yes, even before alpha centauri, a big problem with the kilogram artifact locked in a room in paris was that it keeps changing its mass and nobody knows why or exactly how much or in which direction, although the best estimates are that it's a fair fraction of a part per million by now
agreeing on distances with a faraway colony is actually a considerably easier problem than the kilogram; if we transmit them a radio or laser message, they can measure its length to within parts per billion, and we can do that with 01950s technology, while kibble didn't invent the kibble balance (previously known as the watt balance) until the 01970s
(you do have to worry about redshift: one part per billion of redshift is 300 millimeters per second, so you have to know the relative velocity of alpha centauri to within meters per second to correct for it—and, while that's also the 01950s technology of measuring spectral line frequencies to that precision, that same technology is what allows you to do without the radio message entirely)
transmitting or storing the number "9192631770/299792458" can be done with significantly higher exactitude, of course, and can be done over twenty millennia more easily than transmitting a radio message can
