You know there's something wrong with US politics when NASA is forced to communicate in Imperial measurements.
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@si_fuller That was also why they had to retrofit the Hubble telescope with additional optics.
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@mrundkvist One of my first memories of the internet back in the early 90's was an yankee that argued that real scientist used Imperials and a MIT professor shooting him down hard.
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@mrundkvist be glad that they're not using dishwashers, football fields and elephants
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You know there's something wrong with US politics when NASA is forced to communicate in Imperial measurements.
"Orion’s main engine provides up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, enough to accelerate a car from 0 to 60 mph in about 2.7 seconds. At the time of the burn, Orion’s mass was 58,000 pounds and burned approximately 1,000 pounds of fuel during the firing."
Artemis II Flight Day 2: Orion Completes TLI Burn, Crew Begins Journey to the Moon - NASA
NASA’s Artemis II crew is on the way to the Moon.
NASA (www.nasa.gov)
@mrundkvist if the people understand those units, translating that to the masses is perfectly fine for communication. What isn't fine, is if the people working there were to use those units to make things work or desing them following those units. So say the astronauts don't natively get metric etc etc. Like having the display or the communication being translated and the machinery going back amd forth from freedom units to science units
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NASA's use of Imperial measurements is similar to if US biologists started using species names in the Texas dialect instead of in Latin.
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@mrundkvist Don't give them ideas now ...
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@mrundkvist I'm reminded of American country lawyers' pronunciations of French and Latin legal terms of art
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You know there's something wrong with US politics when NASA is forced to communicate in Imperial measurements.
"Orion’s main engine provides up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, enough to accelerate a car from 0 to 60 mph in about 2.7 seconds. At the time of the burn, Orion’s mass was 58,000 pounds and burned approximately 1,000 pounds of fuel during the firing."
Artemis II Flight Day 2: Orion Completes TLI Burn, Crew Begins Journey to the Moon - NASA
NASA’s Artemis II crew is on the way to the Moon.
NASA (www.nasa.gov)
@mrundkvist Especially when the engine in question is actually European!
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@mrundkvist Especially when the engine in question is actually European!
@mrundkvist It is a longstanding problem with reporting of space missions - the NASA PR machine is so effective that European journalists often forget the European components of missions and assume everything is American. To be fair ESA was pretty bad at this in the past, but their communication strategy is now much improved thanks to people like @markmccaughrean
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@mrundkvist Especially when the engine in question is actually European!
@Luke_Drury @mrundkvist I’m not sure that part is fully true though, Luke – the main propulsion engine on the ESM is an Aerojet AJ10 (in service since 1957!), as the original ATV which ESM is derived from didn’t need a trans-lunar injection capability.
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@Luke_Drury @mrundkvist I’m not sure that part is fully true though, Luke – the main propulsion engine on the ESM is an Aerojet AJ10 (in service since 1957!), as the original ATV which ESM is derived from didn’t need a trans-lunar injection capability.
@markmccaughrean @mrundkvist Ah thanks for the correction Mark. But it is part of the European Service Module.
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@markmccaughrean @mrundkvist Ah thanks for the correction Mark. But it is part of the European Service Module.
@Luke_Drury @mrundkvist That it is
And in a similar if conversely flowing vein, a large part of the US occupied volume of the ISS was built in Italy under direct contract to NASA. Ever wonder why there have been quite so many Italian astronauts?
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist I actually wear dungarees and play a banjo.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist Worse, NASA lost a spacecraft due to this oractice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
I don’t see it as superpower bravado but rather the inability to adapt and the low values the public places I. Science and engineering.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist It is frustrating as well for the hundreds of millions of Americans who had no choice of measurement standards in school or everyday life, most of whom neither wear dungarees nor play banjo. Every day I am applying complex conversion formulae just to get by in Mexico. I still don't have an innate sense of either metric sizes or celsius temperatures. Metric is easier, but still a struggle. Poor me.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist It only has to make sense to white people who imagine themselves involved in the process.
The rest of us know better, and moved on years ago.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist You know all of our standards are metric then converted to imperial? When you buy a pound of cheese, you’re really getting just under half a kilo.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
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I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist It's 4,204,640 football fields to the moon.
