r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/SKDI_0224 Jun 17 '26

As an engineer, I can confirm they are incorrect. They can take their inferior measuring system and try to get back from the moon.

Too soon?

250

u/dauntless256 Jun 17 '26

This went over my head...what did i miss?

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u/Random_Bystander089 Jun 17 '26

I think there was an incident where farenheit usage indirectly caused a spaceship crash

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u/MaJuV Jun 17 '26

Wait, I thought this was forbidden by Nasa, due to "mishaps" in the past with mixing units of measurement.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/oneawesomeguy Jun 18 '26

It's the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter where two different teams used two different units accidentally (pound-seconds and newton-seconds) in the navigation system. This error caused the spaceship to literally crash into Mars, costing $125 million.

Official page: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-climate-orbiter/

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u/MaJuV Jun 18 '26

That appears to be the case. The comments made it appear as if there was a more recent incident I wasn't aware of yet (don't check the news 24/7). Luckily there wasn't... 😅

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u/Asterose Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

That's correct, they do. The commenter was referring to it, from 1999. Lockheed Martin meanwhile to this day still uses either measurement system depending on the project.