4 ms·

I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar

by rajbot 7y ago

I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
I'm all for Freedom Units... But honestly if you're doing aerospace you just use metric and that's all there is to it! Period. This is true for almost all engineering. I use metric but it is annoying in PCB design because mils is the standard there and those are just Tiny Freedom Units. I'd be in favor of switching to metric for USA, but I see no indication of that happening. But a company has a choice esp one the size of Boeing!
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The aerospace industry is stuck on imperial fasteners. That trickles down to other design elements.
rzimmerman 7y ago
I dislike using MCO as an example of why engineers should standardize units/use metric. This was one of the first NASA projects to be done using metric units with this exact goal in mind. The more interesting part about MCO is that it's actually a pretty compelling story about engineering culture interacting with management and how risks and problems are handled. It's not as simple as "NASA messed up metric" at all and people could learn a lot by reading the whole story.
- pas 7y ago
  Is there a tl;dr on those relevant parts?
magduf 7y ago
That isn't the greatest example of that IMO. From what I've read, the real problem there wasn't just imperial/metric confusion, it was the fact that the team providing data did not provide any units at all, and the team receiving the data didn't ask and just assumed units. One of the first things I was taught in engineering school was to always provide units! It doesn't matter if you're only using metric; that still doesn't tell you if it's a gram or a kilogram, after all.

4 ms·

I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar

by rajbot 7y ago

I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
I'm all for Freedom Units... But honestly if you're doing aerospace you just use metric and that's all there is to it! Period. This is true for almost all engineering. I use metric but it is annoying in PCB design because mils is the standard there and those are just Tiny Freedom Units. I'd be in favor of switching to metric for USA, but I see no indication of that happening. But a company has a choice esp one the size of Boeing!
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The aerospace industry is stuck on imperial fasteners. That trickles down to other design elements.
rzimmerman 7y ago
I dislike using MCO as an example of why engineers should standardize units/use metric. This was one of the first NASA projects to be done using metric units with this exact goal in mind. The more interesting part about MCO is that it's actually a pretty compelling story about engineering culture interacting with management and how risks and problems are handled. It's not as simple as "NASA messed up metric" at all and people could learn a lot by reading the whole story.
- pas 7y ago
  Is there a tl;dr on those relevant parts?
magduf 7y ago
That isn't the greatest example of that IMO. From what I've read, the real problem there wasn't just imperial/metric confusion, it was the fact that the team providing data did not provide any units at all, and the team receiving the data didn't ask and just assumed units. One of the first things I was taught in engineering school was to always provide units! It doesn't matter if you're only using metric; that still doesn't tell you if it's a gram or a kilogram, after all.