Mars Exploration Rovers Update - February 24, 2004

Of course NASA's lying. Thye don't want to admit that the Martians are
stealing power to run their jacuzzi....

chris in napa

Carla Schneider wrote:
Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Carla Schneider wrote:

Opportunity is located 3° from the Equator and the Season on Mars
is shortly after northern spring aequinoctium.
Martian days are not getting shorter at the equator, and the sun
angle is almost as high as it could be at this

The Sun angle *is* getting worse, because the Sun is moving into the
northern sky, taking it away from the equator, i.e. it is no longer
passing directly overhead.


It will get worse in the next months, but at the moment it is
passing almost overhead.
The difference in power is only 1.6% between 90° (directly overhead)
and 80° sun angle.


And there is some slight reduction in day length as well -- Opportunity
being 3deg *south* of the equator -- although I wouldn't have thought it
significant.


Of course it is not significant let alone at this season of the mars year.


So what is the real reason for the power shortage ?
Of course the Mars - Sun distance is slowly increasing but ...

That too. And there is some dust on the solar arrays by now.


Yes these are real reasons, so why do they not tell us, instead
of inventing something.


But more generally, beware of reading press releases as if they were
scientific papers. A certain amount of sloppiness and imprecision is to
be expected; it's *NOT* the technical people writing these things.


Usually yes, but this was not sloppiness and imprecision but a
fairy tale to cover something up, otherwise they could have
told us the real reason. They know that almost nobody looks in
a mars calendar.

Greg Crinklaw wrote:

Carla Schneider wrote:
Yes these are real reasons, so why do they not tell us, instead
of inventing something.

Why do you make baseless accusations against hard working, honest people
based on what you read in a press release (written by someone in the JPL
press office)? That's the *real* issue here.
So the people at nasa tell their press office: Power from the solar generator
has decreased - invent some reason and write it in your press release ?
The people who run the rover on mars have to know exactly the reasons
for decreasing Power from celestial mechanics because only then they can find
out any abnormal decrease in power. So why didn't they tell
this to the press office ?


Usenet is just crawling
with self-important dolts who live in fantasy land. I'd take even a
badly written press release over your kind of delusional thinking any day.

I only see the facts - and they are contrary to the reasons
in the press statement.
No significant decrease in daylength and sun angle at this
latitude and season on mars.



--
http://www.geocities.com/carla_sch/index.html

I only see the facts - and they are contrary to the reasons
in the press statement.

You claim NASA is inventing things. That is not a fact. There are
other, much more reasonable explanations. Facts or not, your
unreasonable presumptions are showing you to be some sort of loon with
an ax to grind. That much is clear.


--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply remove spleen

Greg Crinklaw wrote:

I only see the facts - and they are contrary to the reasons
in the press statement.

You claim NASA is inventing things. That is not a fact. There are
other, much more reasonable explanations.
There are 3 alternatives:

1. Days did really get shorter on mars equator in spingtime,
and the angle of incidence decreased really significantly
to account for the power shortage.
2. (1.) is wrong but NASA does not know .
3. (1.) is wrong and they do know - so they invented something.


So what do you think ?
Most people will probably think (1.) is true and I am wrong,
because (1.) comes from an "official" source , while I could be
a "net kook" . But there should also be some people who are able
to find out for themselves if (1.) is possible , by using a mars
calendar and trigonometry.


Facts or not, your
unreasonable presumptions are showing you to be some sort of loon with
an ax to grind. That much is clear.

--
http://www.geocities.com/carla_sch/index.html

"Carla Schneider" wrote in message
...
Greg Crinklaw wrote:

I only see the facts - and they are contrary to the reasons
in the press statement.

You claim NASA is inventing things. That is not a fact. There are
other, much more reasonable explanations.
There are 3 alternatives:

1. Days did really get shorter on mars equator in spingtime,
and the angle of incidence decreased really significantly
to account for the power shortage.
2. (1.) is wrong but NASA does not know .
3. (1.) is wrong and they do know - so they invented something.


So what do you think ?
Most people will probably think (1.) is true and I am wrong,
because (1.) comes from an "official" source , while I could be
a "net kook" . But there should also be some people who are able
to find out for themselves if (1.) is possible , by using a mars
calendar and trigonometry.

You do have a good point about the current daylength and angle of incidence
at the landing sites, which are effectively as we speak the best they can
be. Therefore, any claim that the rovers are receiving significantly less
solar input because of seasonal change is BS. The equinox on Mars is a
couple days from now. That is the absolute optimum solar situation on the
equator--twelve hours of sunlight with the sun passing through the zenith.
At three degrees south, the sun will "only" reach 87 degrees at high noon.
The sine of 87 degrees is 0.998. I guess that 0.2% really hurts?

At the press conference last week it was stated that the health of the
rovers was "fantastic." It took a question from a reporter to get any
information about the stuck heater problem, whereupon it was stated that the
heater was consuming 10% of available energy at first, but now closer to 20%
due to seasonal changes and dust. OK, so 99.8% of the loss is due to dust?

Here's a shot of what looks to be dust on Opportunity's solar cells, sol 26:
http://tinyurl.com/2f6et

Joe

In article ,
Carla Schneider wrote:
There are 3 alternatives:
1. Days did really get shorter on mars equator in spingtime,
and the angle of incidence decreased really significantly
to account for the power shortage.
2. (1.) is wrong but NASA does not know .
3. (1.) is wrong and they do know - so they invented something.

