Calculating a planet's mass & gravitational pull

[Andrés]

Let's see what I remember from my physics classes.
Gravity on earht should be 9.8 m/s2 pronounced "meters per square second". Meaning the speed of an object in free fall will increase in 9,8 m/s every second.
So you seem to have the point shifted several spaces.

No, rotation should actually create a centrifugal force that will pull you away from the planet and tend to lower gravity close to the equator.

[Suicide Junkie]

You need to multiply by 1000 instead of divide, since there are more meters than kilometers.

[Slick]

DOH! That's pretty much how NASA missed Mars with the Last mission. Or maybe they hit Mars, but they certainly didn't get into orbit as desired. It was a unit conVersion error.

Slick.

[Fyron]

It helps if you set up "conVersion factors" (lame, yes; but still useful). An example:

code:

---

         / 1000 m \

12 km x  | ------ |  =  12000 m

         \  1 km  / 

---

(those are parenthesis)

[dogscoff]

Yeah, one of my planned features will be the ability to select different units for input/output. I'll just have to filter all calculations through a "conVersion" function.

[Suicide Junkie]

Why not just output it in all units simultaneously.
B5 = meters
B7 = B5 * feet/meter
...etc...

[dogscoff]

That would make it too cluttered. I'm not talking about the spreadsheet any more, I'm currently putting the whole thing into javascript for my webpage.