>>13743761Well there's different possibilities.
Basically the problem is that a sol is 1.027 day, and the 24h clock is a pretty nice concept we're used to.
You can :
- create a "Martian second", which is 1.027s. A "Martian minute" is 60 Martian seconds, a Martian hour is 60 Martian minutes, a sol is 24 Martian hours. All 2.7% longer than the base Earth units.
Very nice, you have a 24h clock like on Earth.
Problem, you created a new, ambiguous, unit which is close enough in value than you can not notice the difference, until the moment your computation (literally) blow up in your face. Absolute madness.
Coincidentally, that's how NASA works at the moment.
- keep the second, a Martian minute is 61.62s, a Martian hour is 60 Martian minutes, a sol is 24 Martian hours.
- keep the second, the minute and a Martian hour is 61.62min, a sol is 24 Martian hours.
- keep the second, the minute, and the hour, say fuck it to the 24h clock and say that a sol is 24h37min (see the Martian trilogy).
The only advantage of the first solution is that you may be able to ignore it for everyday life. But I guarantee that, if used in a Martian colony, it will sooner or later kill people because of Mars Climate Orbiter-like errors. And I don't really like the idea of future people having to wonder whether this velocity is in m/s or in m/Ms (Martian second, do not confuse with megasecond), or, god forbid, in ft/Ms.
Between the 3 others, I don't know, having a 24h37 sol seems to be a bigger change than a 61.62s minute.
