New Mars Forums

I leave it open as to what portion of people might live on Mars or in the orbits of Mars.  Simply because I do not know accurately many variables such as the true nature of Mars, and the evolution of technical skills that humans and robots might create.

If the moons Phobos and Deimos were taken apart to make shelters and for other resource creation, at first bags of rocks might be the simple outer protective method.  But later those might be processed into other things.

Mirrors might make it possible to grant Mars as much energy as what the Earth has naturally.  I am tempted to think though that Martians may want to preserve ice cap cities.  In that case they would moderate what they would do to Mars.

I am not entirely sure, but I expect that more moons will be created for Mars by capturing asteroids to the planet's orbits.

If a propulsion device were to use Oxygen as propellant, they in the imagination we could fly our Moon to Mars, perhaps?

https://theconversation.com/the-moons-t … ars-170013
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I would consider that to be as silly as most other people.  But two forms of propulsion I can think of do exist.  I do not know how good they are as per efficiency.

1) Mass Driver that expels Oxygen Ice Cubes from the surface of the Moon.
2) Ceramic nozzles that weep Oxygen onto a electrostatic surface to make it cling.  But then a heat source to make the molecules bounce off into space.  Perhaps Lasers or Microwaves.

While I don't actually recommend it for our Moon, I could be done for asteroids that also may have a large Oxygen content in them.

Parking the asteroids into the orbit of a planet may be useful as to reduce the collision hazards (Presuming good works intended and achieved), and more resource into the orbit of a planet.

While it may be that eventually humans will "Hack" human biology and make children grow up "Correctly" according to Earth human bias, or it may be possible to build centrifuges of a very large size on the surface of Mars, it may be easiest to build orbital structures around planets from attainable materials such as asteroids.  It will be much easier for humans that live in orbit of Venus, Earth/Moon, Mars to maintain a communion with each other's than for the humans that live on planetary surfaces to do so.

If I recall correctly from: https://www.youtube.com/@Anthrofuturism

Regolith might be about .5% magnetic Iron.

Then it is easiest to extract the Oxygen from the non-magnetic Iron content, and hardest to extract Oxygen from Calcium.

So processing a rubble pile or other asteroid might create Iron and also Sintered and/or glassy materials. from materials that are hard to reduce.  In this case "Easy Oxygen" would be a major propellant.  Upon arrival to Mars, perhaps the harder Oxygen to extract would be extracted.

If you have spacecraft spewing Oxygen as propellant some of that will likely join the atmosphere of Mars and so, then swell it up.

For instance, if you are thrusting your ship in a prograde direction by expelling Oxygen Ice Cubes, perhaps you could eject them at a retrograde speed so that they have zero orbital speed.  Sunlight would quickly vaporize the Oxygen, but it might still drop down into the atmosphere of Mars if it is quick enough and is not swept away by the solar wind.

So, you could thicken the atmosphere of Mars while propelling spacecraft between orbital architectures.

The mass to energy ratio of mirrors is more favored the closer to the sun the mirror is, but perhaps even out into the outer asteroid belt mirrors may be sufficiently good as power supplies.

Way down the road, Venus might have methods to scoop up atmosphere to Orbit and to expel Oxygen and retain Nitrogen and Carbon.  Then possibly Nitrogen could be brought to Mars.  It sounds expensive, but if you have virtually unlimited robot labor and sunshine, is it necessarily unobtainable?  I think in the distant future it will not be impossible.

Ending Pending

I was killing time somewhere, and used my phone to look some stuff up about Phobos and Demos.

The Claims I read were that Phobos is leaking about 3 grams of water a second, and that Deimos has ice on it's surface in some of it's craters.

Quite contrary to all I have read up until now.  I will attempt to verify this on my computer with similar questions.

Query: "Water on Phobos?"

The claim on my phone is not supported:

Query: "Water on Deimos?"

