6 ms·
For reference, Rocket Lab's Electron has a wet mass of 13,000 kg. This rocket is much smaller at 1,312 kg wet mass.
by robszumski 1y ago
For reference, Rocket Lab's Electron has a wet mass of 13,000 kg. This rocket is much smaller at 1,312 kg wet mass.
- delichon 1y agoFalcon 9 433k kg Atlas V 547k kg Starship 1,200k kg Starship Booster 3,600k kg
- glimshe 1y agoSaturn V: 2.9M kg
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Certhas 1y agok kg is a funny unit... Much more readable than Mg of course. Tonnes would also work...
- overfeed 1y agoTonne is unfortunately overloaded, the US and the UK have their own versions, but for the rest of the world is on metric, and a tonne is 1000 kg. The Falcon 9 weighing "433 t" reads way more elegantly to me.
- djaychela 1y agoFTR no-one I know (other than in old school industry about 20 years ago) used the UK 'Ton' any more. One place of work made this clear by having different pronuncication ('Tonn-ey') as they were an old-school foundry. And the spelling is different from wherever I've seen it. The nuclear industry was using metric weights fully when I did my apprenticeship in it in the late 1980s. Good job really as I think a conversion error could be catastrophic. Same goes for gallons though, US gallon is smaller than a UK one.
- bobthepanda 1y agoNASA is metric but its whole supply chain was not leading to such a catastrophic conversion error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...
- softfalcon 1y agoHere in Canada (where the mixup of metric vs imperial tonnes is common) we just say "metric tonnes" and move on. Everyone here knows that means 1000 kg. European colleagues regularly go, "what other kind of tonnes are there?" and we get to share the joke of how silly Americans are for still using imperial tonnes.
- robocat 1y agoI've often seen mt written as the units for metric tons. There's some ODD behavior where people in the US want to fuck up metric units (MB being the obvious in my lifetime non-engineer renaming of the meaning of a unit). I find the MM of finance confusing (not sure of origin). Calling tonnes, metric "tons", seems to be a US confusing thing. Or spelling metres vs meters. Or creating units that depend on something country specific like football field (is that FIFA (EU), US, Canadian, Aussie). Actually it seems common to desire to create industry units: https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver... Sort of a NIH at the county level.
- inemesitaffia 1y agomm is mille X mille. As in thousand
- pseudocomposer 1y agoUnless https://www.math.net/pounds-to-tons https://www.math.net/pounds-to-tons is severely wrong, a US ton is 2200lbs, UK 2240lbs, metric 2204lbs. Put a different way, US to metric is a <0.2% difference (the smallest), US to UK is a <2% difference (the biggest). At a scale of 433 tons, it doesn’t really matter much which kind of tons (unless you’re actually doing the rocket science, of course).
- frereubu 1y agoMy understanding was that "ton" is the US / imperial and "tonne" is the metric one, but I see people using them interchangeably here, so I guess whether that's technically true or not is a bit moot!
- schiffern 1y agoThe spelling "tonne" is only used in countries where there might be ambiguity with the short ton. For the rest of the world, "ton" (abbreviation: t) is the metric ton. Technically it's classified as a "Non-SI unit that is accepted for use with SI," like litres or degrees Celsius. Source is the official SI brochure: https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/ https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/
- frereubu 1y agoThanks - TIL.
- littlestymaar 1y ago“Mg” wouldn't even be valid since the SI unit is the kilogram. But yeah, using tons is the sensible choice.
- Ekaros 1y agoAs valid as milligram, microgram or nanogram. All widely used.
- Certhas 1y agoWikipedia would beg to differ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(mass) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(mass) The table at right is based on the kilogram (kg), the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI). The kilogram is the only standard unit to include an SI prefix (kilo-) as part of its name. The gram (10−3 kg) is an SI derived unit of mass. However, the names of all SI mass units are based on gram, rather than on kilogram; thus 103 kg is a megagram (106 g), not a kilokilogram. The tonne (t) is an SI-compatible unit of mass equal to a megagram (Mg), or 10^3 kg. The unit is in common use for masses above about 10^3 kg and is often used with SI prefixes. For example, a gigagram (Gg) or 10^9 g is 10^3 tonnes, commonly called a kilotonne. One context where I have seen this used is carbon stocks, e.g. petagram of carbon (PgC): https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Carbon+Cycle https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Carbon+Cycle Of course Gigatonne of Co2 is also found very frequently.
- littlestymaar 1y agoTIL, thanks.
- carabiner 1y agoI like kilodollars for salaries and kilofeet for elevation though.
- dguest 1y agoStarship is 1.2 kilotons, but I feel like quoting rockets in kilotons might cause some confusion.
- noobermin 1y agoI thought people in astro already use Mg, why would it be confused with milligrams?
- stingrae 1y agoBlue Origin New Shepard 75k kg
- somedude895 1y agoIsn't the Electron already considered a small rocket? What could a rocket that's half the weight of my car even carry?
- azernik 1y agoIt's considered a really small orbital rocket. This demo vehicle is preparation for a suborbital vehicle, those can be much smaller.