It turns out that the frequent dust devils have been keeping the solar cells (for Opportunity, not so much for Spirit) pretty clean and have been the single most important factor enabling these very long missions.
Just remember that the next time someone says that robots are just as capable as humans. A human crew could ride that far in a day, given an appropriate Mars buggy. Now, the cost to get those people and that buggy there is another question...
I distinctly remember Congress canceling the last Apollo mission (Apollo 18), by not giving NASA the money. This was indeed deep in the planning stages, intended for some volcanic domes near the Marius crater IIRC.
An inch is exactly 2.54 cm (by law, in the US). With that and a calculator, you can do any English to Metric (or Metric to English) length conversion exactly.
Opportunity saw its first electrical spike in one of its motors recently - the same problem that has basically crippled Spirit.
This was described (8 paragraphs down) in this press release. That's why they got out of Victoria Crater post haste.
Of course, the terrain in Meridiani Planum is much more navigable than Gustav Crater, so even if they do lose a motor, they may still be able to make progress.
From the article the playing field is 30 x 30 mm. From the image with the article, the playing field is 1.5 x 2.5 mm. From the NIST PR, " These abilities are tested in three events: a two-millimeter dash in which each nanobot seeks the best time for a goal-to-goal sprint across the playing field; a slalom drill where the path between goals is blocked by "defenders" (polymer posts) and a ball handling drill that requires robots to âoedribbleâ as many âoenanoballsâ (microdisks with the diameter of a human hair) as possible into the goal within a 3-minute period."
A "2 mm sprint" indicates that the picture is correct, and the text in the article is messed up.
It may be impressive, but it's not nano : "Generally nanotechnology deals with structures 100 nanometers or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size."
From FTA : "The tiny nanobots... measure from a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers, NIST says."
So, that's 3 orders of magnitude off. Microsoccer. But not nanosoccer. And the physics is rather different on those scales.
This is an IETF working group - Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (ROLL). Like all IETF WG, it has a Charter which you can read to find out more, and 4 outstanding Internet drafts (listed in the charter).
Average road speed cameras are already in the UK. I don't know if they only keep records of transgressing cars, or if they keep a record of every car that goes past.
The nice thing in their view is that absolutely no warrants are needed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars.
I mean, really, does anyone actually believes such obvious BS ? I guess it satisfies those people that want to be humbugged.
Please don't start the annoying wikipedia habit of including totally generic links, like the "peer reviewed" link in the original article, in articles. It's value subtracting.
It's not proper to call it wireless when there would be no wires in any case. It's glassless. And, as they imply, amplitude modulation of light is rather different than phase modulation of coherent RF.
Slashdot Mirror
What I hear from people who should know is that the original article is mistaken. This report from David Oxenford seems pretty clear :
Settlement Reached on Certain Aspects of Section 115 Royalty - Contrary to Press Reports, This Has Nothing to Do With Internet Radio Royalty Dispute
Those told to act suspicious ? WTF, did they give them Groucho Marx subglasses ? .And a 20% false negative rate on that.
IMHO, every person involved with this project should be summarily fired, up to and including the Department Head.
Oh, and given that there was never any plans to get the rovers back, this was always a "suicide" mission.
But you are right, JPL will keep running these until they physically fail.
63 cm / day ?
11000 / 730 = 15 meters / day. As they say, that includes some sightseeing time, and a winter vacation or two.
By the way, so far this year, Spirit has gone 1/2 a meter (48 centimeters).
It turns out that the frequent dust devils have been keeping the solar cells (for Opportunity, not so much for Spirit) pretty clean and have been the single most important factor enabling these very long missions.
Just remember that the next time someone says that robots are just as capable as humans. A human crew could ride that far in a day, given an appropriate Mars buggy. Now, the cost to get those people and that buggy there is another question...
What is the origin of that?
Pretty common usage in context (e.g., navigation). See the 4th entry in Dictionary.com :
to move through, around, or over in a satisfactory manner:
I distinctly remember Congress canceling the last Apollo mission (Apollo 18), by not giving NASA the money. This was indeed deep in the planning stages, intended for some volcanic domes near the Marius crater IIRC.
An inch is exactly 2.54 cm (by law, in the US). With that and a calculator, you can do any English to Metric (or Metric to English) length conversion exactly.
Parsecs are old hat. It's 36.8 microseconds (of light travel time).
Opportunity saw its first electrical spike in one of its motors recently - the same problem that has basically crippled Spirit.
This was described (8 paragraphs down) in this press release. That's why they got out of Victoria Crater post haste.
Of course, the terrain in Meridiani Planum is much more navigable than Gustav Crater, so even if they do lose a motor, they may still be able to make progress.
Let me know when they're actually playing Quantum Soccer!
That will be more like picosoccer. On that scale, it's all quantum, all the time.
By the way, the US Quarter is 1.75 mm thick, which is a little larger than the width of the playing field.
From the article the playing field is 30 x 30 mm. From the image with the article, the playing field is 1.5 x 2.5 mm. From the NIST PR, " These abilities are tested in three events: a two-millimeter dash in which each nanobot seeks the best time for a goal-to-goal sprint across the playing field; a slalom drill where the path between goals is blocked by "defenders" (polymer posts) and a ball handling drill that requires robots to âoedribbleâ as many âoenanoballsâ (microdisks with the diameter of a human hair) as possible into the goal within a 3-minute period."
A "2 mm sprint" indicates that the picture is correct, and the text in the article is messed up.
I've no idea howe big a US quarter is
Supposed to be one inch or exactly 2.54 cm (25.4 mm).
So, the playing field is just a little bigger than a US quarter.
It may be impressive, but it's not nano : "Generally nanotechnology deals with structures 100 nanometers or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size."
From FTA : "The tiny nanobots ... measure from a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers, NIST says."
So, that's 3 orders of magnitude off. Microsoccer. But not nanosoccer. And the physics is rather different on those scales.
3 x 3 cm (or 1 x 1 inch) playing field ? Doesn't sound like nanosoccer to me. Not even microsoccer. Maybe millisoccer.
Let me know when they have a 30 x 30 micron playing field. That will be nanosoccer.
This is an IETF working group - Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (ROLL). Like all IETF WG, it has a Charter which you can read to find out more, and 4 outstanding Internet drafts (listed in the charter).
When you aren't sure what an Ad is trying to sell you, there is a serious problem with the Ad.
Not necessarily, if the ads are part of a sequence. The first ads get you interested, the last ones do the sale.
Of course, if you still don't know what's being sold by the end of the process, then, indeed, there is a problem.
This was planned. They are releasing these ads on a Thursday schedule - and the release for today has obviously been in the hopper for a while.
..in some States it is illegal to have cameras for ticketing purposes (e.g. Virginia, which outlawed them with the shut-down of their test programs).
Are you sure about that ? Can you give a link ? The cameras are still there on the Fairfax County Parkway.
Average road speed cameras are already in the UK. I don't know if they only keep records of transgressing cars, or if they keep a record of every car that goes past.
They certainly do
The nice thing in their view is that absolutely no warrants are needed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars.
I mean, really, does anyone actually believes such obvious BS ? I guess it satisfies those people that want to be humbugged.
Please don't start the annoying wikipedia habit of including totally generic links, like the "peer reviewed" link in the original article, in articles. It's value subtracting.
It's not proper to call it wireless when there would be no wires in any case. It's glassless. And, as they imply, amplitude modulation of light is rather different than phase modulation of coherent RF.