground (for radiation protection, and thermal protection), then build outlying bases (like a line shack on a 19th century ranch) with emergency supplies/tools/whatnot.
* Higher gravity means less need for strength training to stop bone loss and other problems
* Partial natural radiation shielding
* Ample known water supplies (moon ice is currently only speculative, despite plenty of lunar-orbit studying)
Won't argue with those.
* Cheap to get bulk raw materials to anywhere we care about. Even cheaper to get raw materials to Earth than it is from the moon, due to the orbital energy of the moon that needs to be overcome.
No. MUCH cheaper in terms of deltaV to get something from Luna to Earth than from Mars to Earth. Roughly 2400m/s to get to Earth from Luna, 5700m/s from Mars to Earth.
* Ample sunlight for farming; artificial light for farming is a pretty doomed concept, when you do the energy calculations.
Probably. No clue how this would work out with artificial lights for two weeks, natural sunlight for two weeks. On the other hand, people grow marijiuana indoors all the time. Can't be too hard...
* Partial-pressure domes
Hmmm? Martian atmospheric pressure is ~2% of terrestrial. Close enough to a vacuum to make no practical difference in designing a dome, I think.
* Far more mineral rich in every respect except for Helium-3, which is currently pretty worthless.
Probably. But by no means certain. We've looked at a handful of surface spots on both places, so we really don't know too much about the mineral resources of either.
* A perfect stopping point for a triangle trade with the incredibly mineral rich asteroid belt (Mars raw materials and people can get to the asteroid belt with very little energy; asteroid belt materials get sent to Earth; Earth sends small, high tech components that Mars can't build to Mars).
No. deltaV requirements to go from Luna to an asteroid ~500Gm from Earth are essentially the same as those required from Mars to the same rock. And launch windows from Luna come along almost twice as often, giving Luna an edge. Admittedly, there are some materials (carbon, specifically) that we can get in quantity on Mars that we can't get from Luna. So there will no doubt be a reason to move some materials from Mars to the asteroids. But anything available both on Mars and Luna will be equally expensive to ship from either, and more convenient from Luna because of more frequent launch windows.
* Major terraforming prospects; estimated workforce needed to terraform Mars to 1atm=10,000 people; procodes enough pressure and CO2 for plants, which over about 100 years can produce enough O2 for humans to breathe.
Won't argue with this one either.
Mars base is desirable, but it does not eliminate the need for a Lunar base - if nothing else, the Lunar base should be where the majority of the Mars spacecraft are built. Not the complicated parts, necessarily, but structures, liquid oxygen for fuel/atmosphere, that sort of thing. If we could build all of a Mars ship but the electronics, food, and H2 from Lunar materials, we'd significantly lower cost of a Mars mission.
Yah, we'd frontload a lot of costs by building the Lunar infrastructure, but in the long run it would save us a great deal of money. Even in the medium run. And possibly in the short run (the first three-five missions, perhaps) we'd even come out slightly ahead....
The data has be read in order to be used by anyone on a regular basis.
Just out of curiousity, what makes you think anyone (in government or out) uses this data on a regular basis? Or at all? A great deal of data is collected by the government on a regular basis, which is then filed and forgotten.
As to moving it, it is just barely possible (I have no clue as to the truth of falsehood of the DoJ statement) that the new system is being built from the original paper records, not from the old system.
Perhaps the "old system" is so archaic that it literally cannot be used, so small requests are answered by someone visiting the file cabinets, but large (all encompassing) requests are not practical.
Might be amusing to put together a list of "reasonable" FOIA requests, and submit them every couple years to measure repsonsiveness of the system. Myself, I would not be surprised to find that most of the data held by the government was physically impossible to access, even by the government, most of the time....
In addition, I'd like to point out that the Clinton Gun Ban (which only banned resale) applied ONLY to semi-automatic weapons. The fully automatic versions (which, as parent says, are hard to get due to the '34 law) are still quite legal in this country.
It is a common misconception that "assault weapons" are somehow "more powerful/dangerous/deadly". The most powerful rifle I own is a single-shot 30-06. My Mini-14 (which is NOT an assault weapon within the meaning of the law - it's on the exempt list) is puny by comparison. Note that I spent some time and effort trying to convert my Mini-14 to an "assault weapon" after the Ban was signed, and before it went into effect - nylon stock, pistol grip, several large magazines, flash hider, etc. Only then did I think to get a complete copy of the law, and notice that it was on the exempt list, unless it had a folding stock;(
So I had to buy a MAK-90 real quick, just so I'd own an "evil assault weapon" (tm)....
