The Kitchen Junk Drawer, Exchanges that need to be put somewhere Options

[JayB]

I anticipate that driving, as well as official site updates (and maybe even site access), will take a hiatus for lack of (fiscal) fuel. Let's hope for a very short pause.

Maybe not:

"Because JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, its employees are NASA contractors, not civil servants; they would be expected to work through a shutdown, JPL spokeswoman Jane Platt said April 8. "We will keep working," she said."

http://www.space.com/11344-nasa-government...00-workers.html

Edit:
Scott's not sounding worried
Per-sol drive distance limits lifted for Opportunity -- and we have a sol coming up where we can take advantage of that. Maybe 160m/sol!

[djellison]

Maybe not:

Definitely not. JPL will be open for business as usual.

[marsophile]

In any case, the law allows work involving the securing of life and property to continue. Missions that are actually "flying" are considered to fall in that category.

From Florida Today:

Q: What effect would a government shutdown have on NASA, the space
program and workers at KSC preparing for the April 29 launch of Endeavour?

A: NASA headquarters said the agency will "take the steps necessary to
maintain the safety of our astronauts in orbit and ongoing mission
operations for the International Space Station and our other ongoing
science and space missions."


ADMIN: Folks, let's not stray into further discussion on this topic.

[vikingmars]

[attachment=24417:msl__mer_compared.jpg]
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space...4-13-mars_N.htm

Feet, pounds, miles... I just love those old Imperial units.
They are filled up with dusty memories.
But it's a pity they are still used today in the USA.
One can hope they were not used to design the MSL mission...

[ElkGroveDan]

Feet, pounds, miles... I just love those old Imperial units.
One can hope they were not used to design the MSL mission...

Why not? One unit of measure is the same as the next when used consistently and accurately. The modern industrial civilization that we know today from the 19th and 20th centuries was built using those units of measure. The problems come when a careless person transposes between respective systems. Of course, MSL wasn't built using those units, but even today in the era of not just calculators but complex computers at everyone's fingertips the convenience of the metric system is not necessarily the advantage that it was when engineers were writing equations by hand to solve problems. The programs that calculate complex orbital trajectory would work just as smoothly in furlongs per fortnight as long as all the units were correctly defined.

[fredk]

The problems come when a careless person transposes between respective systems.

So that would never be a problem if they stopped using two systems and settled on a standard! The problem isn't what the system is. It's just that having two systems in use is asking for trouble.

[nprev]

Well, to be fair, Dan is right. There is no such thing as a baseline standard of measurement. Remember that the meter was originally defined with respect to a rather arbitrary physical reference: 1 x 10 exp -7 the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole. This was almost certainly at least a subconscious homage to Earth's "special place in the Universe", and therefore not based on anything remotely resembling a mythical absolute standard.

Not intended to be a defense--or an assault--with respect to ANY system of measurement. The real point here is that everyone in a complex endeavour had damn well better be working from the same set of same. I think that the unfortunate failure to follow this glaringly obvious (in retrospect) heuristic a few years back provided an enduring lesson that is unlikely to be forgotten--or repeated.

(FWIW, even though I'm an American I'm a HUGE fan of the SI protocol...I doubt that I would have survived my physics courses without it, to say nothing of any other discipline that demands intensive calculation. Base 10 makes all kinds of sense to us goofball humans, and that's arguably the most powerful reason to embrace the metric system.)

[Juramike]

I'll echo Nicks comments and add that in my own work I've found that going to using the log values and log scale is a really good way to highlight relationships and avoid over-interpreting data.
So whatever measurement system is used, it's gotta be in multiples of 10.

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Hi Tesheiner

Awesome job on the Maps. I know you put KM marks on your map but can you also put mile marks when possible. Us Americans are still old school
and use that still.

Thanks.

[Stu]

I'm pretty sure Tesh has more than enough to do with keeping the maps updated as often as he does, Bobby. You can do the km/miles conversion yourself very easily, you can even use the Calculator that comes with Windows.

[diane]

Easy guideline for converting anything to anything else: "Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an axe."

Micrometer: miles = 0.62137119 km

Chalk: 2/3 km, then 10% less

Axe: 2/3 km

[djellison]

Us Americans are still old school and use that still.

Then you can figure it out for yourself. I'm sure you know how.

Why not figure it out, add them, then share it with the rest of the forum - rather than asking someone who already spends HUGE amounts of time giving you amazing resources for nothing, to do even more work.

[ElkGroveDan]

Axe: 2/3 km

Chainsaw: 0.6

[tedstryk]

Gotta admire your work ethic, Bobby

[Stu]

I am sure Bobby has enough constructive advice to be going on with for now. Thanks everyone for your input.

Let's get back to the subject of route maps now, ok?