The claim is not supported but it appears that some suspicion of it exists

Different Query: "Ice inside Deimos?"  It appears that when dealing with computers you need to be more specific!

A bit of support:

My phone indicates that it is suspected that Deimos has ice inside of it which may feed the ice on the surface if there is any.

Query: "Ice inside Phobos?"

Some support:

My phone indicates that water vapor is detected at a rate of an estimated 3 grams per second.

Suggestions of hydrated minerals and Carbon are in this article: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/ … 65/6660653
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I will risk a little bit and say that some reports indicate a less gifted set of moons as per desired substances.  While excessive optimism should be avoided, we have to be aware of the "Verbal Idiot Savants".

They are a predator and if others of other talents are contained on a plantation, then those are slave class of farm animals as true function, unless the awaken to the deceptions that may be used to make a prison for the mind.

For instance I have been told that slaves in the US states that allowed it were told that if they escaped the Indians would kill them.  That was not always true.  Perhaps not very much true.  I believe that American slavery was to some degree an import from old cultures that supported it that got taken over by "Verbal Idiot Savants" around the 13th century.

So, as we were told that our Moon was bone dry, (Whatever that means), we could be receiving insufficient or faulty information on the moons of Mars.  But perhaps they will be deficient in Hydrogen and Carbon after all.  We probably should find out.

Ending Pending

Bags of rocks tied together into spheres, or some other shape, I suppose that they could be called "Rock Shells".

From post #6:

A plurality of Starships could be mounted together into an initial synthetic gravity machine(s)

Thie could possibly work for the average rubble pile.  433 Eros and 25143 Itokawa which are considered to be stony, and Ryugu, and Bennu, which are considered to be carbonaceous.  In addition, we have the two Mars moons Phobos and Deimos.

In addition to establishing such shelters, but we may hope also to do as suggested in previous posts and establish refilling stations between the Earth/Moon and the location of 2.1 AU the inner edge of the asteroid belt.

Stony asteroids seem to have more water than 0%.  Carbonaceous asteroids have considerably more.  Also, the have some Carbon and perhaps a bit of Nitrogen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-type_asteroid
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Small Asteroids found: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/aster … roid-belt/

So, a span of about 1.1 AU may accommodate this.

At 2.0 AU the sunlight will be 1/4 that of for Earth/Moon.

Mirrors then need to be perhaps >4 times as large at 2.0 AU than for 1.0 AU.  These then may be shined on either solar panels of heat engines.

In the case where the disassembly of a rubble asteroid will reveal 1 or more large slabs of rocks, additional bags of small rocks and metal fixtures could allow the formation of very large caves in which protections from the most harsh aspects of space could be made available.

Of course, Mars/Phobos/Deimos are about in the center of the span of 1.0 to 2.1 AU.

Ending Pending

To relate the previous post to the idea of Mirrors, I might suggest that if you had a Mirror production process with electric generators of some kind, you might retain them while you were further from the sun but release some of them as you got closer to the sun.  They then might navigate to various purposes such as supplying the refilling stations.  In fact, as such a device might have a lifetime, they might arrive at a refilling station and the Mirror be rendered into propulsion materials.

I have already suggested putting cobble sized rocks into chicken-wire enclosures to provide radiation shielding.  Perhaps "Pillows" of such might be joined to make a double walled enclosure.  If you don't like chicken-wire, then perhaps screening would suite your desires or a cloth of some kind.  Ribs of simple types of steel or iron might also be used in the structure.

OK a ring or "Regolith Pearls" then, orbiting 433 Eros:

You could have synthetic gravity machines inside of them.  You could anchor solar power devices on their exteriors.

You might classify your materials into Slabs, Cobbles, and Dirt.  The Cobbles you might examine individually for useful metal content.  The Dirt you might process into resources.  The Slabs you might fashion into shelter structures using metal fixtures, rock anchors, and perhaps metal bands or cables.

