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How silly of NASA to use the metric system anyway
I'm sure most of you know this story, but let me still introduce you the subject. Maybe some here don't know about this famous bug in the history of programming
Our story starts in 1995, with the Mars Surveyor program. The objective was to do, instead of one big, beautiful mission, multiple, smaller and less expensive ones. After the success of Mars Global Surveyor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Global_Surveyor, NASA started to work on Mars Climate Orbiter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
It would be piloted from the ground, with NASA's Deep Space Network https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/what-is-the-deep-space-network/ (it's just the big rooms with a lot of computers and people. If you saw one movie about space exploration, you can see what they all look like)
To manufacture it, they will subcontract Lockheed Martin, not to build 3000 jets of Allah like I'm so used to think about when hearing that company's name (please help me), but simply a spacecraft, that will communicate with NASA's computers directly, to be manoeuvred as accurately as possible. "And what is more accurate than the imperial system", LM's engineers thought. "The metric system", NASA's ones answered decades before. And scientists even before. Because not only metric is the international standard for science. Hence this abbreviation : *SI*, for *Système International* (it's in French because the metric system is french. In each meter, a crispy baguette, red wine, beret and Clair Obscur live). And it's the case worldwide since 1960, with the only major difference : instead of Celsius for temperature, let's use Kelvin (which is °C + 273)
But that's informations LM decided to ignore. And programmed the module witg the imperial system. And at first, no one will realise the blunder
1998 December 11. 18:45:51. The module takes off, ready to study Mars' climate. And for now, no one suspects that this mission is doomed
1999 September 23. 08:41:00. The spacecraft is finally close to the red planet. At 09:00:46, the main engine is starting to burn for its manoeuvre, for 00:16:23 seconds. But at 09:04:52, MCO would lose contact and never to be seen online again, like your friend on the Xbox Live after they say they must go for dinner between two games of Halo. It was planned at first, as the module went behind Mars. But like your friend and their dinner, MCO would never come back
The mission would be considered a failure two days later by NASA, and of course, an investigation started. And they quickly found out what was the culprit of the crash itself : the software used for the impulse's calculation
The module communicate its velocity in pound-force per second or lbf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot%E2%80%93pound%E2%80%93second_system_of_units, while NASA read it as Newton-seconds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton-second or N.s . To give you an idea, 1 lbs is around 4.45 N. So when NASA saw "1" on their screens, it would actually be "4.45" (and it's not exactly that, but fuck it. Engineers will say "4.45"). But they didn't knew. Because obviously the module would use metric. Right ?
Except no. When the investigation started to look at LM's code for the module, they realise that it uses imperial
NASA doesn't blame Lockheed Martin, however. Edward Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for Space Science at the time, said "The problem here was not the error; it was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes, to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft."
This failure would not only be a textbook case on why specifications are important, but also on why I hate the imperial system
(If I want to calm my ego, there are some informatic failures, that doesn't requires the imperial system to exist, to still mess up) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_flight_V88
#history
source
I'm sure most of you know this story, but let me still introduce you the subject. Maybe some here don't know about this famous bug in the history of programming
Our story starts in 1995, with the Mars Surveyor program. The objective was to do, instead of one big, beautiful mission, multiple, smaller and less expensive ones. After the success of Mars Global Surveyor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Global_Surveyor, NASA started to work on Mars Climate Orbiter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
It would be piloted from the ground, with NASA's Deep Space Network https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/what-is-the-deep-space-network/ (it's just the big rooms with a lot of computers and people. If you saw one movie about space exploration, you can see what they all look like)
To manufacture it, they will subcontract Lockheed Martin, not to build 3000 jets of Allah like I'm so used to think about when hearing that company's name (please help me), but simply a spacecraft, that will communicate with NASA's computers directly, to be manoeuvred as accurately as possible. "And what is more accurate than the imperial system", LM's engineers thought. "The metric system", NASA's ones answered decades before. And scientists even before. Because not only metric is the international standard for science. Hence this abbreviation : *SI*, for *Système International* (it's in French because the metric system is french. In each meter, a crispy baguette, red wine, beret and Clair Obscur live). And it's the case worldwide since 1960, with the only major difference : instead of Celsius for temperature, let's use Kelvin (which is °C + 273)
But that's informations LM decided to ignore. And programmed the module witg the imperial system. And at first, no one will realise the blunder
1998 December 11. 18:45:51. The module takes off, ready to study Mars' climate. And for now, no one suspects that this mission is doomed
1999 September 23. 08:41:00. The spacecraft is finally close to the red planet. At 09:00:46, the main engine is starting to burn for its manoeuvre, for 00:16:23 seconds. But at 09:04:52, MCO would lose contact and never to be seen online again, like your friend on the Xbox Live after they say they must go for dinner between two games of Halo. It was planned at first, as the module went behind Mars. But like your friend and their dinner, MCO would never come back
The mission would be considered a failure two days later by NASA, and of course, an investigation started. And they quickly found out what was the culprit of the crash itself : the software used for the impulse's calculation
The module communicate its velocity in pound-force per second or lbf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot%E2%80%93pound%E2%80%93second_system_of_units, while NASA read it as Newton-seconds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton-second or N.s . To give you an idea, 1 lbs is around 4.45 N. So when NASA saw "1" on their screens, it would actually be "4.45" (and it's not exactly that, but fuck it. Engineers will say "4.45"). But they didn't knew. Because obviously the module would use metric. Right ?
Except no. When the investigation started to look at LM's code for the module, they realise that it uses imperial
NASA doesn't blame Lockheed Martin, however. Edward Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for Space Science at the time, said "The problem here was not the error; it was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes, to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft."
This failure would not only be a textbook case on why specifications are important, but also on why I hate the imperial system
(If I want to calm my ego, there are some informatic failures, that doesn't requires the imperial system to exist, to still mess up) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_flight_V88
#history
source
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