Re:What does it take to file a lawsuit?
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No, you cannot. You must be an interested party to sue (in other words, you must be harmed by the action).
Re:yay for legalized bribery!
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I mislike answering my own posts, but....
Ignoring the Presidency (where bribery is certainly an impeachable offence), it is likely debatable that Congresscritters are impeachable for bribery, though they are certainly expellable for any reason, or none.
Impeachment is mentioned in the context of the President, Vice-President, and all "civil Officers". It is possible that Congresscritters count as "civil Officers", but that is by no means certain, since the subject is brought up in Article II, which covers the Executive Branch. It may refer to the Cabinet, not the Congress.
Re:yay for legalized bribery!
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when do we start enforcing the constitution and putting a stop to legalized political bribery?
Which part of the Constitution do you mean? Off the top of my head, I don't recall anything that forbids "legalized political bribery". I couldn't even swear there was a part forbidding bribeey....
But I don't know of any case where Ashcroft or the current Administration has eroded Second Amendment rights;
True enough. Only Clinton has eroded Second Amendment rights recently.
And my congratulations on being open-minded enough to oppose ANY infringement of the Bill of Rights. Not many people will - most have the attitude that the parts THEY care about are the only ones that count.
Out of curiousity, why are you restricting yourself to the current administration? Admittedly, if you opened things up for even the lst half century, the only one that SOMEONE hasn't tried to infringe is "quartering soldiers in provate homes" (far as I know, that hasn't happened, except possibly in the War Between the States).
I think you will find that every administration in history has done its bit to erode our rights....
You're willing to risk other people's lives? Interesting. That means you shouldn't mind someone else risking YOUR life...or is the risk of death only appliacable to !you?
With the numbers you gave for your usage, you'll have to replace the batteries once or twice in four years. How much of the $12000 will go into new batteries to keep it going? And how much into an increased electric bill? And insurance? Do those things get favourable insurance rates, or motorcycle rates?
As I stated in an above post, many families have two cars. There really isn't a need for both of those cars to seat 4 and have a 400 mile range. The vast majority of the time, one of the two cars doesn't go more than 50 miles in a day, with one person in it. Why wouldn't a Sparrow be an option for those people?
With the exception of drving to work, most routine driving aroud town is for shopping or social reasons. In the former case, you need cargo capacity, in the latter, more than one person should fit inside.
took me about two seconds in my head. Course, I was taught that 130 feet was sufficient at 65mph, and can't measure 200 feet with just my eyes, so it's academic.
realistically, I'd do exactly the same thing as I'd do if you mentioned 100 kph and 2 seconds - I'd let my habits guide me, and slot in at a safe distance that is either more or less than 200 feet.
Metric time won't ever happen. Get over it. We're going to use Babylonian time for, if you'll excuse the phrase, the rest of time....
Well, no. I use both. I don't find one to be easier than the other. Just different.
I use metric for science because that's the way I was taught as a child. No other reason.
My teachers may have been motivated by the superiority of Metric over English, but I suspect that they taught that way because that's the way the Board of Education told them to do it.
And my point was that the discussion IS moot!
People don't use Metric because it is "better", they use it because it is what they were taught as children. There's nothing magically superior about Metric - its supporters are as unreasoning as the supporters of the English system.
Oooh, we can scale from metres to kilometres by just moving the decimal - so what? How many things do people want to measure in both metres and kilometres? Long distanes get measured in Km, short ones in metres. Does anyone bother to convert their height to Km? Or microns? Or, for that matter, when you see a sign saying "Paris 34Km", do you ever find yourself thinking, "Great, only 34000 metres to go!"??
Besides "normal people" do plenty of unit-conversion too. How much water will fit in the 10 meter by 5 meter by 2 meter pool ? How much energy is in this bar of chocolate, and how far will I have to bike to loose that weigth again ? How much paint must I buy to paint this room when the room is 5*4*2.5 meter and the paint says 10m^2/liter ?
Hmm, I never thought to care how much water it takes to fill up my pool. Turn hose on, wait till pool is full. Pay water bill. So, I guess, if anything, I measure pool water in dollars, not litres or gallons.
Do your chocolate bars show the energy content in calories or joules? Just curious. If it is calories, they're the same as ours, so no issues there. And paint can just as easily say 500 sqare feet per gallon, which allows the same calculation for your 16x13x8 foot room....
