James R. Frysinger wrote: >A short time ago you published a link to the NASA Metric Directive and >now to the IG's report following the MCO disaster. Those are both >excellent documents to read. Links to those were posted here a few years >ago but I'm sure that most people have since lost them.
If it was a few years ago, then people may wish to note that the Nasa Directive is version 'C' dated 2000. It supercedes the 'B' version of 1996. I don't know if the differences are substantial. >Both of these stategies sometimes resulted in getting materials >from pre-1988 (and thus often non-metric) missions or non-metric >parts when that tended to be the commercial standard. The full IG report is on available via the webpage that I posted. It describes how the exceptions permitted under the directive have been abused. There have been extensive exceptions for whole institutions and people have used cost as an excuse without proving that they have calculated the cost. It also describes how there are SI parts available within NASA but they are not ordered enough. >Their worst offenders are their PAOs who often take metric >data and specifications and then convert it to non-metric for >their public releases. Yes. I see things in the media when talking about the mars rover: "The two solar-powered vehicles will travel up to 330 ft" and no mention of 100 m. However, I get the impression that the NASA default press format is: 'metric (inch-pound)'. The NASA JPL site is like that, even when describing JPL itself.
