A rocket launches.MAN 1:And it has cleared the tower.MAN 2:Houston Ground Control...ED LEMBKE-HOGAN:Wow! It's hard to believe that even these guys make the occasional measurement mistake. But history is full of examples of monumental measurement mess-ups. Many of them have been caused because the world uses different systems of measurement. In Australia, for example, we use the metric system. Centimetres, metres and kilometres for measuring length. Millilitres and litres for measuring volume. And grams and kilograms for measuring mass. But in the United States of America, they mostly use measurements based on the old British imperial system. Inches, yards and miles for measuring length. Fluid ounces and gallons for measuring volume. And ounces and pounds for measuring mass. How confusing! No wonder we have the occasional mess-up.ED LEMBKE-HOGAN:Such as the time Clarence, an 85 year-old Galapagos tortoise, escaped... from his new home at a wildlife park in California because the builders had been mistakenly informed he weighed 250lbs. When, in fact... he weighed 250kg. More than twice as much.ED LEMBKE-HOGAN:Or the time that Carol Lewis, a US track and field star, broke a long jump record, but it didn't count as a record because the officials were using imperial measurements rather than metric measurements. Still, if it wasn't for the mess-up, we probably wouldn't be talking about her. Or her record. That wasn't a record. So, she's still famous. Sort of.ED LEMBKE-HOGAN:Monumental measurement mess-ups can also be very costly. Like the time that NASA - the American space agency - disastrously used the wrong unit of measurement, causing their $125m Mars Climate Orbiter to crash into the Red Planet. Oops.