A real funny story about that and standards. I worked for Bendix Aerospace in the early 70’s and they made the ALSEP experiments left behind on the moon by the Apollo missions.
They hired engineers from Germany and the UK, and one designer forgot his local standards and specified a BSW (British Standard Whitworth) thread bolt and nut on the base plate hardware.
Since they couldn't get a NASA space qualified Whitworth bolt they simply made up a special drawing and had one machined from scratch. So, still sitting on the moon, there is a space-certified BSW bolt amongst all of the UNF and UNC American hardware....:^)
In the late seventies, I worked as a motorcycle mechanic primarily on Japanese bikes. I owned SAE and Metric tools. Ever so often I got a triumph or BSA put in front of me. Then came the mad dash to find whitworth tools (or whatever fit) to do the job. I had a few......but not enough to do a big job, correctly. My SAE / Metric tools were quality name brand tools(snap-on etc). The shop had a lender set of Whitwort with lots of crap and a few (tool kit) sets that came with British bikes.
Interesting that the crash of the Mars Climate orbiter in ‘99 was caused by a confusion between NASA contractors and ESA contractors on what system of measurement was in use. Ultimately NASA switched to metric.
I wouldn’t have.