I actually genuinely prefer when the SpaceX commentators accidentally say “norminal”, precisely because “nominal” does NOT mean ‘normal’. It’s closer to the opposite.
If Alice was thinking of buying a car from Bob and I told her “the vehicle I bought from Bob works fine, nominally”, she would rightly take that as a warning.
If my family member was in space and I heard on the nets “safety systems nominal”, I’d be bricking it!
AFAICT it’s only the space industry that gets this wrong.
From the official NASA coverage:
https://www.youtube.com/live/PJAUetG6C2E?t=42m25s “It performed norminal … excuse me … nominal, which basically means normal”.
I actually genuinely prefer when the SpaceX commentators accidentally say “norminal”, precisely because “nominal” does NOT mean ‘normal’. It’s closer to the opposite.
If Alice was thinking of buying a car from Bob and I told her “the vehicle I bought from Bob works fine, nominally”, she would rightly take that as a warning.
If my family member was in space and I heard on the nets “safety systems nominal”, I’d be bricking it!
AFAICT it’s only the space industry that gets this wrong.
Norminal is one of my favorite space-isms! I think nominal is just tradition at this point
Earliest known use: The one and only John Insprucker, 2017-07-05, Intelsat 35e Launch Webcast at T+4:08.