Mars Rovers Update

BoldAC writes "CNN is reporting that engineers will upload a software hack to decrease the recent power drain plaguing the rover Opportunity. The hack works by reducing the power supply to a poorly functioning switch." p3tersen writes "Opportunity has photographed a blue martian sunset (it's blue because of the optical scattering properties of dust in the martian atmosphere). In other news, the rovers are beginning to experience power supply problems due to the accumulation of dust on their solar panels."

Comments

What no Roomba?

[rodney dill]

You would think they would have installed some mechanism to clean the dust off.

Re:Solar problems

[nomel]

but then the rovers might last forever, and they wouldn't as easily get funding for new projects.

if you think about it, the reason has to be some conspiracy like this...seriously.
We got the thing to the moon, but we can't keep dust off the solar panels...come on!

Re:Planning Ahead

[Winkhorst]

At the immediate risk of being modded "-5 Enemy of Computing," I find this whole fix-the-programming-after-it's out-the-door scene rather familiar, though I can't quite remember where I've seen it before. Perhaps it has something to do with those continuous "updates" I'm supposed to install from Microsoft and Corel and a dozen other companies' programs I have running, both paid and free. And I find the reference in the above post to "improved...software" quite hilarious, actually. Like it's right out of thousands of advertising blurbs that tell me over and over I absolutely HAVE to upgrade my pathetic old programs, especially since they won't work with the NEW AND IMPROVED operating system. Will this nonsense never end? Will no one ever admit that the programming is so fnuxed that they have to keep "upgrading" it to keep it from blowing up every time the user tries to do something other than write a form letter?

That the programmers working for a government agency on a project that's costing the taxpayers vast amounts of money can't get past this idiocy that one shouldn't have to put up with from some mickey mouse game manufacturer quite boggles my mind. There is a level of arrogance here that is positively beyond understanding. What other professional or maker of goods would sell something with the express assumption that it might not work right and may have to be fixed later? And to cite this as some kind of incredible example of foresight is off the Richter Scale of unbelievability.