You know there's something wrong with US politics when NASA is forced to communicate in Imperial measurements.
"Orion’s main engine provides up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, enough to accelerate a car from 0 to 60 mph in about 2.7 seconds. At the time of the burn, Orion’s mass was 58,000 pounds and burned approximately 1,000 pounds of fuel during the firing."
I can't overstate this. NASA's use of pounds and cubic feet in its outreach efforts does not come across to science-literate people, inside or outside the US, as a sign that the country is a badass superpower that can do what it likes and ignore everyone else.
Instead it suggests that the US is a provincial nation of dungaree-wearing banjo players.
@mrundkvist
Or that NASA, USA funded, is trying to appeal to its target audience of voters in the measures they actually USE.
Trumpler’s assault on science has hit NASA hard, this could be an attempt to fight back. Get their population to relate.
Also, mocking a country for its legal language, customs, currency, or systems of measurements is not okay. Ever. Just because someone believes their ‘system’ is better, does not make it so. Opinion is just a consensus. Not everyone has to agree.
I grew up with UK Imperial measures, and currency, yet somehow have a genius IQ and science degrees. Does the fact that the UK still uses MILES on all our roadsigns, and sells beer in PINTS (bigger than a USA pint btw 😉) make us all hicks?
@cflynnbooks @mrundkvist I think this is the most American cope post ever.
It absolutely is fine to mock America for using archaic units based on a king’s foot and it should openly be encouraged.
We ARE provincial backwards people, in the way we think, the way we vote, the way we relate to the “world” (which suspiciously is often not outside this continent), the way we travel (most Americans never leave the country and plenty never leave their home state), the way we talk down to everyone else, and the way we insist we are always right about everything “so shut up.”
And also our insistence that our way is the correct way. #17 in the world standard of living and consistently declining world status. And now look at the price of gas. Clearly correct.
@cflynnbooks @mrundkvist I also can’t think of anything more American than “OMG THEY HURT MY FEELINGS FOR POINTING OUT AMERICA IS SO BACKWARDS”
America uses imperial units everywhere. Uniquely so. Yes Britain still uses miles per hour and pints (which aren’t the same as American pints, just as American gallons aren’t equal to British gallons, nor American BTUs being equal to British BTUs despite British being in the name). That’s not an argument to keep them. That’s just Britain being backwards too.
We learn metric units in schools in the US and then never, ever use them again. Because our country runs on backwards policy.
Martin Rundkvist
Cornelius Flynn
Elizabeth 
