Housekeeping

kbd512 · 2020-11-25 17:12:02

Yes, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Enjoy the holidays and time with family.

2020 has been a very trying year.

Hopefully 2021 will be better.

As always, time will tell.

Calliban · 2020-11-25 19:48:55

Happy Thanksgiving Kbd. A good time for everyone, with possible exception of turkeys.

I am looking forward to Christmas, when the government have promised to finally lift the lock down in England for a few days, which will allow me to go home. I haven't seen my wife, children or dog for over a month. The dog has probably eaten all of my shoes by now. I would imagine that many others are in the same position.

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-26 07:39:22

Best wishes for everyone's meal preparations to turn out well today!

For SpaceNut ... 243 through 264 are ready for unbanning.

I'd like to (try to) suggest we adjust our thinking about the kinds of people we want to bring into the forum at this point

The kind of person I think we need is a contractor .... We need specialists who are willing to donate time to help with projects ...

The traditional "member" is not a specialist, but instead blends into the flow of discussion as inspired by interests, education or experiences ...

To move a project along, such as Large Ship, we do ** not ** need traditional members. The forum is well populated with regular, traditional members.

What ** is ** needed right now is a specialist with decades of experience provisioning large (terrestrial) ships for voyages with hundreds and in some cases thousands of passengers and crew.

In a recent post, you (SpaceNut) showed that the Mars Society has a Wiki style database ... that structure would be better for building the knowledge that is needed to design a Large Ship. It offers the potential of stability, unlike this forum, which is more like a constantly moving river. This forum (FlubBB specifically) offers some limited ability to find stored/saved knowledge, but the mechanism is considerably less than ideal.

I'll try to learn more about the Mars Wiki, to see if it might work for Large Ship, and if the powers-that-be are interested in supporting a venture along these lines.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-11-26 07:40:27)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-26 13:27:01

A Holiday thank you go out to all that have stopped by to wish each other happiness on this Thanksgiving day.

Test accounts 243 through 264 have been unbanned and are ready.

Went searching to see if we have a single topic for Thanksgiving and found that we did not. Found about 50 where we did put in that key word. Found a poem as well...remembering the fallen of 1918

Just complete the achive First Words folder topics which include letter writing. This is from when the forum was started by Adrian long before mars society.

Edit
banned one yesterday and another today that wanted to talk to an admin for advertising that was Russian....

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-26 19:31:26

For SpaceNut re #429

Thanks for your reference to Adrian .... I went back to the first post of his many ...

Adrian wrote:

I have to say that I'm a bit confused as to exactly who is controlling and funding the Translife mission. According to this MSNBC report, Elon Musk and his Life to Mars Foundation are calling all the shots - they're the ones funding it, and I quote from the article:
Musk made clear that the Life to Mars Foundation would be in charge of the missions it chose to support, but added that “we’d like to have participation from the Mars Society and probably from the Planetary Society,” as well as other space groups.
Zubrin then says:
“We would be delighted to collaborate with Elon and the Life to Mars Foundation, or to collaborate with NASA, or anyone else who would like to devote resources,” Zubrin said. “We’re going to be raising money to do this, and we’re going to do it.”
So far so good. But then I read on the Mars Society homepage the bold claim, Mars Society Launches Translife Mission Project, which isn't completely true. The news story also makes no mention of Elon Musk or the Life to Mars Foundation.
I'm nothing less than delighted that the Translife Project is going ahead, but if the MSNBC report is correct then the Mars Society is perhaps being a little misleading to the public with its claim that they are running the show.

The relationship between Dr. Zubrin and Elon Musk seems to have mellowed over 20 years. At the time of Adrian's observation, Mr. Musk was an unknown quantity on the global scene ... now he has surpassed Bill Gates in the ranks of the world's richest persons.

I always take these rankings with a ** large ** sack of salt, because they are based upon the value of stock, which the entrepreneur in question has awarded himself as a perk of his (usually his) position. The monetary worth is otherwise meaningless, since the value depends upon the unlikely prospect that someone would actually ** buy ** the stock if it were offered for sale, and there is NO guarantee of that.

Still, I admit the ranking ** does ** have some limited value in measuring the performance of the people who operate at that strata of society.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-27 10:53:15

For SpaceNut re ID recovery: 265-286 are ready for unbanning.

For the time being, I am assuming the two of us are the only members of the forum engaged in the thought process that will lead to recruiting of an experienced cruise line (or equivalent military) chef/planner.

The first phase of what I hope will ultimately turn out to be a successful initiative is to agree on what we are trying to achieve.

