Aaargh20318 7 months ago

Also, they got their lead in space tech mainly because of a German scientist (Werner von Braun).

On the Apollo program, all the calculations were done in metric (obviously). The computers all worked in metric internally and then converted to imperial for display. They actually had to waste some of their very limited cpu cycles on converting to imperial because the US astronauts couldn’t handle the metric system.

▲

firesteelrain 7 months ago | parent [-]

Your comment contains a series of partial truths, falsehoods and misconceptions.

So Werner built the rockets and all the subsystems too or was just the technical fellow/consultant?

Sure, the US was in a better position post WW2. But Werner has been dead for years and the US still dominates space 10x or even 100x times. Engineering in the US is top notch.

As far as your other assertion- what’s your source?

NASA primarily used the imperial system (feet, pounds, and seconds) for the Apollo program. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and other systems were designed using imperial units because the entire spacecraft and mission control infrastructure were built around the U.S. customary system.

There was no wasting of CPU cycles. We even have the source code on GitHub to go look at:

https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11

Look in this assembly code. It is imperial.

https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/blob/master/Luminar...

Then, there are design documents and other engineering standards that tell us everything was in imperial units.

I am not buying what you are saying.

	▲	huhtenberg 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		(AGC) calculations were carried out using the metric system, but display readouts were in units of feet, feet per second, and nautical miles – units that the Apollo astronauts were accustomed to. https://ukma.org.uk/why-metric/myths/metric-internationally/...
	▲	delta_p_delta_x 7 months ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> was just the technical fellow/consultant? There is a direct lineage from the Nazi German V2 rockets to Saturn V. Wernher von Braun and his rocketry friends were involved at all levels of American rocketry and ballistic missile programs, and I am happy to say the latter wouldn't have gotten off the ground as early as they did without von Braun's guidance at all levels. At least until the end of WW2, British (and even German) aerospace was considerably further along than American equivalents. And even afterwards, the Europeans, Canadians, Brazilians and the Soviets have remained very productive in terms of civilian and military aerospace. This legacy continues today. > the US still dominates space 10x or even 100x times. Engineering in the US is top notch Good for the USA, but this has very little at all to do with unit systems and much more to do with just how much capital there is in the USA. And as everyone else has said, NASA uses SI. I bet these college students did, too. Keep in mind that the metre is barely younger than the US itself, having been formalised in the 1790s.
	▲	_0ffh 7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I took a look at the code, and I found references to both metric (meters, kgs) and imperial units (lbs) in there.