About Gears

Martin Bulmer said:

I just found this:
http://www.arachnoid.com/bike/index.html
Might interest some.

"if you are not familiar with the the metric system, please don't try to
use it. I have answered literally hundreds of e-mails, mostly from
Americans, who think their wheels are 700 cm in diameter"

What else can you expect from the country which crashed a spacecraft
worth x billion dollars into Mars because they got feet and meters mixed
up? And that was their *scientists*!

Mark Atherton

"Mark Atherton" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin Bulmer wrote:
Americans, who think their wheels are 700 cm in diameter"

What else can you expect from the country which crashed a spacecraft worth
x billion dollars into Mars because they got feet and meters mixed up? And
that was their *scientists*!

People who live in glass houses and all that..

The last thing we in the UK sent to Mars wasn't exactly a resounding success
was it!

Mind you, it was designed and built by a professor who looked like a cross
between Noddy holder and the guy from Time Team!

R

In message <[email hidden]>

Random said:

"Mark Atherton" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin Bulmer wrote:
Americans, who think their wheels are 700 cm in diameter"

What else can you expect from the country which crashed a spacecraft worth
x billion dollars into Mars because they got feet and meters mixed up? And
that was their *scientists*!

People who live in glass houses and all that..

The last thing we in the UK sent to Mars wasn't exactly a resounding success
was it!

Mind you, it was designed and built by a professor who looked like a cross
between Noddy holder and the guy from Time Team!

The last thing we sent to Mars was designed to be cheap[1]. The idea is
that next time we send twenty

About 50% of Mars landers have crashed/blown up/missed etc. So when
sending something there is only a 1 in 2 chance of getting it to land.

The idea is that if you send twenty cheap ones, and ten survive, then
that is better than sending six expensive ones[1], and three surviving.

On a light note both of the USes vehicles on the last launch window
landed, and surived many times longer than expected. Perhaps they
have Russian designers.

[1]Including launch costs and Mars obital insertion etc costs.

Martin.

--
According to the human genome project, humans are 50-60% bananas.
When emailing me, please include the word Banana in the subject line.

Random said:

"Mark Atherton" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin Bulmer wrote:
Americans, who think their wheels are 700 cm in diameter"

What else can you expect from the country which crashed a spacecraft worth
x billion dollars into Mars because they got feet and meters mixed up? And
that was their *scientists*!

People who live in glass houses and all that..

The last thing we in the UK sent to Mars wasn't exactly a resounding success
was it!

Yeah, but the Mars Express Mission has been a resounding success. Well,
it will be if they ever get MARSIS deployed properly, but you can blame
the yanks for that.

Quoted message said:

Mind you, it was designed and built by a professor who looked like a cross
between Noddy holder and the guy from Time Team!

Raised a lot of readies though.