Coming unstuck

Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi left “24 square inches”
of a tape used in engine assembly inside a new space shuttle engine, NASA admitted
last week. During a test firing, the tape blocked the fuel injection system and parts
of the engine melted. Steps will be taken to prevent such occurences in future, says
associate administrator Joseph Rothenburg. But critics won’t be impressed with
NASA’s use of “square inches”: it was confusion between imperial and metric units
that downed the Mars Climate Orbiter.