Metric
Contents
The Moon is Metric
It is time for America to bite the bullet.
It's Official
All work done on the Moon will be done in under System International (SI), also know as the Metric System. The SI term is more proper.
All design work will be done directly in SI and will not be done under other systems and then converted to SI. Such conversions are sometimes called soft metric and are unacceptable.
SI Converter for You
Here is an Excel spreadsheet that does American to SI conversions:
[SI Converter spreadsheet .xls]
Use in Our Stories
Using the following units in all stories and technical articles:
- Length
- Kilometer (km), meter (m), or millimeter (mm). All dimensions may be rounded off to the millimeter.
- Velocity
- Kilometers/hour (km/h), meters/second (m/s).
- Mass
- Kilograms (kg), grams (g), and milligrams (mg). Note that grams are units of mass not weight. They do not change in value in the Moon's low gravity, which pounds do. Also the word "ton" or "metric ton" means 1000 kilograms, or a Megagram.
- Volume
- Cubic meter, cubic decimeter, cubic centimeter. The cubic decimeter may be referred to by its slang name "liter".
Do not even mention
In our stories, do not event mention: feet, yards, miles, pounds, gallons, feet/second, etc.
Also, use kilometers and not Nautical Miles for navigation.
Time
- Time of Day
- Avoid the term "day" as the meaning is so different between the Earth and the Moon. In our stories we use the time interval "shift" of eight hours each as "first shift", "second shift", and "third shift".
- Coordinated Universal Time
- The first shift starts at zero hour Coordinated Universal Time (Grenage Mean Time). There is no daylight saving time on the Moon.
- Dates
- The term "Earth date", or simply "date", refers to the date on Earth at longitude 0.0 degrees.
Near Side and Far Side
The Moon has a "Near Side" and a "Far Side" as defined by the view from Earth. Note the capitalization. The Moon does not have a light side and a dark side, and neither does the Sun.
