Why the US still has the imperial system?
- onlineconversions
- Dec 21, 2016
- 2 min read
It is a widely known fact that due to an error in metric and imperial unit conversion, NASA, the American space agency, has lost its a multi-million Mars orbiter in 1999. However, even after such a huge blooper, why the USA is not quite open to the metric system? Why still leave avenues for other future failures that may emanate from kilograms to pounds conversions?
Why use a system where people have to labor to convert cm to inches?
The US has shown eagerness to embrace the system, the relevant organizations have even come up with the phase-in program to replace the US standard with the metric. However, the move yet has not been authorized by the US congress.
The most common explanation for the unacceptability that is tossed around is the resistance from the consumers. However, the explanation only shows one side. There are some scientific rationales too that the unacceptability.
Celsius is a much bigger temperature unit than Fahrenheit. And because of this, for many purposes, Fahrenheit give finer control over temperatures—Fahrenheit actually is more precise than the alternative, Celsius, almost 1.8 times.
As the U.S. Standard, as well as Imperial systems, is derived from the practical sizes, most of the time you do not need a measuring tool to measure it.
Sometimes, the US standard proves more practical than the metric system, for example, foot and yards.
Apart from these reasons, the most important factor that is stopping the authorities from moving to the metric system is the expense. The sudden switch may have prohibitively expensive and can lead chaos, as many people are ignorant of the international standards. Thus, the U.S. has opted for a systematic approach called phase program, which is a market-based approach. To accelerate the process, the government has come up with incentives to link the metric system.
Eventually, the US too will accept the metric system, until then pray, the Mars orbiter type mishaps are not repeated again.
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