NASA and 13 other space agencies from around the world have come to an
agreement that the
Moon will use the standard metric system of measurement. “When we
made the announcement at the meeting, the reps for the other space
agencies all gave a little cheer,” says Jeff Volosin, strategy
development lead for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
In part this
decision was made to avoid future problems like the loss of the Mars Climate
Orbiter robotic probe that was caused by NASA software that used
olde Imperial units instead of metric. When the software interpreted
newtons as furlongs per fortnight (or something equally obscure), the
robot missed its orbital insertion and burned up in the atmosphere. The
decision to go metric will greatly simplify life on the moon for future
explorers, who
won’t have to buy two sets of wrenches or “worry about trying to fit
a 15 millimeter nut onto a 5/8 inch bolt.” This also adds 27%
more
land area to the portion of the solar system using the metric system.
The only areas left not using the metric system are Burma, Liberia, and
the US.