[Ophiucus]

“Why won’t we adopt the metric system?” he asked—”beacause we don’t like it. Why won’t we cooperate with the federal government’s efforts to get us to use it? Because we don’t want to.”

I was, and am in full agreement.

Back in 1999, NASA lost a Mars orbiter because someone at Lockheed was using English units while JPL was using SI units. This caused a failure in navigation data. The orbiter went off course.

This is why it was so important to adopt a standardized system across all nations and languages. The data will always be understood. You don't need to use it in the supermarket but it is a necessity in accurate communication in science.

[Fiji Hill]

This is why it was so important to adopt a standardized system across all nations and languages.

The metric system is far from perfect. For one thing, there's no metric equivalent of the pound, foot, fathom, cup or pint. The names of most metric units have four syllables while American units have only one or two.

If a standardized system across all nations and languages is needed, maybe we should insist that the rest of the world adopt the American system of weights and measurements.

[FreedomPoster]

The real issue with the Mars probe was probably having app dev types who don’t “get” the physical world doing all the work, and not having engineers involved enough. Probably a cost-saving measure to pay for more managers and PHBs. Any real engineer would have been insistent on knowing and understanding the measurement units involved. It is ground into you such that it is second nature to properly keep up with the units all along the way when making calculations.