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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 12/23/2004 : 04:53:54
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What are the martians up to?
Who is cleaning Opportunity's solar panels?
Martians?
God?
Sylvia Brown?
Ghosts?
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
-- Abe Simpson
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/23/2004 : 05:31:21 [Permalink]
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Storm? 
Apologies. I couldn't resist it...
I ahven't the faintest idea.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 08:21:44 [Permalink]
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NASA's theories that it is the wind, angle of the panels, and difference in the terrain all seem pretty sound. I guess the only way to gain some certainty would be to send Spirit to the Endurance crater and see what happens.
I'm kinda hoping it's a Martian car wash.  |
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 08:39:17 [Permalink]
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The next probe we send will have to be able to tip those Martian washers.  |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 12:11:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Ricky wrote:
Why don't the rovers have some way of cleaning off the solar panels themselves? I would imagine that it would be fairly easy to do, and it could make them last for a much longer time. Is there a reason why they didn't do this?
I can't speak for NASA, but I would say that every thing you add to the machine must be critical to its mission. If you add weight, you add propulsion requirements and cost. And the more complex you make it, the more things can go wrong. So they may have determined that the problem was not severe enough to warrant the added weight and complexity of a solution. Or maybe they just never thought about it. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 12:49:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Ricky wrote:
Why don't the rovers have some way of cleaning off the solar panels themselves? I would imagine that it would be fairly easy to do, and it could make them last for a much longer time. Is there a reason why they didn't do this?
I can't speak for NASA, but I would say that every thing you add to the machine must be critical to its mission. If you add weight, you add propulsion requirements and cost. And the more complex you make it, the more things can go wrong. So they may have determined that the problem was not severe enough to warrant the added weight and complexity of a solution. Or maybe they just never thought about it.
[/quote]
They did think about it, but the tosed it because of weight. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 13:40:27 [Permalink]
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| They're actually homeless Martians who are looking for the change in the console of your car. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 13:56:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I can't speak for NASA, but I would say that every thing you add to the machine must be critical to its mission. If you add weight, you add propulsion requirements and cost. And the more complex you make it, the more things can go wrong. So they may have determined that the problem was not severe enough to warrant the added weight and complexity of a solution. Or maybe they just never thought about it.
They did think about it, but the tosed it because of weight.
Would you not just be able to put some sort of windshield wiper on it? How much more complex is this? How much weight? I would think it would be a very small price to pay if it means the rovers would last virtually indefinitely.
There was a NOVA program on this. They where working under a tight schedule, so tight they ended up writing the driving and anti-colition software while it was in fight to Mars. It added to much complexity, and costed to much time to put it on. Remember, these crafts have weight figured out to the 1/1000 of an ounce. If it gets to far from the planed weight, they would have to recalculate and reporgram. Also, they where pushing it with the landing method (i.e. bouncing ball) for weight. Spirit weighed 1.5 times that of Sojoren. To much more and the paracute and air bags would not have taken it. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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