NASA Sticking To Imperial Units For Shuttle Replacement

JerryQ sends in a story at New Scientist about the criticism NASA is taking for deciding to use Imperial units in the development of the Constellation program, their project to replace the space shuttle. "The sticking point is that Ares is a shuttle-derived design — it uses solid rocket boosters whose dimensions and technology are based on those currently strapped to either side of the shuttle's giant liquid fuel tank. And the shuttle's 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters. ... NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the 'International System' of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million — almost half the cost of a 2009 shuttle launch, which costs a total of $759 million. 'We found the cost of converting to SI would exceed what we can afford,' says [NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma]."

Oh the Humanity!

[eldavojohn]

How many cwts [wikipedia.org] of Mars Orbiters [slashdot.org] must be lost before we learn?!

Let's all help the guys over at NASA

[oneirophrenos]

1 foot = 0.3048 meters

There you go, NASA. That one's for free.

Good on them

[commandlinegamer]

I'd buy them a pint.

Just get it over with already

[Just Some Guy]

The sticking point is that Ares is a shuttle-derived design â" it uses solid rocket boosters whose dimensions and technology are based on those currently strapped to either side of the shuttle's giant liquid fuel tank. And the shuttle's 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters.

And in 20 years, that'll be the same excuse given for building Ares's replacement with imperial units.

obligatory simpsons quote

[gregg]

Abe Simpson: The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

Re:Horses Asses

[sakdoctor]

Why is my mailbox full of unfunny spam?

Because a bunch of horses' asses keep hitting the Forward button.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[domanova]

Most of the UK is SI now. Road signs still use miles and you can get two metres of two-by-four but it's liable to be 5cm by 10cm, whatever it's called. And asking for a kilo of tomatoes got me 'That's two pounds, sir, and f*ck the French'

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[daem0n1x]

The countries that have converted to SI are the countries that were late to the industrial revolution party.

What do you mean? EVERY country in the world uses the SI, except for the USA, Liberia and Burma.

I'll do it!

[ultraexactzz]

I'll do the job for only $170 Million, and I'll get it done on time and within budget, something that NASA is not used to.

For an extra $30 Million, I'll even make sure it's accurate!

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[AndrewNeo]

Won't someone think of the ducks!

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

...Shave

Re:If you give up the inch, they'll take the mile

[Anonymous Coward]

What's so special about 100? Oh, a decimal number... The irony is delicious.

Re:mod parent +1 realistic

[maxume]

Damn right.

Consistently and accurately labeling numbers with their units is a lot more important than making sure that it is easy to convert between units and occasionally be able to quickly do math.

SI is certainly easier to work with, but the constant implication that this makes it hard to work in Imperial units is ridiculous. If someone has trouble with inches and feet, I'm not going to pay them to do any work on my rocket.

Re:If you give up the inch, they'll take the mile

[sofar]

nothing different from celsius. Over 100 Celsius is way too damn hot, and under 0 is way too damn cold.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[wjousts]

I shudder to think that all you knowledge about the UK comes from watching Top Gear.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[Hognoxious]

See what I did there?

Sure, you tried to look smart by using Latin phrases and failed to an epic degree?

Re:really?

[Meumeu]

Next time you should replace 4999 of those hours with a simple BASH script.

The original files were not available. What shell do you use that compiles to paper?

lpr

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wog countries like France still use horsepower, but they also use kw sometimes. Probably when they've eaten the horses.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[sustik]

Next task for UK: driving on the right hand side.

Sure there are a lot of vehicles, but the complexity can be managed by the following easy two-step process:
1. Today switch passenger cars to the right hand side
2. A week from now follow with the trucks too...

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[herring0]

While working in England I once saw a freight box on the back of a lorry that had dimension measurements for door clearance of 2m by 3ft.

At that point I was horribly confused.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[The Yuckinator]

You can have the inches, feet and miles, but you'll have to pry my pint out of my cold, dead hands.

Re:Oh the Humanity!

[ahabswhale]

Yeah but a duck pond doesn't cost $370,000,000. You know how many fucking duck ponds you can make with that?? Besides ducks are a lot cuter than international units. Hell, most Americans couldn't give a shit about international units. When I look around my town and say how could I make this better, I don't think "We need international units!" However, some duck ponds would fucking rock this place. So suck it SI bitches!

Obligatory xkcd reference

[whoisisis]

Seeing the discussion here, I wonder why nobody has brought this up yet:
http://xkcd.com/526/ [xkcd.com]

Re:Snopes is often wrong.

[tkw954]

I live in Rural Idaho, Cow tipping is a lot like snipe hunting. We would take gullible kids out to a farm in the middle of the night. They would try to sneak up on a cow and tip it. It would either move or not tip, and then move. We would convince them that their shoes were making too much noise. After they gave up their shoes, we would hop in the car and leave them in the middle of a pasture, barefoot, in the middle of the night, miles from home. That is what cow tipping is really about.

I grew up in rural Canada, and can assure you that you can, indeed, tip a cow. Certain breeds are more difficult to sneak up on and others wake up before they hit ground, but it is certainly not difficult once someone has shown you how. If you really are from a farm and have never done it or even seen it done, I suggest you visit us up north and we'll take you out one night and show you the finer points.