The late 1990s were a good time for the nation’s space program, and, indeed, humanity’s exploration of the cosmos. The space shuttle Endeavour left and returned on its maiden voyage (1992); the memory of Challenger’s tragic destruction had paled in the world’s consciousness; the Galileo probe put newer technology to work (for the entire decade), letting humans remotely explore Jupiter and its moons in more scientific depth than ever before; and the Hubble Space Telescope captured images of the furthest depths of the visible universe (1993, after repairs corrected for a so-called “spherical aberration” in the telescope’s lens) as well as the first direct picture of a planet outside our solar system (1998). Surely, all magnificent achievements indicative of humanity’s indefatigable curiosity and remarkable ingenuity.
In late 1998, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a satellite, the Mars Climate Orbiter (which was built in part by contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.) to collect information about the Red Planet’s atmosphere, and to relay data from a parallel mission, the Mars Polar Lander. On Sept. 23, 1999, the Orbiter fired its engines, and rocketed to within 60 kilometers of the planet’s surface, fatally closer than planned. According to a NASA master catalog entry, the resulting friction and atmospheric stresses likely destroyed the $125 million craft.
What caused such a grievous problem? Not the usual difficulties of engineering machines for (literally) out-of-this-world exploration, but an error of the sort we learn to avoid in elementary school: For a critical spacecraft operation, NASA used the metric unit for force (the newton), while Lockheed Martin used the English unit (the familiar pound). The bad number-crunching signaled the craft to misfire, sending a cool eighth of a billion dollars of taxpayer money careening toward the Martian surface, an ignominious counterpoint to years of general NASA successes.
While a later NASA inquiry cited problems with the project’s validation – rather than a gross oversight on the part of Lockheed Martin engineers, the problem itself represents a subtle but bizarre schism in national policy.
Accordingly, the incident didn’t reflect problems with the antiquated English measurement system itself, but rather the sometimes gross inconvenience of using two systems.
But the point remains: Using the English system alone is almost as bad. The metric system is easier to remember, quicker to use, and less prone to mistakes.
I know immediately how many centimeters are in a kilometer (100,000), but I don’t care how many drachms are in a gallon (1,280) or how many drams there are in a stone (3,584) . But that’s just the Imperial gallon; the gallon of milk we buy at Safeway is a U.S. gallon. Likewise, at least three ounces are in use: the fluid (the liquid measure of volume), the avoirdupois (the weight measure we use when cooking) and the troy (the ounce used for measuring precious metals and stones). Ironically, the very apathy that contributes to disinterest in switching to a cleaner, more modern system ultimately would be better served by using a system that only requires memorization of a few units and maybe five or six prefixes.
The history of the metric system in America actually extends back nearly to the Civil War. In 1866, a then-forward-thinking Congress passed the Metric Act of 1866, legalizing the system’s use in America. As no program encouraged its implementation, the well-established English system prevailed, which was OK until many of the nation’s trading partners switched over to the new system, hurting America’s competitiveness abroad.
Besides the inertia of tradition, one of metric system’s biggest obstacles in America has been a record of false starts. The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 established the Metric Board to encourage metrication, and finally designated the system as the preferred one for American use. The board dissolved in 1982, however, after decided that it lacked a real mandate.
The most important federal advance in implementing the system a few years later, when Congress passed the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, which directed all federal agencies to adopt the metric system by the end of 1992; the metrication of the federal government is now near-complete.
But, no thanks to more dilution of legislation and the dogged persistence of certain entrenched interests, the nation now sits in a sort of policy limbo.
A 1998 federal mandate originally required builders to use the metric system in all federally funded highway projects, but eventually made compliance optional for state governments. More than 80 percent of the states were certified as “metric-ready,” and were using metric units when building government buildings.
Since that participation became optional, however, suppliers and some contractors have pressured more than half of those states to return the unwieldy English system, according to a Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal article. As of 2000, 14 state departments of transportation used the metric system, 28 used the English system, and the last eight allow use of either system. The private sector lags much further behind in adoption. Clearly, the nation suffers from a peculiar measurement schizophrenia that’s at best largely inconvenient.
Possibly the most compelling case for metrication is a simple what’s-popular-is-what’s-right argument. The only other nations still holding out with an archaic measurement system are Liberia and Myanmar; that means about 95 percent of the world’s nations, by population, use the more convenient metric system. The benefits of streamlined international trade alone would be worth the switch; the ease of everyday calculations are icing on the metrical cake.