Excuses don't matter. The fact is that these mixups happen. And the probe would not have been brought down just as easily by mistaking 'kg' for 'g', because that would result in a number that was off by a factor of a thousand, and the result would be unlikely to make any sense. The meters/feet mixup that actually did happen could only happen because being off by a factor of 3.3 resulted in a number that still made basic sense, even though it was incorrect.
There are documented instances of metric/imperial mixups crashing space probes and forcing airliners to land after running out of fuel in midair and such things. Are there any documented instances of similar metric/metric mixups?
> There are documented instances of metric/imperial mixups crashing space probes and forcing airliners to land after running out of fuel in midair and such things.
As I recall, the Gimli glider came about because they were trying to switch to include metric units and had to change their procedure to do it, but didn't make the change in all places where it was necessary. This resulted in pilots using an Imperial conversion factor to try to calculate a metric fuel loadout, with disastrous results. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider#Refueling
... this isn't exactly selling me on the idea that switching up all the units used in the U.S. is actually a good idea.
This sort of error can happen any time you have mixed units, though, and as long as some countries insist on not using metric, the potential is there. The potential goes away once you switch, so as long as the costs for switching and for staying mixed are both finite and non-zero, it makes sense to switch now and get it over with.
There are documented instances of metric/imperial mixups crashing space probes and forcing airliners to land after running out of fuel in midair and such things. Are there any documented instances of similar metric/metric mixups?