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The waiting room is open at 58:18 UTC
The meeting is underway.
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We had a discussion underway of gyroscopes and fabrication of components for the large space vessel.
At about 20 minutes in the connection dropped.
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Meeting follow up....
kbd512 cleared the last little hurdle ... we now have FluxBB 1.15.12 ready for use.
Thank you to GW Johnson, Void and SpaceNut for helping by logging and confirming that the new systems looks and feels like the old one.
The difference is beneath the covers.... ** all ** the underlying software has been brought forward 10 years plus, from 2012 to 2024.
We hope and expect that the Internal Server errors we had been seeing will not reoccur.
Here is our plan of action:
We encourage ** all ** active members to log into the new system: http://newmars.con/new/
You will have one week to catch any bugs that might exist.
On Sunday next week, at precisely NOON SpaceNut time (New Hampshire) we will close logins on the old system and begin conversion.
The conversion process itself should take only a couple of hours but we are blocking off the entire rest of Sunday.
You will see the change when you attempt to log in and a message appears to the effect that logins are disabled.
I'll investigate to see if we can improve the message.
In any case, when the new system is up we will enable logins there.
In thinking a bit further, I can (and will) create a new topic you can check when we are working.
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The weekly meeting is in progress.... all are welcome.
We have something to celebrate.
Use the link at the top of this topic.
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I now have a roof with plywood and water shield.
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For SpaceNut re #229
Thanks for this terrific news!
kbd512 and I have good news as well.... the software we've been working on for over a year is now installed and working.
Thanks for being one of our first members to try it out. RobertDyck was on earlier.
For all... the weekly Google meeting is over .... kbd512 put in a *** long *** day.
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Today is Sunday and Google Meeting day for NewMars...
The plan is to open the waiting room just before 7 PM Houston time, 8 PM New Hampshire time, and 1 AM UTC.
We have gone a week without major (or any) problems with the new FluxBB package. That is something to celebrate.
There are little adjustments that might be made. Some debug code is still running. It is harmless but no longer needed.
It's main benefit is to confirm we really are running the new version.
kbd512 has offered to create a directory to hold files for images or text we are currently pulling from Dropbox or Imgur or other Cloud resources. This directory will be used with care. The mechanism for setting up a file so it can be served from the Mars Society servers is in need of planning. The Admins and Moderators should be able to handle the process, so PHP code will be needed.
The immediate feature I'd like to resume work on is the "like" feature. Signs of earlier work are visible at the bottom of each post, where the message about location of the button and likes report is visible.
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The waiting room is open. GW Johnson is here.
KT is under the table, and the two remaining chickens are out in the shed he built for them.
Update after meeting:
This was another interesting and productive meetings!
We spent some time on SpinLaunch, and branched into Space Tug.
We wrapped up with a brief business session, the outcome of which is that GW suggested the pdf file of his recent article about the ISS leaking tunnel.
That pdf is a copy of what was submitted to the Waco newspaper and published there in the print and digital editions.
kbd512 will create a directory for direct-serve files and we'll use the ISS Leak article as our first experiment.
kbd512 thinks (and is likely to be right) that it may be possible to serve the file as a link from the Mars Society server instead of Dropbox.
With any luck ( and if he has the time ) kbd512 will have this working sometime next week.
GW Johnson showed us an online demonstration of his skill in working with Microsoft Paint. In this case, he took a look at the idea of shaping the SpinLaunch projectile as a saucer instead of as a projectile.
The discussion branched a bit as we went along. There is a running debate about what kind of rocket should be used for acceleration of the projectile after it leaves the SpinLaunch rotating arm. One faction (led by kbd512) is in favor of liquid fuel, and there are a number of positive indicators for this approach. The other faction (led by tahanson43206) is in favor of solid fuel rockets due to their simplicity. GW Johnson spent some time on this a few months ago, and ended up with a three stage solid rocket system that would put 200 kg into orbit, which was the stated objective of the SpinLaunch project.
The reason for the three stages is the low ISP of solid fuel.
On the other hand, kbd512 showed that if the payload being carried to orbit is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, then those materials could be used to accomplish two valuable things at the same time: (a) cool the vehicle after it's hypersonic passage through the lower atmosphere and (b) propel the vehicle to LEO to dock with the orbital refueling station GW has been designing.
As a reminder for those who might read this post but not earlier ones about SpinLaunch, SpinLaunch has encountered difficulty finding a site for their big orbital facility. As near as I can tell from limited reporting that is available, it sounds as though the population near ** all ** the proposed launch sites does not want the facility anywhere near them. This is on top of the extreme technical difficulty of extending the swing arm system up in size to what is needed for the orbital version.
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It is Sunday and Google Meeting day for NewMars...
Present plans are to open the Waiting Room shortly before 1 AM UTC, 7 PM Houston, 8 PM New Hampshire
We have a lot going on these days, so we'll have a lot packed into the hour.
