Older engineers have much more experience and therefore intuition about how big or small things should generally be (typical heat rates, downranges, etc.), so I can appreciate how it's nice to be able to evaluate a new design or additional analysis in units that you already know. But, since I have pretty much no engineering intuition and very little experience, I'd rather stick with metric units because everything's divisible by 10 and there's no confusion between things like a short ton and a long ton. And really - bushels? Furlongs? Give me a break.
But I digress. Sorry about the rant. Anyway, I was looking for additional articles online this morning and found a copy of the "Apollo Experience Report - Mission Planning for Apollo Entry," published in 1972. I noticed at the beginning of the document, right before the abstract, there's an additional note that reads:
"The MSC (Manned Spaceflight Center) Director waived the use of the International System of Units (SI) for this Apollo Experience Report, because, in his judgment, use of SI units would impair the usefulness of the report or result in excessive cost."30 years later and not much has changed...
5 comments:
I'm really annoyed CEV is using English instead of SI. All my experience with with metric since I've been working with JPL for years.
Still, even though JPL is metric, they've been bit in the past by it at least once. MCO was lost since the contractor still worked in English units. Maybe the solution would be to use a different contractor... wait... never mind, they were selected for CEV. :p
I'm really annoyed by the refusal of NASA to switch to metric. The ISS program is done in metric, and as the ISS will be the first destination for CEV, I'd think that it would make sense to do CEV in metric.
My favorite on the contracter selection is one of the prime reasons given was their experience.. on what? failed X-33 or failed Mars missions?
That said, I go by one of our coworkers thoughts on which contracter would be selected "They'll both do the same work, so you should just ask yourself, would you rather have to take business trips to Denver or LA?"
'Nuff said. I'm rambling because I'm tired.
I also agree. Unfortunately, the people with their hands on the reins of the CEV program are older engineers that don't want to bother to relearn their rules of thumb.
I actually heard one person that's involved in CEV say "metric is a plot to make America weak". He may have been half joking, but no more than that.
It's only lives on the line, hey. What's a few kgs here a few Newtons there and a nice pile of burning rubble.
Actually, I just heard today that Constellation is going metric. Not sure if that means CEV will be metric, but if they aren't, they'll have to always provide metric units in addition to the English ones.
It's a start. :)
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