Metric or US tons?

[Patchworth+]

After some checking I can't tell. can anyone determine one way or the other?

[fauxpas]

Does it really matter?

[maculator]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Does it really matter?

Yes it does. Metric tons are a good and solid thing!

[Patchworth+]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Does it really matter?

yes. one US ton is 2000 lbs. but a metric ton is 2204.62Lbs.
this may be a small difference but it still affect calculations.
spaceflight is a tricky thing, precision is needed in all things to make it work.

[Phoenix]

As we're also working with meters it stands to reason that the units referred to in the game are SI and the tons are metric tons.

[kesat]

Is the game actually using ton at all? iirc it's just kg. And pretty sure the game only uses metric system - just like any science organization.

[maculator]

A ton is not really a SI-unit, it's just a SI derived unit. Maybe thats why it's not used.

[Chibbity]

There are two kinds of countries in the world.

Those that use the metric system.

And those who have walked on the Moon.

[maculator]

Lol.

There are two kinds of engineers in the world.

The ones that are non german.

And the ones that were capable of building a rocket capable of going to the mun despite fact that they had to translate their work into units that derived from bodyparts.

[maculator]

*bodyparts and kitchen-utilities.

[Chibbity]

To actually answer the question though;

A "tonne" in KSP is 1000 Kilograms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

[kesat]

Originally posted by Chibbity:

There are two kinds of countries in the world.

Those that use the metric system.

And those who have walked on the Moon.

NASA is using the metric system. Nice try.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by kesat:

Originally posted by Chibbity:

There are two kinds of countries in the world.

Those that use the metric system.

And those who have walked on the Moon.

NASA is using the metric system. Nice try.

NASA didn't switch over till about 1990, and even then it was half hearted.

The first Moon landing was 20 years before that.

[Phoenix]

The Apollo guidance computer used metric units, as did NASA in their scientific reports.

[maculator]

There are also some projects that were enriched by the imperial system. The mars orbiter and SOHO for example. There is a reason why isp is mesured in seconds...

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

The Apollo guidance computer used metric units, as did NASA in their scientific reports.

Well if you really want to get into the details, the answer is more complicated than that.

"First, though the scientific community may rely on metric, in US engineering, Imperial is still big (though certainly no longer universal). Even internationally, aviation is done in units of feet and nautical miles (while Airbus certainly doesn't design their planes to English units, air traffic is controlled to flight levels defined in feet and speeds defined in knots). US spaceflight was an offshoot of the aviation industry, so many of the preferences and practices used in aviation carried over into the space program.

The Apollo Guidance Computer was programmed in SI, but displayed and accepted data in English units (The linked article is well worth a read if you're interested in flight computers on Apollo). The astronauts received burn information, like this one for a contingency burn 90 minutes after Trans Lunar Injection, in English units, in what was called a PAD (the Apollo Flight Journals, and the corresponding Apollo Lunar Surface Journals are also well worth a read if you're interested in the topic). Mission reports, which documented the results of the mission from an engineer and scientific standpoint, used a mix of units, with the notable trend being engineering data (orbits, launch and landing reconstructions, performance of the various systems) being in English and scientific data (sample descriptions, landing site geology, experimental results), although these aren't absolute rules.

NASA began trying to transition towards metric in the 1980s and 90s, with various fits and starts. Shuttle used predominantly English units; SLS/Orion will be NASA's first human spaceflight program designed in metric. Outside of space, there's generally a mix of units, depending on the pedigree of the program. A lot of the aeronautics program collect and analyze data in English, but publish in metric. Newer programs skew towards metric."