Ending Pending

Because NASA has been focused on finding alien life, perhaps we do not know as much about other aspects of Mas such as Phobos and Deimos.  I am not complaining.  We do have some information after all.  But we really cannot get as final for plans of how to settle Mars/Phobos/Deimos as might be desired.  We can speculate on options at this point, supposing various possible actual conditions.

There are several other topics that could have materials that can become tributary to this topic:

Index» Terraformation» Robot Worlds:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11221

Index» Terraformation» Rubble Pile Sinter/Glass Jar:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 30#p234730

Index» Science, Technology, and Astronomy» Asteroid/off-Earth mining:
Calliban has a good post: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 26#p235126
VOID interferes: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 36#p235136

As I see it, unless Phobos and Deimos have the materials, to get lots of stuff, we might want to follow Callibans advice.
Of course I will modify it.

Unless we want to go to the trouble of accessing major icy asteroids at about 3.0 AU, going after "Crumb" asteroids might be a good way to go.

I would modify the capture device from a bag to a cone shaped canister.  The reason for this would be that as your system "Digested" asteroid crumbs, periodically it could expand it's size.

The cone would not be intended to hold high air pressures, but to work with low air pressures.

Like a sea creature in a shell, it would expand the perimeter of the cone and the Base Door, as materials became available from previously processed bits of asteroid.

I am hoping that a gyrotron such as may be used to drill hydrothermal wells can turn the materials into dust.  This may release volatile substances as gasses. Water vapor is hoped for, and this may reduce Iron in the materials if Hydrogen were repeatedly added to the Gyrotron beam.

Even though the pressures within may be rather low, the seal on the "Base Door" will matter, I expect and will be a problem to solve.

As far as collecting the released volatiles perhaps a cold trap will do.  Water collected would be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen and then the Hydrogen added back to the Gyrotron Beam.

Dust collected could be magnetically separated to yield a high and low Iron content.

Methods of propulsion would be desired.  I presume an electric power supply to be present that is not shown in the cone drawing.

One method of propulsion I am hoping to try for would have LOX pushed though the pores of a ceramic 'Nozzle" and a laser beam to convert the LOX into a hot gas.  The hope is to not erode the Ceramic Nozzle too fast.

Alternately Oxygen could be made into frozen pellets and ejected by Mass Driver, to give thrust.

Alternately if good enough Iron were available, it could be used in either a Neumann Driver or MagDrive propulsion system.

Alternately magnetic dust could be ejected using an on-board mass driver.

I do not favor bringing the processed materials exclusively to Earth/Moon, but to supply refilling stations in solar orbits that spacecraft can visit.

In "Robot Worlds" I have this illustration: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 47#p235047
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My presumption is that most traffic by tonnage will be solar electric in nature.  So, having refill stations in circular solar orbits will make sense.  The harvesting of materials from small asteroids most proximate to one of these orbits may make sense.

If this method is developed it could then be extended into the Asteroid belt which apparently has many small asteroids, only now detected.
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/aster … roid-belt/
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So, a continuous replenishment, may be occuring.

Ending Pending

Mirrors might be used in space propulsions, and of course to make spots on the Moon more supportive of human efforts.  I will probably return to those later.

I think for Mars of course they could be very important.  Many spots of Mars may be economically preferred, but with Mirrors, I think the polar ice caps and the surrounded terrain will be attractive.

It is possible that the North Ice Cap would be the earlier target, as during global dust storms, it may be a source of cold while Hellas would be a source of heat to start up the global dust storm.  Not sure of that but it is a maybe.

Active solar robots which could poise on the polar surfaces, could receive both normal summer sunlight and winter time light projected from orbital mirrors.  Masses of ice represent situations where the harvesting of water will also provide a sort of shelter from some of the harsh features of Mars, such as radiation and thermal variations.

Rather than melting the ice cap from the top down, you would make it into a Swiss cheese of tunnels in the ices.  Tunnels and vaults maintained at perhaps -10 to -20 degrees C would make the tunnels suitable to certain types of robots and of some use to humans as well.