Habitually, I use metric for "science" - calculating orbits, and such. And English units in the rest of my life (except those parts of my life involving metric sockets/wrenches and two litre Sprites).
Frankly, I see no particular advantage to either system - not even scientific. It's not like you don't use a calculator/computer when doing really precise measurements/calculations. And the computer can work in English as easily as it does SI....
Why would anyone except a mental packrat remember that? It's not like there are a lot of things you might want to measure in either inches or miles interchangably....
Really? And here I thought they picked the metre to be ~1/40000000th the polar circumference of the Earth (only approximately, because they were wrong about the polar circumference), and then used that arbitrary unit as the basis for other units. "Derived from some arbitrary value" is not the same as "rooted in science"....
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It's not actually about privacy. It's about being a Common Carrier. As opposed to a Content Provider.
No telling how Canada works. In the USA, being a Common Carrier exempts you from being liable for what you are "carrying". That is, it's not YOUR fault that someone else committed a crime using your service. The phone company is an example, of course - you may not sue the phone company if you receive an obscene phone call, or a threatening phone call.
However, a Common Carrier cannot discriminate. It may charge a fee for service, but may not refuse to take anyone's coin for that service. If it chooses to say "we do not accept money from people who do X", then they stop being a Common Carrier, and become a Content Provider. Which leaves them open for suits for content. So, as an example, they could be sued by a mother whose ten-year old downloades some porn.
Being sued for content doesn't apply to Common Carriers. They have neither control over nor interest in the "content" accessed with their service. But, in order to remain Common Carriers, they must not discriminate.
Now, the first response pointed out, quite correctly, that opt-in spam-filtering is perfectly legitimate, even for a Common Carrier. That solves the spam issue quite nicely. But if they take it upon themselves to filter out spam sent to me (who hasn't opted in), then they are liable to being sued as a Content Provider (which means I could sue them for the spam I get, as well as the porn sites my daughter views).
In the USA, at least, ISP's spent quite a lot of effort establishing themselves as Common Carriers, just to avoid the lawsuits implicit in being Content Providers. This Canadian ruling looks like Canada's Courts are affirming that ISP's are Common Carriers, with all the freedoms and limitations inherent in that position.
Which is at it should be.
Big problem with a station is that it has to import EVERYTHING from somewhere. Except sunlight, of course. Always plenty of that.
And bases on the Jovian L4/5 points are silly, except as places to ship things to Earth. Launch windows to the hypothetical 500Gm radius asteroid orbit come about once every six years, as opposed to once every 14 months from Luna or Earth.
Note that I am assuming minimum-energy transfer orbits for everything except manned-missions. I tend to prefer free return orbits for missions carrying people.
It is worth pointing out that Luna is a better place for solar power than either Earth or Mars - no weather. Clear and sunny, all day, every day. Course, those two-week nights require some significant power storage. But in many ways, it is still easier than Earth or Mars. On both of those planets, you have to design for an uncertain amount of storage (what if it rains for three weeks straight? Or dusts, as the case may be on Mars...), whereas on Luna, it as predictable as the sunrise....
Better still would be orbital solar arrays, beamed to ground. But it is unlikely that we'll have such on Mars for a long time after we first go there. Or on Luna, even if they are available around Earth.
You liquify O2. That accounts for ~5/6 of the fuel mass required for an H2/O2 rocket. You lift the H2 from Earth. For the first trip. Later on, might make sense to import it from Mars. Since the fuel (and oxidizer, yes I know the difference - and I know when it stops making a difference) is most of the mass of the spacecraft. Reducing the amount of that "most of the mass" that has to be lifted from Earth to the spacecraft is a significant thing.
Admittedly, in the long run, you'll be using nuclear rockets, and have no real use for lunar oxygen. Even then, it is possible that it is worthwhile. Consider, a 60t (dry) spacecraft, nuclear propelled, would require ~50t of H2 reaction mass. The same 60t spacecraft, using conventional rockets, would require ~135t of H2/O2. But only 22.5t of that 135t is H2. As opposed to ALL of the 50t. You'd have to have a nuke rocket with an Isp of 1600+ to match the cost-effectiveness of the H2/O2 burner, if only the H2 had to come up from the ground.
Alternatively, it is possible to design a rocket to burn a slurry of Al dust and O2. Both of which are available on the moon. Performance of an Al/O2 rocket is crap, but crap that doesn't have to be lifted from Earth at all. Might be worth using, in some cases.
Please note that I'm not arguing that we shouldn't go to Mars. Or even that Luna is more important than Mars. Luna will never be more than a convenient waystation between Earth and other places. But without that waystation, getting to other places will be painful....
