Getting units right is important

Getting units right is important. Scientists from NASA will tell you this. In 1998 a space probe called the Climate Orbiter was launched to track climate changes on Mars. The Orbiter failed to stop at the atmosphere of Mars, and instead carried on going, only to burn up and disintegrate. On investigation it was found that the company that built the spacecraft, Lockheed, were using the Imperial units of measurement - miles, feet and inches - while the people running the missions at NASA were using the metric system - kilometres, metres and centimetres. Calculations by Lockheed and NASA didn’t match at all and the mission failed miserably - costing more than $125 million and years of effort.