In NASA's safety studies terminology, an aviation accident (or any accident)
can be caused by the combination of an error (not looking in the rear-view
mirror when backing out of a parking space in a parking lot, for example)
and what they call an "enabling factor"--in the parking lot example, another
car coming up behind or passing behind the car that is backing up. Putting
an error and an enabling factor together can cause an accident.
Having two measurement standards in aviation navigation is most definitely
an enabling factor that can conspire with pilot errors and/or navigational
equipment errors to cause accidents. -- Jason
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Trusten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 4:59 PM
Subject: [USMA:38438] Re: Virgin Galactic - Metric in Space?
Only $200,000 a reservation. I didn't see if that was first class or not.
Oh, well, stand-by is probably only 25 grand.
Part of the video expressed the distance from the earth's surface in
thousands of feet.
My fear is that there will be a kind of aeronautic FPLA-ization of
measurement: WOMBAT on earth, metric on the moon. In the vicinity of the
moon (if Virgin goes there in the future), it will be all metric. But much
of earth-bound aviation relies upon nautical miles and feet. I think it
would take a global convention, and many safety meetings, to rid the earth
of these units, and those of us on earth may not want to give them up,
given the relationship between the nautical mile and the degree.
I wonder, though: couldn't NASA's decision to metricate lunar operations
hasten the day that SI would take over aviation? At least, inspire some
discussion?
Paul
Daniel Jackson wrote:
We all know that the use of metric in space has been recently agreed upon
by NASA. But there is a private company that has been recently formed
called Virgin Galactic that is going to take ordinary passengers to
altitudes greater then 100 km, the defined edge of space.
Watch the movie. Interesting that the US designer spoke in nautical
miles (only once) and the British financier spoke of the 100 km height
(only once). http://www.virgingalactic.com/flash.html
Here is an article from Yahoo:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070415/space_odd_couple.html?.v=1
The question that comes to mind and one everyone who is pro-metric
should be asking themselves is, are the space craft that Virgin Galactic
are designing being designed in metric or FFU? Are the designers and
engineers who built spaceShipOne and are now designing and building
SpaceShipTwo do the design, engineering and construction in metric? If
the future of space is to be metric assured, then even private concerns
that enter into the space race must also be metric too.
Those who are interested may wish to contact Virgin Galactic and learn
for themselves as to whether Virgin Galactic is using metric in its
operations or not.
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