Here's my letter to Obama:
"""
I saw today that NASA plans on putting our astronauts lives at risk by
using customary measurements as their primary measurement system for
the Constellation Program (instead of using exclusively SI). This
means we're going to end up with another Mars Orbiter crash, only this
time it's going to have humans on board instead of merely costing us
$326.7 million (plus lost research and opportunity cost). The proposed
NASA policy is at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=31353
As you've said in several speeches, it's time for us to rejoin the
world instead of standing off to the side doing our own thing.
Measurement is a crucial part of how the world works and it's time for
us to move to all metric, not to repeat the mistakes of the past (as
NASA seems intent on doing).
Can you please tell me when the administration plans on finally
bringing us change we need in our measurement system?
We need to move to using metric exclusively, not continuing with a mix.
Moving to metric not only signals to the rest of the world that we
really are intent on becoming a global citizen, but also improves
trade (no one else uses our measurement system, so we lose a lot of
trade because no other country wants non-metric goods) and will help
significantly with education (no wasted time explaining our complex
and convoluted measurement system).
Thanks,
Paul
"""
Also, here's a blog post:
http://gometric.us/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/2009-05-30-NASA-Puts-Astronaughts-At-Risk-With-Measurement#Comments
--
Go Metric
http://gometric.us/
