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Satellite Malfunction - Error In Units Used?
Hey, someone must know this off the top of their head.
Wasn't there a satellite, fairly recently, that malfunctioned because the engineers mixed up their units - inches to cm or something like that? I am helping my 7th grade daughter learn to convert and proportion units. E.g. 55 miles/hour is how many kilometers/second? If 4 cakes require 16 eggs and 32 ounces of flour, how much eggs and flour for 3 cakes? And so on. It appears kids (or at least my kid) don't instinctively understand the need to be precise in carrying over and specifying their units. They abbreviate meters as "m" and then also abbreviate miles as "m", and don't get why I'm being such a stickler. So I thought there must be a really good story about Bad Things That Happen From Sloppy Units.
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1989 3.2 Carrera coupe; 1988 Westy Vanagon, Zetec; 1986 E28 M30; 1994 W124; 2004 S211 What? Uh . . . “he” and “him”? |
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10-05-2008, 07:03 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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From memory that was one of the Mars landers.
Somehow converting meters to feet didn't quite go to plan.
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“If you want to win anything- a race, yourself, your life- you have to go a little berserk” - Dr George Sheehan. “Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.” - Dr George Sheehan. |
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10-05-2008, 07:07 PM
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The Unsettler
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lantanna TX
Posts: 23,885
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Gimley Glider.
Fubar fuel gauge so they dipped the tank and calculated load. Problem is they calculated kilos not pounds and ran out of fuel at 30,000 ft. There was a movie about it.
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10-05-2008, 07:26 PM
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Location: Houston TX
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It was a Mar's lander.
Everyone in astronomy uses metric. We don't even bother with units, because it's assumed. Lockheed (I believe it was them) still works internally with Imperial, for some absurd reason. They sent acceleration data to NASA for the probe they built, without units. Each side assumed the other knew what they meant, and the result was a messy busted up field of broken probe parts scattered across the Martian landscape as the thing slammed into the ground at several times it's intended speed.
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Mike Bradshaw 1980 911SC sunroof coupe, silver/black Putting the sick back into sycophant! |
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10-05-2008, 07:41 PM
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That was fast. Thanks.
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1989 3.2 Carrera coupe; 1988 Westy Vanagon, Zetec; 1986 E28 M30; 1994 W124; 2004 S211 What? Uh . . . “he” and “him”? |
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10-05-2008, 07:41 PM
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Now we need a TI-84 Plus. Somehow hers is missing. Anyone got a used one to sell, let me know. Thanks.
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1989 3.2 Carrera coupe; 1988 Westy Vanagon, Zetec; 1986 E28 M30; 1994 W124; 2004 S211 What? Uh . . . “he” and “him”? |
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10-05-2008, 07:48 PM
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Quote:
A turtle might move at 5 feet per hour. A person might walk at 5 miles per hour. Even though the VALUE is the same, it's obvious that the turtle and the person are not pacing each other in that hour long race. Now, understand how much faster the person is going than the turtle might be beyond her math level (dunno) but the concept would work.
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Mike Bradshaw 1980 911SC sunroof coupe, silver/black Putting the sick back into sycophant! |
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10-05-2008, 07:54 PM
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Dog-faced pony soldier
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For added fun, look up an Air Canada flight in a 767 from a few years back that flamed out both engines and was forced to land dead-stick due to fuel starvation. This was allowed to happen due to an error in using metric instead of imperial (or vise-versa, don't remember which) in calculating the temperature expansion of the fuel. Fortunately everyone survived.
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10-05-2008, 08:46 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: www.fakelife.com
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Seriously bad things have happened because of unit conversion errors....
http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/455.f96/disasters.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/792162.stm http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/sleipner.html http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9911/10/orbiter.02/
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10-05-2008, 09:11 PM
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1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2
