2009-10-27
post/224785365
photo 11:19:07
NASA image of the day: Ares I-X at the Launch Pad, before its test launch today, “between 8 a.m. and noon EDT”.
2009-08-29
post/174893881
photo 20:42:22
A pistol-grip bolt opener, from a New Scientist gallery, Inside an astronaut’s tool bag. Photo by Micahel Soluri.
2009-06-21
post/127591078
quote 17:29:49
“ ‘What’s with the imperial units?’ Malley asked, as we watched and listened to Andrea guiding us in to dock with the ice tanker.‘You’ll hear arguments about human scale and intuition and so forth,’ I explained, ‘but the older and coarser characters in space will sum it up in two words: fucking NASA. Most of the space settlements were built with ex-NASA stock or to NASA spec way back in the early days, and ever since then it’s been too much trouble to change. We’re locked into it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Andrea. ‘Which is why we are now two point five seven miles from a hundred thousand metric tons of ice. You’ve just got to love the consistency of it all.’ ”
The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod quoted on LibraryThing; an example of that sort of science fiction I was talking about. (Thanks to Tom for the link.)
post/127453352
quote 10:19:00
“ We are doing everything possible to create a global market with as much commonality and interoperability as possible, but NASA still can’t make the jump to metric ”
Mike Gold, of Bigelow Aerospace, quoted in a New Scientist story, NASA attacked for sticking to imperial units. (Edit to correct link, to a much longer version)
It concludes “NASA says that the $370 million cost to convert the Constellation programme to metric is too high.” Have these people not read all the bitchy asides in science fiction novels about how deep-future Man is still cursing feet and inches? Come on, NASA, get a grip.
