Bill, When you nudge NASA public-relations personnel to use metric units, why not advocate the *coherent* SI units with appropriate prefixes? e.g. meters per second (not per hour) and the full range of prefixes as appropriate, M, G, T, E, or Z? Hours (h) in the denominators are an abomination! I am confident that NASA-JPL uses more coherent forms of meters and meters per second. Gene.
---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:58:59 -0400 >From: Bill Hooper <[email protected]> >Subject: [USMA:50102] Another NASA use of Ye Olde English units >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > > Another case of resistance to metric units from > NASA. > Below is my reply including the quotes from NASA's > press release to which I was referring. > Bill Hooper > Member, US Metric Association > www.metric.org > ======================== > Would it kill you to let us know what those figures > are in metric in addition to (or preferably instead > of) King George's Olde English measures? > You [NASA] wrote, in RELEASE : 11-079 - NASA'S > MESSENGER Spacecraft Begins Historic Orbit Around > Mercury > > ... slowing the spacecraft by 1,929 miles per hour > ... The rendezvous took place about 96 million > miles from Earth. > ... through its 4.9-billion-mile journey. > > What's wrong with: > ... slowing the spacecraft by 3104 km/h ... The > rendezvous took place about 154 million kilometres > from Earth. > ... through its 7.9-billion-kilometre journey. > or even simpler > ... slowing the spacecraft by 3.104 Mm/h ... The > rendezvous took place about 154 Gm from Earth. > ... through its 7.9-Tm journey. > where Mm = megametres (1 Mm = 1000 km) > and Gm = gigametres (1 Gm = 1 000 Mm) > and Tm = terrametres (1 Tm = 1000 Gm)
