OldFart1939 Postings and YouTube Video Presentation(s)

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-04 07:00:16

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)

kbd512 · 2022-11-04 13:38:14

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?

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-04 15:01:35

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)

tahanson43206 · 2024-02-05 08:13:17

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)

GW Johnson · 2024-02-05 09:39:24

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

Oldfart1939 · 2024-03-18 12:31:36

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.

tahanson43206 · 2024-03-18 14:33:58

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)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-03-18 17:00:32

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!

tahanson43206 · 2024-03-18 17:44:08

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)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-03-18 18:36:31

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)

tahanson43206 · 2024-03-18 18:53:10

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)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-03-18 19:05:57

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)

tahanson43206 · 2024-03-18 19:44:45

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)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-03-18 22:10:40

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.

tahanson43206 · 2024-04-13 07:28:44

For OldFart1939 re #14

Today is the 13th.... Today is also the date of the monthly meeting of the North Houston NSS chapter.

They meet at 2 PM Houston time, which is 3 PM New Hampshire time.

This post is primarily to invite you to assist with evaluation of phpBB3 forum software...

For OldFart1939 re new phpBB3 test account ....

I understand that members of the forum do not have time to read every post, so you may not be aware of the test account that the Admins have set up for evaluation of newer forum software.

Please connect to the Azure test account using the information in the Azure topic.

If you encounter an SQL timeout message please just refresh the page. Azure is a Virtual Machine that goes to sleep and has to be re-awakened.

I'd appreciate your feedback on the site.

(th)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-04-13 11:55:49

Here is what I have from our IT guy for today's meeting with Dr. Jim Bell:

Topic: YVAA Zoom Talk -
Time: Apr 13, 2024 03:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85017538813?p … lvaDRSUT09

Meeting ID: 850 1753 8813
Passcode: 139105

---

One tap mobile
+17193594580,,85017538813#,,,,*139105# US
+12532050468,,85017538813#,,,,*139105# US

Oldfart1939 · 2024-04-13 11:58:34

Hey Thomas, GW, and others:

I will be introducing Jim Bell and moderating any questions from the audience.

GW Johnson · 2024-04-13 12:05:42

I see the link to the YVAA meeting zoom thing in post 16. That would be 4PM CDT today. I also see there is a north Houston NSS meeting today at 2 PM CDT. Does anybody have a link to that? I may try to look in on both.

GW

tahanson43206 · 2024-04-13 12:08:20

For GW Johnson re #18

The link to the North Houston meeting is in the North Houston topic, in the most recent post.

I'll see if I can refresh the display...

For OldFart1939 re #16

Thanks for the link to the Zoom of today's meeting!

Update at 20:07 UTC ... the North Houston meeting is in progress. The next hour will include discussion of Elon Musk's space vision.

GW Johnson and I are attending.

OlfFart1939's meeting is coming up at 5 PM New Hampshire time (21:00 UTC) ... our European members might be able to catch the talk by Jim Bell about Nobel Prize winner Urey, who ran significant experiments on using artificial lightning to create amino acids.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2024-04-13 14:57:54

The Zoom session is set up for the presentation by Dr. Jim Bell

GW Johnson is already in the audience.

Postcards from Mars
NASA's Perseverance Rover and the Dawn of Mars Sample Return
Professor Jim Bell
Arizona State University School of Earth & Space Exploration
Principal Investigator, NASA Mars 2020 mission Mastcam-Z imaging investigation
Past President, the Planetary Society

OldFart1939 is introducing Jim Bell >> Warm Montana welcome ... It's about 70 today

OH Good! Recording in progress ... hopefully the video will be made available for NewMars members who cannot attend live.

47 robotics missions to Mars since 1960's ... 8 nations ... 10 successful landers

Really difficult destination ... reasons given

About half of the missions have failed ... NASA has 9 successes and China 1

*** Continuing after save

Mars today ... a pretty harsh place ...

Slides were not showing ... Dr. Bell will review ... The slides are not advancing properly

Slide ... 47 missions ....

Next slide ... Mars today ...

Next slide ... Perseverance and Ingenuity

Next slide with videos of rovers

Next slide ... video of Perseverance moving slowly but accurately...

*** Continuing after save

Slide: Mars 2020 Rover Science Payload

Slide: Mars 2020: Jezero Crater ... hard to decide where to go

A lake there a long time ago ... delta like the end of the Mississippi river

Slide:Marsw 2020 Mission Objectives

Geologic Exploration, Habitability and Biosignatures, Prepare a Returnable Cache, Prepare for Human Exploration

Note last item: Demonstrate in Situ Resource Utilization by converting atmospheric CO2 to O2

Note that Dr. Bell thinks that Chinese explorers might be first, in addition to NASA and SpaceX

Slide: Mars 2020 Mission Timeline

Very difficult because of global pandemic ... all possible protections for workers on site

Sol 1119 is today for the lander, on site!

Video ... Perseverance lands on Mars ... combination of animation and live pictures

Nice video!

*** Resuming after save

Slide ... landed close to where we wanted to go .... praise for rocket scientists and engineers

Slide ... https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/ … the-rover/

Slide ... detail of travel plan

Slide landing site

surface flat by intention ...

Slide Sol 4 checkout - surround view - ? 360 degrees ?

Slide ... Martian Delta ... slide 18 Enormous boulders

Slide... helicopter ... tucked under the rover when landed

April 30th of 2021 ... spun blades for the first time

2500 rpm ... note that videos are embedded in the slide

A tiny patch from the Wright Brother's flyer is on the helicopter

Video from helicopter ... Ended up taking 72 flights ... far beyond mission goal

A mission has been approved ... Dragonfly ... quadcopter...

Slide ... first drilling / Coring attempt

Core tube came up empty... Rock too soft and crumbly

Slide ... hard volcanic rock nearby ...

