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The Planetary Society BlogBy Emily LakdawallaNews from NASA: Going metric on the MoonJan. 9, 2007 | 11:31 PST | 19:31 UTC
Yesterday's Science@NASA news item was the astounding announcement that "NASA has decided to use metric units for all operations on the lunar surface when it returns to the Moon." I'm so accustomed to using metric units whenever I talk about science that I forget that most NASA spacecraft are built by American contractors that still work with nuts and bolts measured in inches and pounds rather than millimeters and kilograms. Space scientists have been using metric units for a long, long time, but there's a lot of inertia among contractors in workshops tooled to Imperial units rather than metric. (Never mind the inertia of the American public, which doesn't have anything to do with this announcement.)
The decision is a victory not only for the metric system itself, which by this decision increases its land area in the solar system by 27%, but also for the spirit of international cooperation in exploring the Moon. The decision arose from a series of meetings that brought together representatives from NASA and 13 other space agencies to discuss ways to cooperate and coordinate their lunar exploration programs. Standardizing on the metric system was an obvious step in the right direction.So you won't hear me scoffing at this announcement. Rather, I'll give my little cheer, and hope that this decision bodes for good things to come in NASA's cooperation with other nations in the exploration of the Moon -- and beyond.
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