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'Something' Cleaning Mars Rover
bluenirve writes "'Something' has been cleaning the solar panels of the Mars rover Opportunity. "NASA's Mars rover Opportunity seems to have stumbled into something akin to a carwash that has left its solar panels much cleaner than those of its twin rover, Spirit. A Martian carwash would account for a series of unexpected boosts in the electrical power produced by Opportunity's solar panels.""
weight??? Havent they heard of PLASTICS?? I am sure wipers , even if made of aluminum could not possibly be more than a few ounces or 1/2 a pound. Come on where are these so called rocket scientists, design something light weight spring loaded plastic thingy... even a damn BRUSH attached to a robot arm, and train the CPU/program on earth to learn to brush its dust off. How hard would that be? Oh i forgot, its up to management to approve it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
weight??? Havent they heard of PLASTICS?? I am sure wipers , even if made of aluminum could not possibly be more than a few ounces or 1/2 a pound. Come on where are these so called rocket scientists, design something light weight spring loaded plastic thingy... even a damn BRUSH attached to a robot arm, and train the CPU/program on earth to learn to brush its dust off. How hard would that be? Oh i forgot, its up to management to approve it.
I love the armchair rocket scientists... Tell ya what, here's a nickel... go bug someone else for a while, son. Let the grownups have a conversation where this hasn't been brought up and dismissed a thousand times already.
Congratulations, you're smarter than nobody. Post as an anonymous coward so people don't see you for the anal twit that you are.
Sure. 37.5 Watts? When? At noon? When the panels are facing away from the sun? During the night? When, exactly, is that 37.5 Watt figure useful? (Answer: It is not. Nobody gives a shit what the theoretical average output power of the cells might be. Except, perhaps, you.)
They expressed their figures in Watt-hours/day because that's how it makes the most sense for the topic at-hand. All that matters here is how much energy the solar cell provides during the course of one day, which can then be easily compared with the expected power requirements of upcoming missions, storage losses, and a bunch of stuff that I don't care to bother myself with.
This is Slashdot. Do you you want the units to be dumbed down into meaningless dribble for you to numbly consume and nod toward, or do you want them to have value?
I suppose you think Watts are easier to digest, because everyone knows what a Watt is.
Then again, everyone knows what a calorie is, too, and people digest 'em all the time. Would you rather they say that the panels are capable of producing 537.40327 calories per minute? Nevermind that the number is accurate and the unit is common - it's just about fucking worthless for getting any work done.
I mean, personally, I'm a big fan of horsepower, fortnights, cubits, and the like as units of measure, just because it's fun to say them. But that doesn't mean I'm going to publish that my multi-billion-dollar alien rover is extracting 16.896878 horsepower-hours per fortnight from Sol, even if it is mathematically true.
It's just not useful.
Kid-proof tablet..