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How Pirates Thwarted America’s Plan to Go Metric
(psnaudus.medium.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
205 points (98.1% liked)
Mildly Interesting
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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
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NASA still almost lost the Mars Climate Orbiter in '98- they used metric, and Lockheed used US customary. Probably put it on approach too close to mars, and uh, it "encountered" the planet....
NASA has the best euphemisms.
(edit: also in 3d printing world...we almost always use metric, partly because it's literally an international community.)
One thing I find humourous is the term 'US Customary' - I've only come across it recently; to most of the world they're Imperial units, which is ironic given the nature of how the USA came about.
Strictly speaking, there are a few places where Imperial measurements diverge from US customary measurements; the sizes of a fluid ounce, pint and gallon are a few examples.