Using heat pumps, a minority of space could be kept warm for human comfort.

It is possible that orbital mirrors could be in part built from materials of Phobos and Deimos.

The input of sunlight to the north ice cap in winter from mirrors may reduce the power of the engine that runs global dust storms.

The Solar Robots on the polar surfaces would likely be vertical and perhaps light orienting and may have legs or robot assistant that can help reposition them.

Methane and Oxygen could be manufactured in massive amounts and shipped by pipelines all around the planet, making it more habitable.  Methane leaks will help in warming the planet.  At any location with energy CO2 could be split to yield Oxygen and Methane piped in could be reacted with the Oxygen to produce water.

Later the South Polar Ice Cap might be treated in a similar manner.

Ending Pending

OK, let's have a look at this:

I am going to imagine targeting multiple locations on the planet.

Greenland: https://www.bing.com/maps/search?FORM=H … .3&style=r

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view … t=0&sim=11
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Many places in the North and also Chile have Fjord: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord

Greenland and some other places have Fjords and ice caps.  Mirrors from orbit could help keep a Fjord open year around, and also support an OTEC-Like operation for power and fresh water.  Evaporation may be expected to fall as more snow to the ice cap in many cases depending on winds, I suppose.  Plankton will be stimulated as well.

By lifting water vapor to the ice caps the ocean levels are reduced.  (But of course you do not want to stimulate the melting of flowing glaciers.

This might also be done to refresh glaciers in mountains also, and even if we become desperate this could be done in Antarctica.

We can also suppose that some of the organic activity will deposit into deep cold water with the brine, and will be sequestered for thousands of years, reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.

Arctic Ocean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean
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In the spring and fall, these mirrors might be diverted to protect crops from untimely frosts.

New glaciers could probably be forced into existence with this process.  Glaciers can cease to exist due to melting or from insufficient snowfall.

So Glaciers might be enhanced or created with this method.

And this might be important for the western coastal mountain glaciers of the America's.

OTEC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_the … conversion

https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures- … ergy-plant
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Where OTEC was already anticipated, light from mirrors might warm the water even more than it naturally is.

I do have sympathy for major observatories.  They have to be considered.

And we should be making more telescopes in space and perhaps on the Moon.

The Mirrors may help pay for those telescopes or at least stimulate the rockets that can do both mirrors and telescopes.

Working with America's Greate Basin?

https://legacy.climas.arizona.edu/blog/ … agers.html

Image Quote: https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.8d5aaee8022 … ImgRaw&r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin
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Causing increased evaporation off the coast of California, mostly could lead to more snowfal into the inland mountains.  Then the snow melted may in part be sent into the Great Basin.

My recollections are that once water gets into the Great Basin it falls as precipitation about 7 times before departing.

If lakes form inside of the Basin and are salty, they might be evaporated by mirror light, so that water will move as vapor inland even more.
Of course you could have solar panels on top of water as well, to help maintain inland lakes, and to collect power.

This would to some degree reduce the ocean levels.

Ending Penging

If you can tolerate it I will post in reply.  Let me know if I should be less active.

Your post makes sense.  I think proactively removing threats to Earth and eventually other planets, has a value of its own.  Turning the materials into useful retrievable resources while doing science on them also would have value.

I have learned things from many sources such as you and also the anthrofuurism site: https://www.youtube.com/@Anthrofuturism

They have recently done a post about pyrolysis on the Moon, in some cases using Hydrogen.

My creativity if I have any is typically in combining things, which is a low-level type, but don't turn down a dump truck full of Nickles.

This morning I am looking at Pyrolysis with Hydrogen, using the Quaise Gyrotron.

