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#1 2022-11-04 07:00:16

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

OldFart1939 Postings

Post 179001 showed up today as the opening post for a scan of the database.

It seems (to me at least) to deserve a place of honor, among the many posts by OldFart1939...

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Calliban and kbd512-

I too, have used the hole on the floor crappers in Italy, at a mountain refuge back in 1963-64. This was at the Laverado Hut, near the Tre Cime di Laverado. About showers: I have done some winter mountaineering in Colorado, and extensive backpack trips in the California Sierra Nevada. The absolutely FIRST order of business upon return was always a long, hot shower. The backpack trips included some river crossings by using fords in some of the icy cold big rivers with hand ropes. I simply put on my swim trunks and sneakers, my wife into her bikini, and we got cooled off and (somewhat) cleansed.

A shower is really a tremendous morale booster. I recall coming into Ft.Carson barracks after a week in the field; there was a struggle to be first in the showers before the ancient barracks ran outta hot water.

Wet wipes just "don't cut it."

This post was (as I recall) a response to a suggestion that space vessels or Mars habitats might NOT provide full showers.

(th)

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#2 2022-11-04 13:38:14

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

tahanson43206,

I'm of the opinion that hot showers are not "optional" if wherever you're at, here on Earth or on Mars, is to be regarded as "civilization".  However, aboard an interplanetary ship so-called "Navy showers" may not be optional.  In an environment where potable water is every bit as precious a commodity as air, recycling lots of water is not feasible to do without lots of energy.  If we have operational space nuclear reactors, then the abundant power those plants provide can be used to recycle more waste water and CO2, increasing the quality of life for the crew.  If they're limited to photovoltaic power, then wet wipes and Navy showers will have to suffice.  Far more energy is required to live anywhere but Earth, combined with the fact that lots of stored chemical energy is required to merely "get there".  You can still take a good shower with two gallons of water, so I don't see the power limitations as a showstopper.  RobertDyck showed a "water-saver" shower water filtering technology that allowed you to recycle most of the water in the shower by filtering out the contaminants, so maybe 5 gallons per shower is doable?

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#3 2022-11-04 15:01:35

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For kbd512 re #2

Thanks for giving this homage to OldFart1939 a boost past the crucial first reply!

I'd have to go back to look to be sure, but I ** think ** OldFart1939 was replying to a post by another Newmars member.

In any case, it's been a while since we've heard from OldFart1939

His contributions include 2305 posts, but they ** also ** include sharing of insights and opinions from his unique perspective.

(th)

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#4 2024-02-05 08:13:17

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For OldFart1939 re Callisto ...

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 25#p219025

Callisto needs a champion!

Are you willing to play that role?

Terraformer is a champion for Ceres!

There may well be news items about Callisto that appear from time to time, and those could be added to the Callisto topic.

In addition, there may be older studies that are worth study, and links to those, with a bit of text explaining why they are worth someone's time, would be helpful.

***
We still have an 18 person expedition in the very early planning stages. 

(th)

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#5 2024-02-05 09:39:24

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

Showers on a spaceship become feasible if you employ spin gravity.  As to energy,  think potable,  grey,  and black for water.  Shower water and laundry water is grey water,  fairly easy to clean and return to potable status,  at much lower energy cost.  Toilet water is black water;  that requires a lot of action and a lot of energy to re-use completely. 

So,  don't put them down the same sewer they way we traditionally do here on Earth.  I don't recycle grey water from my house,  but I do use some of it for irrigation outside. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#6 2024-03-18 12:31:36

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

Thomas-
I'm a big fan of Callisto and will keep my eyes peeled for any updates. To me, it seems to be about the only place in the Jovian system of satellites capable of having a safe radiation environment for a scientific colony/refuelling depot. "A nice place to visit, but wouldn't wanna live there." Until we get faster transportation, visitation would probably be from Mars as a starting point.

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#7 2024-03-18 14:33:58

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For OldFart1939 re #6

Thanks for the good news you'll be watching for updates on this Moon!

It may be a while before anything happens there, but eventually it will surely have visitors!

(th)

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#8 2024-03-18 17:00:32

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

In the meantime, I've been elected as vice president of the Yellowstone Valley Astronomy Association in Billings, MT, which means I am in charge of arranging speakers for our wintertime monthly meetings. We do public star parties during the summer months.
I've arranged for Dr. Jim Bell of ASU to give us a Zoom presentation about the rovers on Mars this coming month of April. I'm doing a presentation for the club on Cosmochemistry in May, so I'm still active and not out of it yet!

