3 ms·

Whenever a non-American brings this up to me as a negative point about America, I love saying the following: "There are two types of countries in the world: Th

Whenever a non-American brings this up to me as a negative point about America, I love saying the following: "There are two types of countries in the world: Those that use the metric system and those that have been to the Moon.(1)" (1)I purposely leave Liberia out of it. Unfortunately, I think it still might be a few years before the LSA gets to the moon.

mmastrac 10y ago
Even Myanmar is moving to the metric system! :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_units_of_measurement#Adoption_of_SI_.28Metric.29_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_units_of_measurement#A...
brightball 10y ago
Was actually coming here to post that. :-)
to3m 10y ago
See, especially, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1 - the USSR being famous for its use of the US Customary system.
- shermozle 10y ago
  "System" makes it sound a lot more cohesive than it is. It's more a "collection" than a "system".
lmcinnes 10y ago
You should really specify landing a man on the moon. Many countries, including Russia and Japan have been to the moon with probes and rovers.
- adventured 10y ago
  Only five individual nations out of 196 have done so. I wouldn't call that many.
Jedd 10y ago
Is your claim that an inability to align with world standards was a necessary requirement to access the moon?
dalke 10y ago
Oh, I can play this game! "There are two types of countries in the world; those who have some sort of national paid law for new parent(s), and those that have been to the Moon (1)" (1) and Lesotho. I don't think any country starting with an "L" has gotten to the moon. "There are two types of countries in the world: those that use the metric system and those that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2)" (2) And Somalia. For some more cherry-picking: "Only Communist countries have managed to put rovers on the Moon or land probes on Venus."
- adventured 10y ago
  Cherry picking you say? In fact the US put a rover on the moon nearly half a century ago. A human driven rover at that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover Here's a beautiful photo of it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg/1024px-Apollo15LunarRover.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Ap...
  - dalke 10y ago
    Absolutely right. My apologies. I was thinking robots only. So, what about "more communist countries have succeeded in [said missions] than non-communist ones"?
nhebb 10y ago
Did you read the article? It specifically cited a costly NASA error due to mixing measurement systems: The use of two different systems was the root cause in the loss of the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter. NASA specified metric units in the contract. NASA and other organizations worked in metric units, but one subcontractor, Lockheed Martin, provided thruster performance data to the team in pound force seconds instead of newton seconds. The spacecraft was intended to orbit Mars at about 150 kilometers altitude, but the incorrect data meant that it probably descended instead to about 57 kilometers, burning up in the thin Martian atmosphere.

mmastrac 10y ago

Even Myanmar is moving to the metric system! :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_units_of_measurement#Adoption_of_SI_.28Metric.29_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_units_of_measurement#A...

brightball 10y ago

Was actually coming here to post that. :-)

to3m 10y ago

See, especially, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1 - the USSR being famous for its use of the US Customary system.

shermozle 10y ago
"System" makes it sound a lot more cohesive than it is. It's more a "collection" than a "system".

lmcinnes 10y ago

You should really specify landing a man on the moon. Many countries, including Russia and Japan have been to the moon with probes and rovers.

adventured 10y ago
Only five individual nations out of 196 have done so. I wouldn't call that many.

Jedd 10y ago

Is your claim that an inability to align with world standards was a necessary requirement to access the moon?

dalke 10y ago

Oh, I can play this game! "There are two types of countries in the world; those who have some sort of national paid law for new parent(s), and those that have been to the Moon (1)" (1) and Lesotho. I don't think any country starting with an "L" has gotten to the moon. "There are two types of countries in the world: those that use the metric system and those that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2)" (2) And Somalia. For some more cherry-picking: "Only Communist countries have managed to put rovers on the Moon or land probes on Venus."

adventured 10y ago
Cherry picking you say? In fact the US put a rover on the moon nearly half a century ago. A human driven rover at that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover Here's a beautiful photo of it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg/1024px-Apollo15LunarRover.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Ap...
- dalke 10y ago
  Absolutely right. My apologies. I was thinking robots only. So, what about "more communist countries have succeeded in [said missions] than non-communist ones"?

nhebb 10y ago

Did you read the article? It specifically cited a costly NASA error due to mixing measurement systems: The use of two different systems was the root cause in the loss of the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter. NASA specified metric units in the contract. NASA and other organizations worked in metric units, but one subcontractor, Lockheed Martin, provided thruster performance data to the team in pound force seconds instead of newton seconds. The spacecraft was intended to orbit Mars at about 150 kilometers altitude, but the incorrect data meant that it probably descended instead to about 57 kilometers, burning up in the thin Martian atmosphere.