[Steuard]

We lost the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 because Lockheed Martin supplied a part that output results in pound-seconds and then that number was fed in to a NASA part that interpreted it as Newton-seconds.[1] Having US engineers speak a different language than all of the other engineers in the world imposes real, non-negligible costs for data checking and risks of failure for any project that might interact with non-US-centered expectations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...

[emmp]

I see that as an organizational issue within that company and its project management rather than a political issue. US engineers certainly all know how to use and speak metric. I actually promise you that you won't be able find one who doesn't.