In recent posts, I get the impression you are still thinking about what I will call "traditional" forum members. I believe that as we go through the process of reviewing all of the accounts registered in the database, we are going to find that there are several hundred traditional members.

The kind of person needed to assist RobertDyck is ** not ** a traditional member.

If traditional members could do the job, they would already have done so.

If this were a for-profit enterprise, and had the budget to match, the Personnel Department would post a bid for an employee to meet the requirements of the position. The Personnel Department would work up a description of the skill set needed to fulfill the requirements of the position, and the Requesting Officer would assist as needed to insure the candidates interviewed are indeed qualified and suitable to blend into the existing culture of the organization.

Since this (Mars Society) is a non-profit organization, the rewards for participation are non-monetary. Instead, they consist of feelings of worthy contribution to a worthy cause. The power of such motivation is superior (by my observation ) to the motivation of putting food on the table.

The kind of person to be invited to help has achieved a higher level on the Maslow Hierarchy. For such a person, the flow of income is assured, and worries about food, shelter and medical care are receding in importance compared to the enticement of making a useful contribution to the advancement of the human endeavor.

On the ** other ** hand, there are alive on Earth today young people who are going to be among early Mars settlers, and many more who will be among the later Mars settlers. For such persons, this forum (and others like it) provide a way to gain knowledge and contacts that will serve them well during academic preparation and early employment.

For the ideal chef/advisor we may recruit to help RobertDyck, there ** must ** be hundreds of individuals whose careers will crest when they join an expedition to Mars, or perhaps decide to become crew on one of the RobertDyck class Large Ships which will eventually ply the Earth/Mars circuit as so many sailing craft were doing 400 years ago on Earth.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-11-27 10:55:16)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-27 16:42:50

ID recovery: 265-286 have been unbanned and are ready.

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-28 09:37:35

For SpaceNut ... ID's 287-308 are ready for unbanning.

A key concept for members of this forum to consider is that this is a ** non-profit ** organization.

While non-profit organizations ** can ** have paid employees, the greater part if not the vast majority of participants are volunteers.

There is a significant literature on recruiting personnel for volunteer agencies.

The available workforce in the United States (and probably in most advanced countries) is large.

It consists of individuals who have retired from responsible positions in industry, the military and government, as well as academic establishments.

There is a window of opportunity to enlist people of this caliber to help with worthwhile projects. They are still capable of thinking and acting at a high level, but that capability recedes with every day they are not enlisted to help with projects in their fields.

If we can catch them before they have lost the momentum of their careers, we have the potential of bringing their insights to bear on problems arising from projects like RobertDyck's Large Ship, or Calliban's Asteroid Mining.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-11-28 09:38:19)

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-28 09:46:27

Here is an authentic "housekeeping" item ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/astronauts-c … 11852.html

Nasa, the American space agency, has signed an agreement with consumer goods firm Procter and Gamble to develop the first laundry detergent for washing clothes in space, according to a report in the New Scientist.

This development would seem applicable to the Large Ship project, and it might well extend to Mars, where water and energy will be in short supply.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-28 18:04:38

performed unbanning of ID's 287-308 which included fixing user name for 294 and 304 to stay consistent with the adding of a 0 to the number sequence to make them 5 digits in length...

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-28 19:06:02

For SpaceNut re #435 and cleanup

Thanks for catching those! I usually scan the completed ID's after updating them, but for some reason missed that step today.

***
Thanks for picking up on the Mars University video and initiative ...

Let's think about how the forum might help to sustain activity that begins with Mars U programs.

This forum is part of the Mars Society tapestry ... it's (somewhat) off the beaten path right now, but might have a role to play if (a) we can figure out what that would be and (b) we can find a way to market the potential to Mars University leadership.

I'd ** really ** like to see some folks developing plots in My Hacienda.

The agricultural aspect of Mars U is particularly interesting ...

Future Mars farmers would (presumably) learn how to grow various crops on Earth before transferring to the challenges of Mars.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-29 13:22:47

For SpaceNut re ID's 309-330 ... all ready for unbanning

They ** should ** be error free this time.

Let's continue thinking about how we are going to create a marketing campaign to recruit high value new members.

While members are good, contractors are better ... we need ** one ** contractor right now, to assist RobertDyck with meal planning for Large Ship.

If we need Mars Society approval let's get it.

If they want to see sample marketing text, let's create it.

If you have access to a Personnel Department, it might be possible to obtain sample recruiting text from them.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-29 16:15:00

unban done for ID's 309-330

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-30 09:44:22

For SpaceNut re ID restoration: 331-352 are ready for unbanning.

Over in the Chat topic, an interesting development has occurred that has a bearing on the Recruiting Initiative for NewMars ...

