What a ride it has been, short term sadness but long term it’s just the beginning….
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Payne Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 10:01 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: [email protected]; U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:50862] Re: National Geographic I've looked in National Geographic magazine in book stores worldwide out of interest and it's all USC units. I've written many letters over the years with no result. I think it was in the 90-92 period that I canceled after telling them why. Nothing has changed apparently. The Australians publish a similar magazien, Pat Naughtin will correct me, I think it's called Australian Geographic. 100% SI. Mike Payne Here is an article from their web page on the demise of the Space Shuttle. WATCHING THE TV IMAGES of the hundreds of thousands of people who had gathered at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, on Friday to watch Atlantis lift off on NASA's final space shuttle mission, I was struck by the emotion written all over their faces. A potent mixture of elation, national pride, and sadness at the end of an era. A few folk were weeping openly, and some pretty tough-looking, all-American guys were biting their lips fiercely as the emotion threatened to spill over. If anyone needed evidence that America still has its heart in the space program, this was it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of its fiscal enthusiasm. With each trip costing close to US$1.5 billion, continuing the shuttle program would strain NASA's resources beyond its limit, even if you could ignore the 30-year-old technology and ageing airframes of the shuttle fleet. When Atlantis touches down after its 12-day mission, the program will slide into history. No-one can deny its effectiveness, however, despite the tragic loss of two shuttles and their crews in accidents that stand as continuing reminders of the dangers of human spaceflight. Challenger, lost on 28 January 1986 as a result of a leaking seal on one of the craft's solid-fuel boosters, forced a rethink of many of NASA's procedures. And despite all those revisions, it was a minor mishap on a launch - a piece of foam insulation dislodging a critical heat-shield tile - that resulted in the disintegration of Columbia during re-entry on 1 February 2003. Shuttle legacy The most significant legacy of the shuttle program is clearly the International Space Station (ISS), an ongoing icon of advanced science and engineering that is sure to be seen by future analysts as pivotal in humankind's emergence as a spacefaring species - despite recurring criticism that it does nothing but circle the Earth. The shuttle has been the workhorse of the Space Station's construction, ferrying component modules to orbit in its cavernous 23-tonne-capacity hold. [http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/assets/discovery_orbit_earth.jpg] Discovery in orbit, with Earth as the backdrop. (Credit: NASA) Since the very first shuttle launch (of Columbia on 12 April 1981), there have been 134 missions, flying some 355 individuals into space, many of whom have made multiple flights. When Atlantis touches down, the total distance flown by the fleet will amount to nearly 900 million kilometres - the equivalent of three return trips to the Sun. The three retired shuttles - Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis - will then find their way to various American museums, along with the non-orbital test shuttle Enterprise. What will happen to the Space Station, now the shuttle program is no more? In a turn-around of Cold War rivalries, its six crew members will be ferried to and from orbit by Soyuz capsules of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos. Supplies will be lifted to the station by Russian and European uncrewed vehicles, together with commercial rockets. Reaching for Orion Meanwhile, NASA's next-generation spacecraft, Orion, is on-track for deployment in 2016. Freed from the onerous burden of maintaining both the shuttles and an overambitious Bush-era scheme to land humans on Mars (canned last year), NASA can at last devote resources to the highly innovative and far-sighted R&D that it does best. In my view, that decision by the Obama administration was the correct one for NASA. However, it does leave a sense of uncertainty among the American public about exactly where their nation is going in space - and when. I suspect that was one reason for some of the emotional faces we saw at the launch of Atlantis last week. But they should take heart. Prior to the start of the shuttle program in 1981, there had been a six-year span with no American presence in space. What followed was undeniably a triumph. And the same will happen again. Fred Watson is Astronomer-in-Charge of the Australian Astronomical Observatory at Coonabarabran in north-western NSW, and well-known to ABC radio listeners. He has written a regular column in the Australian Geographic journal for many years. Mike Payne On 10/07/2011, at 20:48 , Kilopascal wrote: You may find this of interest! It seems NG has their own style Guide. http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/M/metric-international-measurement NGS Style Manual<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home> > - M -<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/M> > METRIC AND INTERNATIONAL MEASUREMENT METRIC AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL UNITS OF MEASUREMENT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC uses standard measurements except in natural history and science articles where metric, if appropriate, may be substituted. Supplement maps generally use standard measurements with metric in parentheses. Weight and measures may be abbreviated in credit lines and map notes. Such abbreviations do not take periods; plurals do not add s or es: vase 12 cm, 16 mm, f/22, 11 sq mi, three hr, 8-in snake, 11 min 30 sec, 49-yr span. At least they get the SI rules and symbols correct. The trick is to get them to define standard measurements to mean SI units. Except here they think kph is an acceptable abbreviation: kilometer, km Spell out in text. Abbreviate km in map notes, no period: 32-km trip. In editorial copy kilometers per hour may be abbreviated kph, though it is best to spell it out. (Note that the official international system for metric uses km/h.) See also centimeter, cm<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/C/centimeter-cm>, meter, m<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/M/meter-m>, millimeter, mm<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/M/millimeter-mm>, METRIC AND INTERNATIONAL MEASUREMENT<http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/M/metric-international-measurement>. Now, as far as I know, NG does use metric in its foreign language publications. What I'm not sure of is if it uses SI in its overseas English language editions and just reserves USC for the US market. How many readers in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc, would understand non-SI if NG used it in their publications sold in those countries? If they do, how many sales have they lost because of it? Do they care or do they think their American sales makes up for any lost overseas business? [USMA:50856] Re: National Geographic James Frysinger Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:36:23 -0700 Some time ago, probably more than 10 years now, I wrote to National Geographic's top officer after being ignored many times by routine "letters to the editor" on this subject. As I recall, I eventually even had to make a phone call to indicate that I desired an actual response. I did receive a reply after that, a rather snide and rude one. Essentially the thrust of the reply was that Americans didn't understand the metric system and wanted no part of it. If I paid for my own NG subscription, I would have cancelled it. But my folks give one to each of their children and it would hurt their feelings to ask them to skip mine. Enough time has elapsed that it probably would worthwhile making another push on this topic. Good luck! The NGS has a Board of Governors. I suggest a letter to each member. And it should be a real letter, not an email! These are stodgy old coots we're dealing with here... Jim -- James R. Frysinger 632 Stony Point Mountain Road Doyle, TN 38559-3030 (C) 931.212.0267 (H) 931.657.3107 (F) 931.657.3108 On 2011-07-10 15:26, [email protected] wrote: Was at my mothers house where they had been getting National Geographic Magazine, I was a bit surprised and disappointed, NGM does not support SI anywhere in there articles at all. The only spot was the second page that was advertisement for Canon Cameras, Canon would show case an animal with description in Metric first followed by American Imperial units. Of all magazines I thought for sure they of scientific mind would support SI. I was wrong. Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr Erie PA Linux and Metric User and Enforcer I will only invest in nukes that are 150 gigameters away. How much solar energy have you collected today? Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- Thomas Edison♽☯♑
