Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!amdahl!drivax!macleod
From: macleod@drivax.DRI (MacLeod)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space station & stone-age units
Message-ID: <4400@drivax.DRI>
Date: 15 Mar 89 01:35:32 GMT
References: <266@v7fs1.UUCP>
Reply-To: macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod)
Distribution: na
Organization: Digital Research, Monterey, CA
Lines: 23

In article <266@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:

>According to a contact at NASA, the space station as it is currently
>planned is going to have a mix of English and Metric parts.  This
>means that they have to have two sets of tools, and other such 
>nonsense.

This passes understanding.  However, it does bring up an interesting issue.
A month or so ago I made the heretical statement that the USA ask for
technical specs for Soviet docking and fastening interfaces and adopt them 
as an international standard.   Nobody commented on this.  On second
thought, though, there a third set of standards, those used by the ESA.

It seems pointless to establish three separate sets of standards for 
simple matters that will become very important to clients building 
commercial space packages - different types of onboard power, different
docking hardware, oddball connections, materials with dissimilar ratings
and physical characteristics.  Is there any move now to standardize
such user-interface criteria, so that it's possible to build one probe
and (in theory) fly it on whatever carrier has the best deal/time frame/
service?  

Michael Sloan MacLeod  (amdahl!drivax!macleod)