There is at least one mo

4. "NASA" is not a monolithic, perfectly-coordinated entity, and the
people who are writing the press releases are misinterpreting what
the technical people are telling them.

Claiming that this cannot be true because NASA would not let it happen
just makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist, insisting that there is
no room in the world for error or happenstance, and anything odd must have
a sinister reason behind it.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Carla Schneider wrote:
There are 3 alternatives:
1. Days did really get shorter on mars equator in spingtime,
and the angle of incidence decreased really significantly
to account for the power shortage.
2. (1.) is wrong but NASA does not know .
3. (1.) is wrong and they do know - so they invented something.

There is at least one mo

4. "NASA" is not a monolithic, perfectly-coordinated entity, and the
people who are writing the press releases are misinterpreting what
the technical people are telling them.

Tech people are telling press release writers: It is getting winter on
Mars( meaning the whole mars, as it is moving away from the sun).
The press release writer wants to give an explanation what "winter" means
and looks it up in his dictionary ...


Claiming that this cannot be true because NASA would not let it happen
just makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist, insisting that there is
no room in the world for error or happenstance, and anything odd must have
a sinister reason behind it.

So why don't they bring a correction, write that someone made a mistake
and give the correct explanation ?
This should not be for the people who noticed that this was wrong but for the
people who did not notice it and who think that these press releases are
correct because they come from an official source.


--
http://www.geocities.com/carla_sch/index.html

In article ,
Carla Schneider wrote:
Claiming that this cannot be true because NASA would not let it happen
just makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist, insisting that there is
no room in the world for error or happenstance, and anything odd must have
a sinister reason behind it.

So why don't they bring a correction, write that someone made a mistake
and give the correct explanation ?

Because calling attention to the error would reflect badly on the PR
people, so *they* are not going to initiate this unless they get clear and
unconditional orders to... and nobody in management cares enough to bother
(assuming they are aware of the issue at all, which is doubtful).

Again, this isn't a monolithic organization we're talking about, but a
bunch of different groups of people, each with its own priorities and its
own reputation to defend. The PR people really don't want to issue an
embarrassing public retraction over a minor technical side issue that does
not affect the primary message they were trying to convey.

(Indeed, if the PR people *did* issue a retraction, the first reaction of
the press people getting it would be to wonder whether there was some
subtle ulterior motive for going public with such trivia.)

Yes, it would be nice if they were more careful about such things, but in
practice, it's unrealistic to expect that.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Joe Knapp wrote:
At the press conference last week it was stated that the health of the
rovers was "fantastic." It took a question from a reporter to get any
information about the stuck heater problem, whereupon it was stated that the
heater was consuming 10% of available energy at first, but now closer to 20%
due to seasonal changes and dust. OK, so 99.8% of the loss is due to dust?

You must have missed the part about the software update (which was
quickly stated). They intend to have an update ready in a few weeks
that will give them the ability to control the heater by simply turning
it off. So for the time being it's not a big problem and in the future
they expect to have it fixed.

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply remove spleen

"Joe Knapp" wrote in message
.com...

"Carla Schneider" wrote in message
...
Greg Crinklaw wrote:

I only see the facts - and they are contrary to the reasons
in the press statement.

You claim NASA is inventing things. That is not a fact. There are
other, much more reasonable explanations.
There are 3 alternatives:

1. Days did really get shorter on mars equator in spingtime,
and the angle of incidence decreased really significantly
to account for the power shortage.
2. (1.) is wrong but NASA does not know .
3. (1.) is wrong and they do know - so they invented something.


So what do you think ?
Most people will probably think (1.) is true and I am wrong,
because (1.) comes from an "official" source , while I could be
a "net kook" . But there should also be some people who are able
to find out for themselves if (1.) is possible , by using a mars
calendar and trigonometry.

You do have a good point about the current daylength and angle of
incidence
at the landing sites, which are effectively as we speak the best they can
be. Therefore, any claim that the rovers are receiving significantly less
solar input because of seasonal change is BS. The equinox on Mars is a
couple days from now. That is the absolute optimum solar situation on the
equator--twelve hours of sunlight with the sun passing through the zenith.
At three degrees south, the sun will "only" reach 87 degrees at high noon.
The sine of 87 degrees is 0.998. I guess that 0.2% really hurts?

At the press conference last week it was stated that the health of the
rovers was "fantastic." It took a question from a reporter to get any
information about the stuck heater problem, whereupon it was stated that
the
heater was consuming 10% of available energy at first, but now closer to
20%
due to seasonal changes and dust. OK, so 99.8% of the loss is due to dust?

Here's a shot of what looks to be dust on Opportunity's solar cells, sol
26:
http://tinyurl.com/2f6et

Joe

The "track area" in the above image has the image of soggy material squeezed
together similar to that created by tracked equipment in frozen wet soils.

Whatever the round objects in the undisturbed area are, some appear to have
a hole in them.

Is this a common phenomena in the area traversed to date?

Do the rovers have any provision for detecting/determining the temperature
of the actual surface material?
Ralph Nesbitt