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I know this is an old-ish article, but this is a topic that severely annoys me. I was taught both systems of measurement, beginning in grade school. But I still

I know this is an old-ish article, but this is a topic that severely annoys me. I was taught both systems of measurement, beginning in grade school. But I still have to calculate feet and inches. I have to buy twice as many tools for my garage, because that bolt could be 3/4" or 17mm. NASA can't even manage to build the space shuttle replacement using the metric standard? wtf?

byoung2 17y ago
I find it hard to believe that it would cost $350 million to convert the drawings and diagrams to metric. I would do it for half that price!
- jrwoodruff 17y ago
  Even if it did cost that much, did they learn nothing from the mars orbiter disaster? Pick a standard unit and stick to it. And make damn sure all your contractors use the same unit. Seems like the unit that every single country in the world is on would be a good one to choose.
  - yannis 17y ago
    If my memory is correct something very similar happened also during the testing of the first 'Star Wars' missiles. The given cost is pure bull. Autocad has a facility where one can convert from metric to imperial dimensions. It would not cost that much to re-design the software to carry out the conversions automatically, including re-selection of standard components. (Except if NASA is still using rotring pens and tracing paper). One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm. Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.
- silvestrov 17y ago
  It's only half a Shuttle launch. There has been ~100 launches. So this would add 0.5% to the budget. They lost $125 million alone on the Mars Orbitor. Add the other crashes, and I think NASA has already lost more than it would cost to convert to metric.

byoung2 17y ago

I find it hard to believe that it would cost $350 million to convert the drawings and diagrams to metric. I would do it for half that price!

jrwoodruff 17y ago
Even if it did cost that much, did they learn nothing from the mars orbiter disaster? Pick a standard unit and stick to it. And make damn sure all your contractors use the same unit. Seems like the unit that every single country in the world is on would be a good one to choose.
- yannis 17y ago
  If my memory is correct something very similar happened also during the testing of the first 'Star Wars' missiles. The given cost is pure bull. Autocad has a facility where one can convert from metric to imperial dimensions. It would not cost that much to re-design the software to carry out the conversions automatically, including re-selection of standard components. (Except if NASA is still using rotring pens and tracing paper). One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm. Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.
silvestrov 17y ago
It's only half a Shuttle launch. There has been ~100 launches. So this would add 0.5% to the budget. They lost $125 million alone on the Mars Orbitor. Add the other crashes, and I think NASA has already lost more than it would cost to convert to metric.