Slide... view of end of corer ... numerous samples are visible in the slide

4 and a half billion years .... volcanic rock overlaid the floor of the lake

Slide ... Dusty place ... little video of dust devels dirt on rover at sols 286 to 321

Slide ... Delta bound ... sand dunes ...

Slide ... samples of layered rocks

Slide ... samples ... October 2022 ... Sedimentary Mudstone

Arrived at delta front in late 2021...

Slide 28 ... Second delta core samples in the can October 2022

Slide 29 ... Hunting for Regolith!

Slide 30 ... trail of movement ... Depot the Backup Cache ... dropped off 10 sample tubes in a little parking lot

Slide 32 ... depot

Slide 34 ... Pinestand Mountain Sol 718

Slide 35 Skrinkle Haven

Slide 36 Filling all the tubes ... 24 samples so far

Slide 37 ... Phobos solar eclipse

Used the image astronomically to determine the orbit of Phobos

Another part of this slide ... Mastcam-Z Sol 1039

Slide 38 ... 72nd flight of Ingenuity .. Jan 19, 2024 ... ... rover lost it's orientation due to sandy surface

Some day there may be a Smithsonian on Mars ... historic aircraft

Slide 39 ... Tough Driving

Slide 40 ... more samples.... 21 rock cores, 2 soil samples , 1 atmospheric sample, 3 "witness tubes"

Slide 41 ... landscape

Slide 42 .... 24 Samples in the Cache ... "witness" tubes will be left empty to check whether there was contamination from Earth

https://mars-rock-samples at Nasa web site

Slide 43 ... Mars Sample Return ... mission not yet funded

*** continuing after save ...

Discussion of funding challenges ... Congress decided the original plan was too expensive ... 10 billion dollars

Comparable to James Webb telescope

Monday there will be a NASA press conference to announce a new plan

Video ... Mars Sample Return ...

Slide 45 ... description of global scientific analysis of samples

Slide 46... back to Mars Exploration Family Portrait

77 space agencies around the World now!

Slide 47... Follow along

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020

http://mastcamz.asu.edu

http://mars.nasa.gov/msr

Question ... how long to take a sample?

Very slow process ... Tai Chi dance the engineers have to perform to move the samples.

There is a second robotic arm to stow the sample

Question: ... can the rover pickup samples ? No... the rover cannot do that

A new rover is needed to pick up the samples

Question ... what are the black parts of the pictures ... those are landscapes assembled from multiple pictures.

Question about slide 35 ... the black section is the rover itself ... it is expensive to send data.

Question: ... missed the question ... answer "I don't know"

Possibly it was how long will the equipment last ... ? 80 years ?

A greater concern is funding ... NASA's budget has to pay for keeping these missions going.

The equipment may well outlast funding....

Next: Two books .... 2006 ... started writing books

*** continuing after save

Art of the Cosmos... another picture book

Not sure which book this is ... covers the geological history of our planet ...

wrote a book about space in general ...

? book about Voyager .... narrative book

First Saturday in May ... next meeting

GW Johnson · 2024-04-13 16:09:13

I was there for most of the north Houston ISS meeting, and pretty much all of the YVAA meeting. Had to go get the charger for the laptop to see Jim Bell. The battery is just not good for that long.

Biggest problem I had was audio level for both meetings. It was very hard to hear anything that was said.

GW

Oldfart1939 · 2024-04-13 16:33:37

GW & Tom--
Thanks for attending virtually!
I now routinely use headphones in order to hear anything at these online presentations. That takes care of the sound system issues.

tahanson43206 · 2024-04-13 17:37:24

For Oldfart1939 re #22

Thanks again for setting up the Zoom for us, and for arranging for us to attend.

The sound issue GW is referring to has to do with the absence of a floor mike. This is a problem at the North Houston NSS meetings as well. The answer requires investment of funds, and most folks are reluctant to make an investment for a monthly meeting.

However, I ** would ** like to emphasize that the sound pickup by the computer used at your meeting was ** far ** better than the one at the North Houston meetings. The quality of the sound was excellent. I was able to hear the lady asking about the blank spaces in the images, for example. It is possible the accoustics in your meeting place were also better.

The meeting was ** very ** convenient. The NSS meeting starts precisely two hours before your's starts so GW and I were able to make the transition without missing anything in either venue.

Thanks again!

PS .. please try to register with the new test forum software! You can help the Admins to decide if it is worth while to invest the very considerable time that would be needed to upgrade from our existing (ancient) system to this up-to-the-minute package.

Please note that this is running in a virtual machine. What that means is that when you log in (after registering) is that the VM has to spin up a copy of the database software to service your connection. The result is that you get an error message saying that the database has gone away. Just refresh the browsers and answer Yes to the confirmation message asking if you want to resubmit. At that point the VM will load a copy of the database engine to take care of your requests until you sign off.

(th)

Oldfart1939 · 2024-04-13 21:47:08

I will make an effort to have the "lady asking questions" become a newmars forum member, as she's the President of the YVAA, and is a PA specializing in family medicine. She could help a lot with some of the health subjects in Mars colonization.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2024-04-13 21:48:22)

tahanson43206 · 2024-04-14 06:39:33

For OldFart1939 re the President of the YVAA...

Thanks for this generous thought ....

Did you ever "meet" Palomar? Her last visit was in 2011, and her last post was in 2008.

I guess not. You registered in 2016.

We have a few women in the membership history, but not many.

It would be good to round out the membership, if possible.

I got to "meet" Palomar when I was working on repair of the early posts, which was something SpaceNut requested.

She was ** very ** active for a number of years. I liked her writing style, and her personality as expressed through that writing.

(th)

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OldFart1939 Postings and YouTube Video Presentation(s)

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