Pat Naughtin wrote: >John S. Ward wrote: >>The metric system is used extensively at the >>Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but inch-pounds are still dominant.
Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) investigation report: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oig/hq/inspections/g-00-021.pdf "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has taken the most proactive stance regarding the use of SI units. Of 52 JPL projects in varying stages of development, 32 percent are classified as all metric, 66 percent use a hybrid system, and 2 percent use only English units. In 1994, JPL initiated SI training courses, paid initial contractor tooling costs for metric fasteners, set up a metric structural fastener inventory, designed hardware in hard metric units, bought metric lathes and inspection equipment, and began using metric units in mission status reports. However, since 1996, JPL's efforts to use SI have slowed. Other NASA Centers report that SI usage occurs primarily in hybrid projects. Many projects use English units exclusively." >most photocopiers in Australia are routinely loaded with both >A4 and A3 papers to allow for exact enlargements or reductions. I had the same experience. We had a few minutes before a meeting in the US. I was discussing with some colleagues how we could illustrate our point by presenting an enlarged copy of a page. They asked me how I proposed to get an enlargement at short notice. I said "from the photocopier". They looked at me as though I was going mad. It was only then that I discovered that US photocopier trays have 'letter' and 'legal' rather than A3 and A4. I am sure that most US offices could replace the legal size photocopier tray with an A3 tray. >>Do engineers in recently metricated countries use hard-metric >>parts, or do they simply convert inch-pounds parts to metric >>numbers? You might be interested to read this about NASA from the MCO report: "A resounding theme that emerged from the survey of SI usage was a lack of available SI parts and components. Metal fasteners were cited most often. Increased costs for projects were associated with SI usage because of small order size and required lead-time for manufacturing for those parts. To avoid increased costs for projects, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center developed a central supply of common sizes of SI fasteners. Greater awareness and use of this supply, and the creation of additional supplies of common SI parts and materials such as valves, regulators, actuators, and tubing, could alleviate some of the initial cost and time constraints of using the metric system. [...] Recommendation 7: NASA should inform engineers at other NASA Centers about Goddard's supply of common sizes of SI fasteners. The Agency should also consider creating additional Agencywide supplies of common SI parts and materials such as valves, regulators, actuators, and tubing." Goddard metric supplies: http://logs-web.gsfc.nasa.gov/fasteners/program.htm