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https://eepower.com/news/gyrotron-techn … l-energy/#
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So, this might go in two directions.  I think it might be possible to extract Oxygen from a Quaise well, by injecting Hydrgen while drilling.  Then water vapor would come out of the well.  But only the easy Oxygen would come out But this would open space in the well.  However, the Iron and other reduced materials, may corrode later so I am not sure it is a good idea.  But a bit interesting.

Thes small objects you have posted about could be rubble or they may be boulders in some cases.

But the Quaise drill might process both.  But you need a good container to retain Hydrogen.  Of course, if you squirted Hydrogen gas onto the hot spoils from the "Drill" you should get water.  Water is easier to retain.

There is more than one method to spilt water, I think, into Oxygen and Hydrogen.  Electrolysis or some sort of a plasma process.  Perhaps a Plasma Reactor method might work: https://www.science.org/content/article … xygen-mars

If we suppose that the typical asteroid materials are more like the Moon, but perhaps a little like Bennu or Ryugu, then we might hope to extract the "Easy" Oxygen, such as is bonded to Iron, and might expel it as propellant.  Iron also might be expelled as propellant, after a magnetic separation. In such a case, the grains would not be likely to be pure iron but a composite of reduced Iron and other materials.

The drill method, perhaps will pulverize the rock to dust or make it into glass.  Perhaps some of each.

What would be left would be partially reduced, so some Oxygen would remain.  and a reduction in Oxygen mass would occur.

With a good process, we might accumulate more Hydrogen than what would be lost.  This is because the parent bodies of these "Rocks" may have had some water, or hydrated minerals, and the solar wind may have injected protons into dusty materials.

But a reasonably good container would be needed.

While I have been interested in a mass driver that would expel Oxygen, I might also suggest, that if we had a ceramic capacitor plate that we "Wetted" with a small Oxygen flow then a high energy pulse from a Laser might cause it to be expelled with significant force.

What do you think?

Ending Pending

I have hopes for a different sort of heat shield for ships that do not land on the Earth.  "Skippers" most likely, but perhaps some may do a one-time pass.

The Stainless Steel of Starship is of interest.  Without a special coating, it has two hazzards.
1) Heat Damage.
2) Corrosion Damage.

For a Starship alone, Heat Damage might be avoided by not diving too deep into the atmosphere.  But then you may have to do multiple Skipps.  For Corrosion, I am thinking of something like Enamel.  Like the Stainless Steel, it would have limited temperature tolerances but might provide corrosion resistance.

Three basic Starship types might use such methods.
A) Starship HLS Lunar.
B) TLI Booster.
C) Mobile Depots.

So far, Starship uses Tiles and Crunch-Wrap, and Ablatives.  This would be something else.  Not too heavy and complex and heavy like Tiles and Shrink-Wrap.  Not normally intended to ablate.

I am tempted to think maybe an Aluminum Oxide/Steel Alloy Is that possible. 
I am thinking an Aluminum and Steel Alloy, thinking that like Aluminum in some circumstances the Aluminum on the surface will make a Oxide that then protects the metal.  Maybe not.  Old style bathtub coatings?

What about an Umbrella Heat Shield?  Attach it to the Starship.

Maybe Dragon Wings that are foldable, and made of coated Stainless Steel?

What about Chain Maile?  I have my doubts about it but at certain altitudes, avoiding extreme heat and corrosion, maybe some air flow between links might cool it?  It is worth finding out, I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_mail
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The thing about this sort of heat shield is that it would radiate heat from it's leeward side, helping to avoid excess temperature.  But I wonder about how the stagnation layer would work on the windward side.  (I think I have that relatively correct from Dr. Johnson).

Chain Maile Dragon Wings for such Starships would be quite a picture.  So Stainless Steel Scales. (Smile).

As I have said, this would be for working with very rarified upper atmosphere.  If it had a failure and dove deeper, it would surely burn up, I expect.

We do also though for heat shields have the possibility of in orbit repairs of heat shields.

Ending Pending

This is very wonderful!

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … 978fa5f334  Quote:

Tim Dodd has championed some of this.

