6 ms·
I thought NASA used metric units; would be nice if their press releases did too. I have no clue what "half as thick as a U.S. dime" means.
by jakobegger 10y ago
I thought NASA used metric units; would be nice if their press releases did too. I have no clue what "half as thick as a U.S. dime" means.
- pc86 10y agoIt's easily Google-able. A little more than half a millimeter.
- jamiethompson 10y agoAgreed. A number of millimetres would be a more helpful comparison.
- vermontdevil 10y agoIt would be about .675 mm. A dime is about 1.35 mm thick
- tossaway1 10y agoThat's a description that most Americans can more easily picture than something like 0.68 mm (including people who are comfortable with metric units like myself) and they seem to be focusing a lot in recent years on making the information they provide more accessible to average Americans, undoubtedly to help drive interest in and support for what they're doing.
- bumblebeard 10y agoI'd prefer if they wrote something like "0.68 mm (about half as thick as a US dime)." That way the number is still there for people who don't want to look up how thick a dime is.
- 6DM 10y agoGood point, I should have added that translation in.
- tossaway1 10y agoAre you implying you're the author of this press release? It looks like you were job hunting 6 months ago (based on your one HN submission) -- now you're writing press releases for NASA?? Edit: Nevermind, I'm a dummy.
- Cyph0n 10y agoThere really was no need to go through the user's submission history. Try not to overreact next time.
- tossaway1 10y agoI was interested to see his profile if he worked at NASA in this capacity. He had one submission -- it's not like I pored over his history. I don't think I overreacted -- I was impressed that someone could get to a point that they're authoring NASA press releases so quickly. Like I said, though, I'm a dummy...
- planteen 10y agoIt's very likely that the mechanical drawings were in inches for the machinists, even for NASA. The scientists are using metric units.
- mturmon 10y agoNo. That would not be the case.
- planteen 10y agoWhat makes you say that? I've worked for two spacecraft companies in the US who supply parts (and whole spacecraft) to NASA. Both of them did drawings for small parts in mils (thous) for both electrical and mechanical parts. It seems like most machinists in the US are used to working in mils. I remember on my first day (year 2012), I was shown an E-sized drawing of a spacecraft bus at 1/10 scale. The unit was inches. I was surprised it was in inches and said something. The person showing me just laughed and said welcome to aerospace. The Wikipedia for mil is full of machinist lingo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch
- mturmon 10y agoThe mechanical specifications I've seen for newer (post-2000, say) components at the lab that built this particular robot have all been in metric units. I just checked, and the current requirement is that metric "shall" be used, unless (a) a particular mission waived that practice - I don't think MSL did; or (b) for parts from "industries that are historically in another unit of measure." Two examples I know of are gears and printed wiring boards, which are indeed in mils. And you're right, it is possible, barely, that the wheels were an exception. I don't know if they were fabricated on lab or not.
- planteen 10y agoThanks for the explanation and glad to hear that space is slowly moving towards metric.
- comicjk 10y agoMaybe they should have a second, international press release.
- drdaeman 10y agoJust a "10 miles (16km)" and "half as thick as U.S. dime (0.68mm)" - either directly in text or as on-hover/on-tap tooltips (for web) - would've did the trick just perfectly.
- JackFr 10y agoI'd give them a pass for the press release -- it was paid for with U.S. dimes.