2009-05-30-NASA-Puts-Astronaughts-At-Risk-With-Measurement

Dear NASA, in case you'd missed it, President Obama's slogan for the last election was "Change we need" not "Going back to the dark ages". The last time measurement was mentioned in terms of NASA, it was when you were explaining to congress why you'd just blown $327.6 million of public funds and who knows how much in lost research and opportunity cost by crashing the Mars orbiter into the side of said planet.

In case you've forgotten, this was caused by a measurement mixup. One subcontractor (Lockheed Martin) used our customary system of measurements instead of SI like they were told (and everyone else did). Now, you're proposing codifying this insanity because the subcontractor who did this last time told you they didn't want to change (otherwise known as over quoting for metric because they don't like it). Maybe it's time to get a new contractor?

The rest of the world uses metric and so does the majority of our industry (they have to, otherwise they wouldn't be able to trade internationally) so you're guaranteed to be using two systems of measurement and we all know this is both expensive and error prone. In case you haven't noticed (probably because it's hidden in internal processes and people who just shrug and say "that's the way it is"), common failure points and costs for using two systems of measurement are:

• Conversion errors.
• Interoperability errors.
• Time wasted due to the time it takes to do conversions.
• Extra checks needed to make sure that all conversions are correct.
• Extra tooling as you need one for each measurement system.
• More complex design work as some parts are SI and some are Customary so design engineers need to work in both (which slows them down) and design tools need to operate in both simultaneously (which makes them more complex).
• Extra training as all staff need to be familiar with both systems (and any staff visiting from the rest of the world need to be trained in our complex and confusing customary system).

While your documentation says it should be primarily Customary you're going to end up making use of the exceptions listed in the proposed standard a lot as all international parts are SI and many locally produced ones only come in SI as well. You say English in the document, but lets hope you don't mean that otherwise there's going to be confusion when someone uses a British gallon and another uses a US gallon which means you'll have three systems of measurement not just two.

Last time you did this it was just a few hundred million dollars, this time you're proposing putting human lives at risk by defining the Constellation Program in terms of a measurement system only used in the USA instead of the internationally accepted standard (SI). Please, for the sake of our space program and the people who's lives you'll be putting at risk by having a shuttle that uses multiple measurement systems, don't do this. NASA should be all metric, not metric for the moon and mixed for shuttles.

Regards, Paul

For those of you reading this who are appalled as I am that NASA is proposing putting our astronauts lives in unnecessary danger by building the shuttle replacement using mixed units instead of all SI, contact your federal representatives, brian.k.muirhead@nasa.gov and public-inquiries@hq.nasa.gov to stop the insanity and unnecessary risk to the lives of our astronauts (not to mention the wasted time and money while people struggle with conversions and other issues dealing with multiple measurement systems).