Comments by "crazypj" (@1crazypj) on "At Last! NASA Found What it Was Looking For on Mars | InSight Probe Supercut" video.

  1. Even removing 50% of the dust or sweeping it into a local area would provide a boost in power simply because the dust layer was thinner, that was taken into account during design phase. Yeah, the excuse of electrostatic dust sticking really doesn't fly when it can be blown off by martian wind. They have a robotic arm, pretty sure it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to program it when weight on panels is excessive due to dust build up, plus, could have actual picture to check it's needed, only needs houskeeping every 18 months or so, wear on solar panels would be pretty minimal Don't even need to ship the dustpan As pointed out in many other replies, the dust on solar panels is a well known cause of mars landers dying when they don't get enough power to continue. Just 'hoping' a dust devil would clean things is a la-la land fairy story. Shipping a nuclear powered rover, fine and dandy, until fuel runs out NASA is well known for wasting taxpayer money, this doesn't do anything to improve the image, even experimental cleaning device would be worth the extra $100 million if it extended capabilities for a few more years (or even decades on a static lander doing passive monitoring) and handing it off to a series of universities would allow further research at no or little cost to NASA Isn't the real reason more like, 'if we don't overspend, funding will be cut' That seems far more common in any government agency, no incentive to be efficient and frugal.
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