Common Carrier means non-discriminatory, usually. If some content is restricted, and other content is not restricted, you stop being a common carrier.
Probably, better idea would be to make base decent-sized, underground (for radiation protection, and thermal protection), then build outlying bases (like a line shack on a 19th century ranch) with emergency supplies/tools/whatnot.
* Partial natural radiation shielding
* Ample known water supplies (moon ice is currently only speculative, despite plenty of lunar-orbit studying)
Won't argue with those.
* Cheap to get bulk raw materials to anywhere we care about. Even cheaper to get raw materials to Earth than it is from the moon, due to the orbital energy of the moon that needs to be overcome.
No. MUCH cheaper in terms of deltaV to get something from Luna to Earth than from Mars to Earth. Roughly 2400m/s to get to Earth from Luna, 5700m/s from Mars to Earth.
* Ample sunlight for farming; artificial light for farming is a pretty doomed concept, when you do the energy calculations.
Probably. No clue how this would work out with artificial lights for two weeks, natural sunlight for two weeks. On the other hand, people grow marijiuana indoors all the time. Can't be too hard...
* Partial-pressure domes
Hmmm? Martian atmospheric pressure is ~2% of terrestrial. Close enough to a vacuum to make no practical difference in designing a dome, I think.
* Far more mineral rich in every respect except for Helium-3, which is currently pretty worthless.
Probably. But by no means certain. We've looked at a handful of surface spots on both places, so we really don't know too much about the mineral resources of either.
* A perfect stopping point for a triangle trade with the incredibly mineral rich asteroid belt (Mars raw materials and people can get to the asteroid belt with very little energy; asteroid belt materials get sent to Earth; Earth sends small, high tech components that Mars can't build to Mars).
No. deltaV requirements to go from Luna to an asteroid ~500Gm from Earth are essentially the same as those required from Mars to the same rock. And launch windows from Luna come along almost twice as often, giving Luna an edge. Admittedly, there are some materials (carbon, specifically) that we can get in quantity on Mars that we can't get from Luna. So there will no doubt be a reason to move some materials from Mars to the asteroids. But anything available both on Mars and Luna will be equally expensive to ship from either, and more convenient from Luna because of more frequent launch windows.
* Major terraforming prospects; estimated workforce needed to terraform Mars to 1atm=10,000 people; procodes enough pressure and CO2 for plants, which over about 100 years can produce enough O2 for humans to breathe.
Won't argue with this one either.
Mars base is desirable, but it does not eliminate the need for a Lunar base - if nothing else, the Lunar base should be where the majority of the Mars spacecraft are built. Not the complicated parts, necessarily, but structures, liquid oxygen for fuel/atmosphere, that sort of thing. If we could build all of a Mars ship but the electronics, food, and H2 from Lunar materials, we'd significantly lower cost of a Mars mission.
Yah, we'd frontload a lot of costs by building the Lunar infrastructure, but in the long run it would save us a great deal of money. Even in the medium run. And possibly in the short run (the first three-five missions, perhaps) we'd even come out slightly ahead....
Just out of curiousity, what makes you think anyone (in government or out) uses this data on a regular basis? Or at all? A great deal of data is collected by the government on a regular basis, which is then filed and forgotten.
As to moving it, it is just barely possible (I have no clue as to the truth of falsehood of the DoJ statement) that the new system is being built from the original paper records, not from the old system.
Perhaps the "old system" is so archaic that it literally cannot be used, so small requests are answered by someone visiting the file cabinets, but large (all encompassing) requests are not practical.
Might be amusing to put together a list of "reasonable" FOIA requests, and submit them every couple years to measure repsonsiveness of the system. Myself, I would not be surprised to find that most of the data held by the government was physically impossible to access, even by the government, most of the time....
It is a common misconception that "assault weapons" are somehow "more powerful/dangerous/deadly". The most powerful rifle I own is a single-shot 30-06. My Mini-14 (which is NOT an assault weapon within the meaning of the law - it's on the exempt list) is puny by comparison. Note that I spent some time and effort trying to convert my Mini-14 to an "assault weapon" after the Ban was signed, and before it went into effect - nylon stock, pistol grip, several large magazines, flash hider, etc. Only then did I think to get a complete copy of the law, and notice that it was on the exempt list, unless it had a folding stock ;(
So I had to buy a MAK-90 real quick, just so I'd own an "evil assault weapon" (tm)....