I am watching it again.............Pause..............

Beginning with LEO being supplied with Space Stations and supplies from the From-The-Surface-Starships, Modularity is a word used to describe 3 main modules.

1) Propellant Depot.  I would say that perhaps this can also do a function of simple heat shield repairs.
2) TLI Booster.  To boost the HLS to the Moon.
3) HLS, Apparently the "Stubby" or "Shorty" version.

We might add some things to this along the line.

For #1, the Propellant Depot: A refrigeration device. And then perhaps Electric Propulsion so that Depots can be moved to Lunar Orbit in some cases.  Heat Shield, so that in a return event from the Moon it can use Atmospheric Skimming to alter its orbits.

For #2: TLI Booster: Either Electric propulsion to finish it back into LEO from doing a TLI boost, or Atmospheric Skimming.  Maybe both.

For #3: HLS: Maybe atmospheric skimming to return to LEO, maybe not.   It is possible that Stainless Steel would be sufficient for atmospheric skimming, provided the event did not include a harsh oxidation event.  There would have to be multiple skims, I expect.
An electric propulsion might also be employed.  Because these return modes would be slow, humans probably need to return to Earth in a Capsule.

On top of that it may be that depots in Lunar orbit might be refilled with Oxygen and Iron from the Moon, extracted by Hydrogen Pyrolysis and Electrolysis for the Oxygen and special methods for Iron perhaps involving magnetics and smelting.  The Iron would be for Neumann Drive or Magdrive or for structures in space.  Maybe for a Mass Driver Engine.

A Mars architecture might eventually resemble this as well.

Ending Pending

I did a prior post here earlier today.

But this from a Venus topic is interesting also: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 80#p235080

So,

The phrase "Co-orbital" is interesting.  But also these asteroids may be of use, and if they were used, they may be a controlled hazard to protect Earth.

Ending Pending

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-orbital_configuration

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Venus Co-Orbitals :https://nasaspacenews.com/2025/10/hidden-venus-co-orbital-asteroids-could-threaten-earth-in-the-future/

A list of Earth Co-Orbital Asteroids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: … _asteroids
Generally, very small to small.  Here is a larger one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/469219_Kamo%CA%BBoalewa
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It might be part of the Moon!

Ending Pending

I would recommend that if you view this you look back at the two previous posts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh-VbA5nKWE
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This regulatory circumstance required the expansion of the pelvis, particularly birth, but limited brain size.  Male preference desired the expansion of the pelvis.  Females should have preferred it as well, but too big a head and too much trouble in birth, I suppose.

From post #109: Quote:

Per #2, a male preference for a larger pelvis, being instinctive most likely it is a good selection if he is to be a father.  Per the Breasts it is usually an exaggeration on the part of the female (Involuntary) but indicates that she could nurse the children.

The modern social instruction to hate men for valuing the items of #2, is actually quite criminal and should be condemned.  The male is doing exactly what evolution has programmed.

About big hair and obesity.  The male desire for a large brain (Head) in relation to body size relates to big hair which is like breasts which exaggerate the large head feature, and obesity, is against the attractiveness of the female as the body size expands more than the head size.

The idea that females are not to assist in home making is an action against #3.

This looks like some sort of social interference from a power that does not like our people at all.  I am tempted to say Marxists, but it could be the Elites as well.  Maybe both.

Things people may not like but I think may well be generally true.

My mind is sometimes compartmentalized.  I think there is a good reason why we want the problem of the pelvis being too small for large heads, but at this time I am not able to access that information.  I had it before though.

It is possible that it imposes the necessity of brain efficiency.  Not sure.

Anyway, I will not live so much to see, when people are grown in incubators, and that cybernetic attachments will be placed in their brains.

Then then can have very big and efficient brains.

But I am pretty sure I will be quite dead by then.  So, not my problem, if that is a problem.  Ha Ha!

Ending Pending