To the producers of All Things Considered
Dear Sirs:
I grant that it's not quite dead on arrival, but in one respect it's
old and doddering. I refer to your reporting style. Quite obviously
that includes shunning metric units, even when manifestly applicable.
It is as if you think that Americans can grasp the sometimes subtle
points you make on All Things Considered but that they couldn't
possibly understand the commonly used metric units.
Specifically, I was listening to All Things Considered in my car this
afternoon and heard a segment on Deep Space I. You told us it would
approach within 1200 miles of comet Borrelly's coma and that it used a
low-powered but highly efficient ion propulsion engine, which has run
for three years on only 143 pounds of "fuel" (actually, it's a
propellant -- xenon, which does not "burn").
Indeed, NASA's public release on this rendezvous* states the closest
point of approach will be "perhaps as near as 2000 km" from the comet,
with no statement in miles. Another NASA public release** states that
the spacecraft consumes about 100 g of propellant (xenon, which does
not burn) per day. Only parenthetically do they allow that this is
"about 3.5 oz". Now, we all know that NASA appears in public to be
somewhat hit-or-miss on its usage of SI ("metric") units, though the
majority of their work is done metrically. But you folks seem to fall
entirely into the "miss" category (except when you speak of "kilos" of
drugs).
I teach astronomy and physics as general education courses at a liberal
arts college and most of my students are non-science majors. Majors
such as music, literature, business, physical education, and languages
are well represented. For the last several years I have allowed my
students to vote on whether we would work only in SI ("metric") or in a
mixture of SI and "English" units. Every semester the vote has been
unanimously in favor of SI-only.
Shame on you for being so anachronistic! Perhaps I should assume that
you didn't watch the Olympic Games last year since those events were
measured in meters, kilometers, and kilograms. Come to think of it, the
only majors offered at our college which have not been represented in
my classes are communications and journalism. Hmmm.
James R. Frysinger
* http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast19sep_1.htm
** http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast17aug%5F1.htm
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