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#9 2024-03-18 17:44:08

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For Oldfart1939 re #8

Congratulations on your election to a leadership position in the Billings YVAA!  and ** especially ** congratulations on persuading Dr. Jim Bell to make a presentation! I am hoping you can open admission for the event to folks from outside the immediate area.  NewMars members might be interested, and I expect that the members of the Houston NSS chapter (there are two) would be interested as well. 

This is the first I've seen the term "cosmchemistry", and am happy to see it in the context of the NewMars forum were new ideas appear frequently.

(th)

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#10 2024-03-18 18:36:31

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

The term "Cosmochemistry" was first used by Dr. Harold C. Urey, and was used to describe the work he was pursuing late in his distinguished career (Nobel Prize in 1933 for his discovery of Deuterium), and after his work with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to isolate U-235 for the bomb. His coworker was Stanley Miller, and together they published the work on the origin of building block molecules of life from conditions on primordial Earth. They isolated several amino acids and other essential molecules upon which life is based from the Miller-Urey apparatus at University of Chicago and later at UCSD. This was a spark-discharge system they built to mimic lightning in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and saturated with water vapor.
Dr. Urey was a guest lecturer and seminar presenter at the University of Wyoming whilst I was still a graduate student in Physical Chemistry. I had the privilege of meeting him before he gave his presentation entitled "Cosmochemistry." My talk will be primarily to honor his legacy and talk about ongoing developments based on his work.

As a side note, his original experimental samples were found just a few years ago at UCSD, and subsequently re-analyzed using HPLC instead of crude paper chromatography. I believe that something like 17 of the essential amino acids were isolated and identified some 60 years after the original samples were created. So...pulling together a talk from the available information and putting into understandable terms for the general public seems daunting.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2024-03-18 18:43:09)

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#11 2024-03-18 18:53:10

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For OldFart1939 re #10

Thank you for the history of Dr. Urey's work!  I'm chipping away at a Russian classic on the history of nuclear physics, and am still in the late 1800's and early 1900's so will watch for the history of Deuterium.

I am impressed that you are going to tackle this complex subject for a lay audience, so wish you success in the endeavor.  If you develop materials of a permanent nature, please consider "publishing" them here as Dr. Johnson has been doing. We use Dropbox for documents and imgur.com for images, plus whatever text you consider appropriate.

I remember reading press coverage of the lightning experiments, so appreciate your revealing the background of that work!

I'm glad I asked about "Cosmochemistry" !!!

(th)

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#12 2024-03-18 19:05:57

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

I'm gonna contact our IT specialist about being able to have other guests attend via Zoom to the Jim Bell talk. I met Jim about 20 years ago in Casper, Wyoming when he was there as a NASA roving ambassador and gave the Central Wyoming Astronomical Society a great presentation about Mars and showed a short video he put together from the Opportunity rover with a visual circumnavigation tour of Victoria Crater on Mars.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2024-03-18 19:18:08)

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#13 2024-03-18 19:44:45

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

For OldFart1939 re #12

Thanks for considering the shared Zoom opportunity.

Mars Society used Zoom until they switched to Google Meeting.  During that time I learned a bit about running a Zoom meeting.

I think your IT Specialist will probably explain that you will need someone assigned as host (probably the one who sets up the meeting) and you can have one or more co-hosts.  Each co-host can admit guests.  You want this feature to keep a control over the visitors you admit to the meeting.

North Houston NSS uses this system each month for their meetings, which have been hybrid since Covid. 

I don't think you need to worry about too many guests.  No one from NewMars has ever taken advantage of the monthly Zoom meetings, except for Dr. Johnson, who used it to give a presentation.

The number of folks who attend North Houston meetings online can be as many as 20 or so, but that is for a special event.

I would be surprised if more than 2 people decide to attend your event.

I think you might get more attendees if you reach out to astronomy groups.

Thanks again for giving this idea some consideration.

If you want to see what it is like, you can attend the next NewMars Google meeting on Sunday, or the next North Houston meeting the 2nd Saturday of April.

April !!! OK ... what is the date of your chapter meeting?

(th)

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#14 2024-03-18 22:10:40

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: OldFart1939 Postings

Our meeting is 13 April at 3:00 PM MDT. We meet at the Community Room in Billings Public Library. I need to contact our Sec-Treas., as he's the IT expert.

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