...when I read the space.com update
on this latest space shuttle/ISS mission, and the story contains
this frequent error {"...the astronauts [sic] moved hundreds of pounds of supplies into the ISS...} then I have to
interject.

In the microgravity conditions of
manned orbital missions you don't deal with weight, you deal with mass.
Pounds are not a unit of mass,
but a unit of weight [or force].
WEIGHT, like any "force", is scientifically defined as the amount of MASS times the ACCELERATION rate.

For those of you who are Americans, and who insist on using nonmetric weights and measures, I believe the nonmetric unit of MASS is the "slug"
So "one pound" would be equal to something like "one slug" times "32 feet per second squared".

I'm amazed Nick Hoffmann [who frequently likes to "correct" physics errors on this board] has tolerated the common usage [misuse] of "pounds" to describe mass in microgravity conditions by others.

Jacob