In 1970, the Science News reported that Australia is taking its first brisk steps toward conversion to a fully metric system of weights and measures over the next 10 years. The then Prime Minister, John G. Gorton said, "The Government believes that the lasting benefits which will result from this decision will greatly outweigh the ... difficulties involved." At that time, the metric system was used by countries representing 90 percent of the world's population; three-fourths of world trade was carried out in metric measurements.
Five years into Australia's metrication, the US Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act in a bid to move the country away from an imperial system (based on foot and pound). One of the several laws (starting from the times of the Civil War) passed that encourages the voluntary adoption of the metric system. But the voluntary process never took off. Today, only the USA, Liberia, Myanmar and a handful of island nations use versions of the imperial system.
On 30th Sep 1999, NASA reported that it had lost the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter because the force exerted by the orbiter's thrusters remained in the system of units based on pounds and feet rather than being converted to metric. The problem arose because two teams working on the Mars mission weren't using the same units of measurement.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California had assumed that thrust data they received from Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver which built the craft, were expressed in metric units, as newtons. Mr. Noel Hinners of Lockheed Martin had noted that "Twenty years ago, we went through this whole hassle of - Should the US go metric? I wish we had."
That wasn't first or the only incident. In 1985, controllers calculated distance in feet rather than nautical miles (both not SI units) and inadvertently pointed a mirror on the space shuttle Discovery away from the Earth instead of towards a laser on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.
Repeatedly failing to properly use the metric system, will the US learn the agony of de-feet?
Compiled by Praveen Kumar S (praveen@mylearningclub.in / rajuspk@gmail.com)
References -
- Science News
- Wikipedia