The culture that is frozen in place is largely if not entirely European.

In your role as lead Administrator, you have the power and the responsibility to decide what kind of culture you want to see going forward.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-30 18:23:01

unban for ID's 331-352 has been done

Its to bad that color, politics and hate still remains.

Terraformer · 2020-12-01 08:42:50

th,

...and this is a problem because?

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-01 09:02:47

For Terraformer ... re Post 441 ... You are welcome to edit Post 441 to enrich it's content. (th)

Calliban · 2020-12-01 09:40:46

SpaceNut wrote:

unban for ID's 331-352 has been done
Its to bad that color, politics and hate still remains.

Yeah. Its too bad that human beings insist on being human beings with all of their annoying prejudices. Life would so much simpler if they were soulless robots, without any dangerous opinions.

Spacenut / Tahanson,

Feel free to ban members that you don't agree with. The board will be an even quieter place than it is now.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-12-01 09:41:26)

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-01 10:14:52

For SpaceNut re ID recovery .... 353-374 are ready for unbanning ...

For Calliban .... my understanding of forum policy is that a criteria for banning an ID is personal attacks.

Hopefully no one active in the forum would engage in such behavior.

Otherwise, (from what I can glean by observation) it would appear that there is a wide latitude for expression of opinion.

However, this ** is ** an activity supported by the Mars Society.

The forum is visible to the entire world.

Activity that takes place in this forum that is detrimental to the mission of the Mars Society would seem worthy of scrutiny.

That would happen at a level above SpaceNut.

(th)

Terraformer · 2020-12-01 15:08:17

tahanson,

Then it would probably be wise of you to refrain from them.

SpaceNut · 2020-12-01 19:34:01

No one is getting banned and please do continue in the not so free chat area and be civil plus respectful.

The unbanning of id's 353 - 374 has been done for more potential candidates to invite to the forum and hopefully that low level of participation might change.

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-02 09:25:40

For SpaceNut re ID Recovery ... 375-396 are ready for unbanning.

Nice to see jfenciso back! As a possibility .... worth asking if he knows anyone else who might be interested in helping?

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-02 15:32:37

As humans contemplate life on Mars, or anywhere away from Earth, dependence upon machines will become even greater than it is in advanced societies on Earth. I was reminded of this in recent weeks, as a series of failures of appliances occurred.

The water heater lasted 20 years, which (I'm told) is a pretty good run. The dishwasher failed after five years, which (I'm told) is below average, even for the brand involved. Today, the name brand microwave failed spectacularly. It had lasted ten years.

In designing for life on Mars, engineers will (hopefully) try to achieve long life for their creations, in addition to all the other requirements. However, every device will reach a point of failure.

And that brings me to the failure of the microwave today.

This particular machine overheated its load, and the control panel was dark, so I knew it was done for. What I did ** not ** realize is that I should have unplugged it right then, because it was drawing current until the fuse blew, and when the lights went out, I found the kitchen filled with acrid smoke.

A failure like ** that ** would be life threatening on Mars.

In my case, opening all the windows allowed wintry weather to clear most of the smoke, but I expect there will be lingering "fragrance" for some time.

On Mars, opening all the windows would certainly clear the smoke. The habitat should have a reserve supply of atmosphere ready to go after an emergency.

For machine design, and for what it's worth, I think that some thought should be given to failure modes.

I've seen a lot of appliance failures, but this is the first time I've seen ** this ** particular failure mode.

(th)

kbd512 · 2020-12-02 15:54:54

tahanson43206,

It's not a given that machines that are NOT designed to be as cheap as they possibly can be, with a market-driven level of quality, are at all indicative of how long machines could last if they were made with the best quality of possible, within some reasonable limits. A water heater with a Titanium tank, aerogel insulation (on Mars we'd probably keep the thing outside and use the near vacuum to provide the insulation), and Inconel heating elements might last 100 years, but we wouldn't know that because nobody builds them that way because they'd cost a thousand dollars more. That's less of a consideration on Mars, because the greatest cost is transporting the machine to Mars or obtaining the raw materials and transforming them into a working machine.

SpaceNut · 2020-12-02 17:46:41

Most electric hot water elements burn out from water ingress causing them to open from heating cycles. They also use a sacrificial anode metal for reducing corrosive waters effect on the plumbing and tank sealing edges.
Mars water would be corrosive due to the perchlorate in the processing and of its reduction of them with the neutral water coming in from the sabatier reactors process.
Dishwasher can also fail early from that same acrid water source.

I am on cellphone posting as I exceeded the gigabits on the plan for Wi-Fi tethering.

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#426 2020-11-25 17:12:02

Re: Housekeeping

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