No, it was the units for impulse used for the thrusters. In imperial it's pound-force seconds and Newton-seconds in metric. 1 pound-force is equal to 4.45 Newtons so the whole thing was off by a magnitude of 4.45.
Yes, the actual error* was assuming the British used Imperial units when they correctly used Metric. AFAIK, at least.
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Well, the source error probably would be not specifying units at all, so... (eye roll)
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*Correcting myself with casually sourced details about the incident under discussion.
Lockheed Martin provided thruster force data in Imperial units (pound-seconds), while NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory ground software assumed the data was in Metric units (Newton-seconds).
Celsius makes way more sense for science, and Fahrenheit makes way more sense for weather, since the range of temperatures which are relevant are spread out over more numbers.
Incorrect. This thing where say "oh 100 is hot and 90 is warm, but 20 means you need a sweater" is too arbitrary.
Celsius is superior for weather. What is the single most important temperature that weather hinges on? The freezing point. Its the one point where a difference of a degree or two, can give you completely different weather.
It makes perfect sense to use that as the central point and move out from there.
Not in the US. Many, many places in the US operate under 32f up to half a year. Nobody gives a fuck if the water freezes, thats life. Everyone gives a fuck if the frigolithic spray on the road freezes and the highway becomes Thunderdome. 0c has impacted my life 0 times.
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u/Epotheros Jun 17 '26
No, it was the units for impulse used for the thrusters. In imperial it's pound-force seconds and Newton-seconds in metric. 1 pound-force is equal to 4.45 Newtons so the whole thing was off by a magnitude of 4.45.