No, you cannot. You must be an interested party to sue (in other words, you must be harmed by the action).
Ignoring the Presidency (where bribery is certainly an impeachable offence), it is likely debatable that Congresscritters are impeachable for bribery, though they are certainly expellable for any reason, or none.
Impeachment is mentioned in the context of the President, Vice-President, and all "civil Officers". It is possible that Congresscritters count as "civil Officers", but that is by no means certain, since the subject is brought up in Article II, which covers the Executive Branch. It may refer to the Cabinet, not the Congress.
Which part of the Constitution do you mean? Off the top of my head, I don't recall anything that forbids "legalized political bribery". I couldn't even swear there was a part forbidding bribeey....
True enough. Only Clinton has eroded Second Amendment rights recently.
And my congratulations on being open-minded enough to oppose ANY infringement of the Bill of Rights. Not many people will - most have the attitude that the parts THEY care about are the only ones that count.
Out of curiousity, why are you restricting yourself to the current administration? Admittedly, if you opened things up for even the lst half century, the only one that SOMEONE hasn't tried to infringe is "quartering soldiers in provate homes" (far as I know, that hasn't happened, except possibly in the War Between the States).
I think you will find that every administration in history has done its bit to erode our rights....
You're willing to risk other people's lives? Interesting. That means you shouldn't mind someone else risking YOUR life...or is the risk of death only appliacable to !you?
Interesting that you left the Second Amendment out of your list at the end.
Umm, no. It's more like one complaint every minute and a quarter for the past year. And ~$530,000 per hour, if enforced.
But, I must admit, that's not a bad idea. I'll have to try it some evening....
With the numbers you gave for your usage, you'll have to replace the batteries once or twice in four years. How much of the $12000 will go into new batteries to keep it going? And how much into an increased electric bill? And insurance? Do those things get favourable insurance rates, or motorcycle rates?
With the exception of drving to work, most routine driving aroud town is for shopping or social reasons. In the former case, you need cargo capacity, in the latter, more than one person should fit inside.
took me about two seconds in my head. Course, I was taught that 130 feet was sufficient at 65mph, and can't measure 200 feet with just my eyes, so it's academic.
realistically, I'd do exactly the same thing as I'd do if you mentioned 100 kph and 2 seconds - I'd let my habits guide me, and slot in at a safe distance that is either more or less than 200 feet.
Metric time won't ever happen. Get over it. We're going to use Babylonian time for, if you'll excuse the phrase, the rest of time....
I use metric for science because that's the way I was taught as a child. No other reason.
My teachers may have been motivated by the superiority of Metric over English, but I suspect that they taught that way because that's the way the Board of Education told them to do it.
And my point was that the discussion IS moot!
People don't use Metric because it is "better", they use it because it is what they were taught as children. There's nothing magically superior about Metric - its supporters are as unreasoning as the supporters of the English system.
Oooh, we can scale from metres to kilometres by just moving the decimal - so what? How many things do people want to measure in both metres and kilometres? Long distanes get measured in Km, short ones in metres. Does anyone bother to convert their height to Km? Or microns? Or, for that matter, when you see a sign saying "Paris 34Km", do you ever find yourself thinking, "Great, only 34000 metres to go!"??
So, a billion or so for a moon rocket. 50 billion for a Mars landing.
That would be enough to get people's attention, and still save NASA (and the USGov) most of the development cost....
Hmm, I never thought to care how much water it takes to fill up my pool. Turn hose on, wait till pool is full. Pay water bill. So, I guess, if anything, I measure pool water in dollars, not litres or gallons.
Do your chocolate bars show the energy content in calories or joules? Just curious. If it is calories, they're the same as ours, so no issues there. And paint can just as easily say 500 sqare feet per gallon, which allows the same calculation for your 16x13x8 foot room....
Habitually, I use metric for "science" - calculating orbits, and such. And English units in the rest of my life (except those parts of my life involving metric sockets/wrenches and two litre Sprites).
Frankly, I see no particular advantage to either system - not even scientific. It's not like you don't use a calculator/computer when doing really precise measurements/calculations. And the computer can work in English as easily as it does SI....
Why would anyone except a mental packrat remember that? It's not like there are a lot of things you might want to measure in either inches or miles interchangably....
Really? And here I thought they picked the metre to be ~1/40000000th the polar circumference of the Earth (only approximately, because they were wrong about the polar circumference), and then used that arbitrary unit as the basis for other units. "Derived from some arbitrary value" is not the same as "rooted in science"....