• maryjayjay@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      59
      ·
      1 year ago

      Internal calculations were are all done in metric, but converted to traditional US units because many of the astronauts were pilots and more used to them

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        1 year ago

        imperial system is based on metric(on wikipedia) so they calculed on metric, converted to imperial, that is basically metric but worse

        • Pipoca@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          Kinda sorta not really.

          One problem with units is defining them precisely.

          For example, a meter is ostensibly “one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle”. That’s not exactly precisely defined because the earth isn’t a perfect sphere.

          So currently, a meter is defined to be the distance light travels in a vacuum in 9192631770 / 299,792,458 hyperfine structure transitions of caesium-133.

          Rather than doing the same sort of thing with updating the standard definition of a foot or pound, the US just piggybacked off the work precisely defining metric units and defined imperial in terms of metric.

          So now a foot is officially the precise distance light travels in some number of hyperfine structure transitions of caesium-133, and the US government didn’t need to do a thing.

      • lugal
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s not helpful. We all know what the apollo program was but where in the article does it talk about the system of measurement?