I am having a look at the STS forum right now. Betty asks some questions about distances. Then come answers of Carleton, stating that miles and everything else should go to the scrap heap of history, Spacegirl who claims that the nautical mile is used for certain applications, and Jim about the use of metric in NASA publications. Then comes the person who very aptly calls himself Old Codger:
Quote: Getting back to Bettys original questions: The Hubble Space Telescope can take images of large items such as galaxies as far away as approximately 10 billion lightyears or 60 thousand, billion, billion miles. The Hubble Space telescope orbits the earth and this orbit is nearly a circle. Therefore, it is always roughly the same distance from earth, approximately 353 miles in altitude. This orbit degrades (altitude drops) slowly (a few miles) over a period of years, and the Space Shuttle is used to "reboost" the telescope during servicing missions to help maintain the altitude. This small change in altitude has no effect on how far the telescope can see. Over the course of a year the Hubble Space Telescope can image anywhere in the sky. Unquote Old Codger indeed! He does not specify or know what kind of miles are meant. His information is useless and the metric message in the three preceding messages bounced off his eyes. I posted this message: 'Old Codgers' information is useless. Are you using statute or nautical miles? This proves once again how confusing American units are and I support what Jim and Carleton stated in their messages. Han
