I saw that in the report. Even in 1988, that would raise a giant "what were they smoking" question. The firms that had ALREADY gone metric by then did so BECAUSE of the significant inefficiencies and risk of loss of market share from using Imperial/Customary.
I would love to see a 1988 list of foreign manufacturers who were genuinely manufacturing in Imperial/Customary (engineering drawings in those units) vs those "dressing up" their metric products with a few Imperial/Customary conversions. The thought that some businesses pressed their Congressmen to include that clause shows how incredibly naive and out-of-touch they were. ________________________________ From: Paul Trusten <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, March 31, 2010 1:54:20 AM Subject: Re: [USMA:47005] NASA OIG does not support Customary Unit waiver for Constellation program One paragraph in the report suggests that the glaring loophole in EO 12770 has been closing: Significant Inefficiencies or Loss of Markets. Paul T.Although the Constellation Program did not cite this as exception criteria in their draft request, another exception included in NASA policy relates to whether use of the metric system is "likely to cause significant inefficiencies or loss of market to U.S. firms." This criteria was established in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (Omnibus Act) to help alleviate concerns of U.S. industries who argued that they might lose market share in the United States if they were forced to produce in metric units while foreign firms fabricated products in U.S. customary units. Twenty-two years later, this concern is generally no longer valid since almost all foreign firms fabricate their parts in metric units. ----- Original Message ----- >From: John M. Steele >To: U.S. Metric Association >Sent: 30 March, 2010 19:03 >Subject: [USMA:47005] NASA OIG does not support Customary Unit waiver for >Constellation program > > >The NASA Office of the Inspector General has a completed a review of the >request for a waiver to use Customary units in the Constellation program. >They do not support the waiver. The executive overview is here: >http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=33782 >(There is a link to the full report as a pdf at bottom of the page. There is >QUITE a bit more detail in it) > >The waiver is on hold anyway due to impending cancellation of the >Constellation program. However, the report seems relatively critical of >NASA's procedures for waivers and may spur some changes. In the appendix of >the full report, there are some signs that USAF is the major service in DoD >resistant to be fully metric, and that this contributes to NASA's problems in >getting the aerospace industry to support metric.
