NASA has gone metric for the moon

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Tom

too bad our bodies and the Earth were designed before the metric system. :laugh:

The old measurements are a lot cooler for everything but science.

Before the English system too. Before any system, really. Except perhaps for the length of a strand of spaghetti, and the diameter of a meatball.

Originally posted by: IGBT

..they really are better off with bots. They go from the drawing board to launch pad faster and more off the shelf technology can be used.

Some off the shelf technology. Or at least more of it than they used to before NASA's whole Better, Faster, Cheaper initiative went through. If they had more support satellites in orbit of Mars, they could probably send several more of the MER's to wander around awhile.
Of course, more money is needed already to upgrade and maintain the Deep Space Network system. The more spacecraft we have out there trying to talk to us, the more difficult it is to schedule everybody in. And with no redundancy, a problem with one spacecraft means that all efforts may be redirected to finding it and getting it working again. When the Mars Global Surveyor went offline, some data passes for other spacecraft were aborted because significant DSN time was needed to send commands and listen for replies. Or there's the Voyager probes - they need the big 70 meter dishes for the signal to be received. The Voyagers have 20 watt transmitters, but by the time it gets to Earth, it's spread out considerably, so there's less than 10^-16 watts hitting the antenna.

I'm just of the opinion that sending humans to the Moon was a bit of a publicity stunt then, just as it is now. Sure we can do it, but it's not really necessary. Robots will continue to increase in intelligence and capability. Even the MERs are smarter now than they were when they were launched, thanks to software updates. They gained visual odometry early in the mission, instead of only relying on how many times the wheels turn. Now being tested is a system where the rover can be shown a target, drive to it, and decide if it is safe to deploy its instrument arm. Before, the rover team would have to wait for end-of-drive images to come down, check them for safety, adjust the rover's position if needed, and then deploy the arm. This new programming will eliminate this time consuming process by letting the rover figure out a way of getting itself to a safe place at the target.
Once we've exhausted the capabilities of robots, and it really is required to send humans to get the job done because no robot could do it, then we should seriously consider sending someone. By that time, we may have solutions to the problems of being able to send a large enough ship to provide adequate living space, food, and radiation shielding for a long term trip.

 

[chambersc]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Slowly but surely the US will adopt Metric.

One can hope.

 

[herbiehancock]

Originally posted by: chambersc

Originally posted by: sandorski
Slowly but surely the US will adopt Metric.

One can hope.

Well, if you don't look out behind you, most of the U.S. industry, like the automobile industry, has already made an almost complete change to metric measurements. When's the last time you had to take out an SAE wrench to do anything on any American car produced in the last 15 or so years. You haven't.....the vehicle is almost completely metric-based in its bolts and such.


But metric, while sometimes easier to comprehend, is no more precise than the "American" system. At work we routinely measure in scales of 0.0001 or smaller.....and all in the "American" system. That's 0.0001 inches. So, once you drop below a whole inch, it's all decimal and in tenths/hundredths/thousandths/ten-thousandths/hundred-thousandths and smaller anyway. So, in that scale, there really is no impetus to change anyway.

 

[bleeb]

its about time NASA got off its high horse and starting working in the Metric System.

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: DieHardware
Canada switched over to metric in the mid-70s, but along with that camethe switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius, the jumps are too big in the scale.

I do hope you're not serious.
Surely you've been made aware of the recent mathematical advance of "decimals." It makes it possible to have fractions of a degree, or even fractions of other numbers. If one wishes to express a figure somewhere between 1 and 2, it is possible to express it as 1.2 or 1.7. Amazing concept, no? I believe it's been applied to the Fahrenheit system as well, namely with body temperature - 98.6F

I was referring to the rather large temperature difference between 19C and 20C vs. 68F and 69F. IMHO Celsius temperature scale is inferior for daily weather. As far as whatever you are driveling on about, have fun building a residential house without 4x8 sheets or 2x4s.

 

[Fritzo]

Now we'll have to change a bunch of songs :|

"2.54 centimeter worm....2.54 centimeter worm....measuring the merrigolds..."

"2.54 centimeters by 254 centimeters...row by row...gonna make this garden grow"

"I would walk 10600 kilometers, and I would walk ten thousand more...."