Business items might include:
1) Implementation of new directory for file and image service
2) Resume work on "Like" feature
3) Restore recent database backup to Azure
Technical items might include:
1) Chemical Space Tug status
2) Focused Solar Space Tug concept
Update: Here are links to recent posts by kbd512 that are pertinent to discussion of Focused Solar Propulsion
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 68#p228568
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 69#p228569
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 70#p228570
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 71#p228571
This set of four posts appears to describe a complete system. There may be a few details to add.
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The Google Waiting room is open
The business meeting was short. kbd512 has created a directory where we will (hopefully) eventually store files to be served to visitors.
The next step is to design a php script to allow the Moderators to place files in the directory. This will require a bit of research to figure out. Moderators can already make a selected number of changes to the database. This new capability would be a step above that, because it would involve storing files in the directory tree. Php scripts already create files in the directory tree, so I'm confident we can figure this out, but it will take some time.
The strategy we agreed upon is that kbd512 will inform me of the directory name he chose, and i will set that up in the Azure clone of our forum software. I'll be able to build the new capability in the clone and we can test it until it is safe to install in the production system.
***
The bulk of this evening's meeting was devoted to detailed discussion of kbd512's vision of a Focused Solar Propulsion system.
kbd512 published the essence of the idea in four posts in a related topic. Embedded within that four post series was identification of a lens designed to refract light in a way that produces a beam. kbd512's idea is to use the inverse of that, and he showed me examples of the idea used to deliver light into underground spaces. The technology is called 'tir" and Google has lots of data on it. See: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 70#p228570
In a follow up to the opening post by GW Johnson in the new Focused Solar Propulsion topic, kbd512 proposes multiple light gathering subsystems instead of one large one as shown by GW. The gathered light would be fed through optical fiber and delivered to an engine casing.
In the four post series, kbd512 shows how it is possible to increase thermal transfer efficiency by introducing turbulence/mixing into the flow of Hydrogen gas.
kbd512 also proposed use of a secondary heat transfer loop to further improve thermal transfer efficiency.
***
Along the way we compared and contrasted Newtonian and Cassegrain reflecting telescopes.
I had forgotten the distinction... The Newtonian design uses a secondary mirror to send photons out the side of the tube.
A Cassegrain design feeds photons through a hole at the bottom of the tube.
In this case, kdb512's design would be using the Cassegrain configuration.
***
We discussed the area of light collection equipment. It appears that the area would be on the order of three American football fields in size, or approximately the size of the footprint of the entire stadium. The actual figures were (on the order of) 180 meters square.
This size of solar collection area would produce just under a ton of thrust by consuming one kilogram of hydrogen per second.
The mass of the system is to be determined.
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For kbd512 ....
I came up with a length of 200 kilometers for a stack of systems each of which produces 900 kg of thrust at the rate of 1 kg of hydrogen per second per segment.
200 kilometers is possible in space. The required number of 900 kg units would simply be bolted together to produce the required thrust.
I think you might be able to demonstrate the 900 kg unit in LEO, with a modest level of support.
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Today is Sunday and it is Google Meeting day for NewMars...
The Waiting Room will open (if all goes well) at 1 AM UTC, 7 PM Houston and 8 PM New Hampshire.
For business items we have identification of the name of the new directory where files are to be stored for member display.
This information will feed into the test environment on Azure.
For discussion we have multiple items:
1) New space plane post by PhotonBytes
2) Ongoing Space Tug work by GW Johnson
3) kbd512 work on Optical Energy Collection via flat plane structure
4) Void identification of wind energy potential on Venus
Others as they come up
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The waiting room is open.
Post meeting round up...
from my perspective, that was another rewarding meeting...
kbd512 was in fine form again, and the range of topics covered was wide and deep.
Of note: The directory where files are to be stored has a name: forum_user_file_uploads
This is helpful because I can now begin construction of the needed software on my home development PC, and on the Azure system.
Item: We investigated the behavior of the search system. It is working but results were different than we expected. kbd512 reset the system cache as an experiment to see if the issue we saw corrects itself.
Item: The most recent post(s) by kbd512 consider the difference in air pressure at various altitudes on Venus as compared to Earth.
The discussion included the physics of how the Trompe systems that Calliban described work. What is known is that air injected into a stream of falling water is compressed by the water as the two descend a pipe under the influence of gravity. What kbd512 brought to the discussion is the idea that the pressure of the air at the top of the water fall is less than it is at the bottom. However, the compression by falling water is (apparently) greater than the compression caused by altitude. This is another of many examples of discussions that would be greatly improved if numbers were available.
Item: fiber optical cable
This is where most of our time was invested. The working hypothesis is that it might be possible to design a physical device able to replicate the light gathering function of the devices kbd512 has already shown us in the Focus Solar topic. The working examples are physically large devices (hand sized, for example). What is if interest is a device a millimeter in diameter, able to collect photons that enter it's Sun facing port, and to redirect those photons down a fiber optic cable that is itself a millimeter in diameter. There is a limit to the number of lumina that a given fiber can carry, but I am guessing that the number of photons that impinge upon a surface 1 millimeter wide and 100 meters long is less than whatever that limit might be.
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