We Went to the Moon on Feet and Inches

"Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer" wrote
in message ...
The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record
setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

If inches and feet are good enough for going to the Moon, isn't it good
enough for building stuff we use every day?

The english system of measurement is just stupid.
It seems perfectly matched to Americans.
Anyone from the Cape area seen the billboard on I-95 near Port St. John -
"Evolution, Fairly Tales for Adults"? We deserve the english system.
runs away

"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..

Our soft drinks cans are 330ml; most of them vary from 330 to 360 across
the world. I've seen, IIRC, 330, 350, 355, and possibly 360. (The cafe I
used to work in got, for what I assume were less-than-legal tax reasons,
relabled foreign soft drinks a lot of the time. South African Coke is
much nicer than the European stuff, too...)

Cans and stubbies are mostly 375ml here - because it's an even divisor of
the Imperial gallon. But some breweries have been downsizing their stubbies
to fit in with European practice, and to give you less beer for the same
money.

"Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer" wrote
in message ...
The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record
setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

Because Americans wouldn't have understood otherwise.

"John Wilcock" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 04:55:17 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous via the Cypherpunks
Tonga Remailer wrote:
Now lay out a bunch of those French metrics. You will note that the
series
runs 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
24, and 25mm!!!! Each size is separated by only 1/25th of an inch, too
small to be positively labeled by inspection. This means not only does
the
spaceman have to carry a box of tools which weights three times a much,
but
he is doomed to spend three times longer on his spacewalks doing the
trial
and error thing getting a wrench to fit a bolt.

Not at all. While all the sizes exist, not all are in common use.
The typical series used here on earth runs 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, ...
I imagine the same applies in space.

A couple weeks ago I was at JSC and got a tour of the spacesuit/tools shop
at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab and almost every hex is 7/16 (some 9/16) and
5/32 for the allen keys.

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 08:52:01 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote, in part:
"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
...

Our soft drinks cans are 330ml; most of them vary from 330 to 360 across
the world. I've seen, IIRC, 330, 350, 355, and possibly 360. (The cafe I
used to work in got, for what I assume were less-than-legal tax reasons,
relabled foreign soft drinks a lot of the time. South African Coke is
much nicer than the European stuff, too...)

Cans and stubbies are mostly 375ml here - because it's an even divisor of
the Imperial gallon. But some breweries have been downsizing their stubbies
to fit in with European practice, and to give you less beer for the same
money.

Having looked things up, I have found...

The British fluid ounce is 28.41 ml, and

The American fluid ounce is 29.57 ml.

There are two and a half British cups to a British pint, but only two
American cups to an American pint, so this is why the British fluid
ounce is smaller although the British gallon is bigger.

Thus, 10 fluid ounces, a common size for cans, would be 285 ml now in
Imperial countries, and 295 or 300 ml in the United States.

Thus, 13 fluid ounces would be 370 ml, and 12 fluid ounces would be 340
ml in Canada.

In the United States, 12 fluid ounces would be 355 ml, so our pop cans
are now 12 *American* fluid ounces thanks to metrication! Before, they
had to make them in a different size for each side of the border, to be
a round number of fluid ounces...

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html