WTF NASA II

Watching the NASA live feed on Youtube invariably shows related Youtube videos that claim to interest me. 

I came across a very detailed study of the Apollo 13 mission.  The conversations between the crew and mission control is clear and, where required, are explained by a narrator.  Included is an ever changing diagram of how things fit together, which clearly details how the explosion of one of the two O2 tanks put the crew in jeopardy.  The conversations between people on the ground highlight the extremely clever, thoughful, and CALM, people on the ground who saved the lives of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCObwsXbSeU 

Give it a look.  It's long (2 hours), but well worth the investment.

It includes the humour before the explosion (especially regading both Jim and Jack not filing their income tax in time).

I was 12 years old at the time and I only remember the crew being in some sort of jeopardy.  But listening to the details (as an adult) and seeing how the various parts fit together and how close, in spite of multiple reduncancies, the mission was almost fatal.

I became alarmed and emotional all over again.  Somehow differently, and perhaps more so, now that I'm aware of many more things as an adult.  

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Anyway, the (what sound like genuine) audio snippets from NASA included with the Youtube video above report the spacecrafts distance in NAUTICAL miles (just like ships at sea and planes in the air) and speed is in feet per second.

So not only is NASA not using the Metric system today, but have moved backwards after half a century in that they now use both NAUTICAL and STATUTE miles and speed in miles per hour (where the "type" of mile is not defined).

(Interestingly, the Artemis II recovery ship, the USS Murtha appears to use GMT rather that EST (you can see the time stamp in the upper left corner of the ship videos).  I wonder when that was standarized to match the rest of the civilized world?)

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During his opening monologue that included a discussion of the recent Artemis II mission, Stephen Colbert (the current host of The Late Show on CBS) reported an article from the New York Times giving the new furthest record distance from Earth of the space mission in Dachshund lengths.

Yes, the little dogs with short legs is now a standard of measurment.

728 million of them nose to tail.  Well, I can certainly relate to that (NOT!).

He summarized the New Yorks Times article with "...Americans will do anything to not use the Metric system...".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGkpa-lo1AQ&t=102s (at about a minute an a half)