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This topic is opened 2025/08/01, to welcome a new member of the Mars Society.
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This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members.
Index:
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This is a test post from the new offtherock account. The post is by Admin/Moderator to confirm the account is working. (th)
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I am happy to report that offtherock was able to log into his new account and change the password! I'll be attempting to assist with learning how to use the forum software. There is a lot to learn. Everyone still active in the forum is welcome to assist.
One thing that might be helpful is to suggest posts you've written that you think are a good introduction to your contributions to the life of the forum. Some members have written thousands of posts so it won't be easy to make a selection, but please try it anyway.
If anyone has a suggestion for how to begin using the forum software please suggest something.
For offtherock, here is my opening suggestion:
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=1#p1
Click on the link above and you will see the very first post in the forum. I have read or looked at very message in the forum through the end of the Great Crash, in the course of doing repair work requested by Senior Administrator SpaceNut. Our Junior Administrator is kbd512. Our Senior Moderator is RobertDyck.
You can look up authors by ID in the User list.
Palomar is (was) our most prolific female member. We have other notable female members as well, although it is not easy to tell in the ordinary flow of conversation.
You can look up subjects of interest using the Search tool. Just put a word into the Search tool and click Submit. You can refine the search by changing the settings. Results are displayed by default as topics that contain the word you entered. If you want to see the posts, you can adjust the box that says "topics" to say "posts".
There are a myriad of other tips to learn, if you are not familiar with forum software.
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Hopefully offthe rock will stop by soon to make a post, also welcome to NewMars....
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For offtherock....
Please reply to this post.
We are looking for active members who will contribute to the life of the forum.
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Recruiting High Value members for NewMars.com/forums, in association with the Mars Society
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Thank u for the welcome, yes, its nice to be here. I can confirm the account seems to be working from my site and I will be looking at this site more in the near future.
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For offtherock re post in Void's topic on oil...
It is good to your contribution, and you have chosen a topic which has some energy (pun intended) so I'm looking forward to seeing how our members respond.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 86#p233286
As a reminder, you can see the very first post in the forum by clicking this link:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=1#p1
You can see the early posts by any of our authors by selecting the User Name from the User List and then Submit
The list you will see will be of the Username you have chosen, so click on that and details will become available
You can select Show all posts or Show all topics
If you Show all posts, they will be collected for you in descending order by date. If you want to see the very first post by that author, click on the rightmost page in the iist of Pages.
In the case of Tom Kalbfus, his first post was in 2006:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 119#p91119
The question of how the people of Mars should govern themselves has been a topic of great interest from the earliest days of the forum.
The example of difficulties Earth residents are having shows how difficult it is going to be for humans who settle ** any ** location to govern themselves.
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For offtherock regarding AI ....
Just FYI .... we have a topic devoted to ChatGPT....
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=10431
We have another that is focused upon the Google competitor, Gemini.
I have been working with both systems, and have the paid version of ChatGPT on hand.
Both have advanced to an astonishing degree over the period documented in the topics.
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For offtherock ... speaking of AI, here is a link to a post by Gemini, about your discussion of solar panels with kbd512.
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 83#p233383
What I see in this exchange is an opportunity to find support for the exponential growth thesis for solar panels.
In order for exponential growth to continue, the materials needed to make solar panels must become available. Some research would be needed to find out where the bottlenecks might be, and i'm sure there must be some.
Update afternoon New Hampshire time ... offtherock wrote NewMarsmember to say that he is planning to reply to kbd512's post about metals for solar panels Sunday. From previous hints, I get the impression that offtherock is working some crazy hours.
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For offtherock...
Thanks for this post: http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 22#p233422
Could you ask ChatGPT to find the names and locations of the companies?
And! Did you notice Void's discovery of a report of sustitution of carbon for copper in electric motors? This was not ordinary carbon such as used in arc lamps. This is a special formulation using carbon nanotubes.
I'd be interested in seeing more detail about that discovery, such as current carrying capabilities and resistance vs conductance.
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https://chatgpt.com/share/6898cb67-1044 … c9a2d127e6
Yes its a bit technical for me. I loose track a bit.
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Offtherock:
Welcome to the forums!!
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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For offtherock re post in Oil topic...
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 42#p233542
Thanks for some interesting questions and observations.
it may take a while for folks to get around to responding.
In the mean time, if you are up for a bit of reading, I just posted a series on solar power, in the Solar Power topic Louis created years ago.
It appears that India has made great strides in manufacturing capacity.
Elsewhere recently we have a report that copper mining operations are coming online world wide.
Elsewhere we have a report that carbon nanotubes mixed with copper can increase current carrying capacity of copper 100 times. however, carbon nano tubes are currently very expensive but hopefully that will change over time.
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For offtherock re email ...
Thanks for writing today with a glimpse of your interest in space from childhood! I am planning to reply via email, but I'm hoping you might be willing to consider offering the same or perhaps a similar glimpse to our members. Because this is a public network with global access, members are cautious about providing personal information. However, the personal information you provided in your email seems (to me at least) to be potentially of interest to our members, and one or two of them might be willing to respond with glimpses of their own.
Your question about how I became interested in space caused a memory of a relative giving me a copy of Willy Ley's artwork, probably in support of Wernher von Braun's vision. However, black and white TV became available at some point, so news of the US and Soviet space competition became a part of the news cycle.
I think our members would be interested in the book you described. It might even be available online these days, thanks to Google's online library project.
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For offtherock re upcoming Google Meeting....
The Google Meetings are held every Sunday evening at midnight UTC. That is a difficult hour for our European members. We can move to an earlier time if we ever get a request, but despite many invitations we have yet to hear from a member who lives outside the US.
If the hour is not too late for you (which it may well be if you are working as many hours as your brief comments suggest) you are welcome to join the meeting. We usually have a couple of Admins present, and when we are lucky a member or two may participate.
Meetings tend to be on the technical side. When kbd512 is in top form, we are likely to take deep dives into topics that are of current interest, using the share feature of Google Meeting to look at web sites kdb512 finds.
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i have such erratic work schedule, most of the time it will not suit but once in a blue moon it all aligns right and i can show up. i dont get it is it a zoom meeting? and where would i sign up for it or attend it?
Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-17 03:59:58)
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For offtherock re Post #17
Thanks for asking about the Google Meeting...
Google Meeting is similar to Zoom Meeting, and your browser can handle both
You can practice the setup before a meeting, and I encourage you to do so...
To find the link to the Google Meeting, use the Search tool to find the Google Meeting topic:
In the Search window, put "Google and Collaboration"
In the "Search in" window select "Topic subject only"
Press Enter
You will see two topics ... Select the one for meetings
Note: Select the title of the topic at the left. Do not select Science, Technology, and Astronomy or the Last post.
When you select the topic title, you will see a post from 2023-10-22. This post contains the link to the Google Meeting waiting room.
The Waiting Room is always available for you to test your camera and microphone.
When we schedule a meeting, the host will monitor the Waiting Room and admit guests as they arrive.
Please note that you can schedule a meeting by requesting one by placing a request in the Google Meet Collaboration topic. At this point I am the only Admin taking care of this, so I'll be the one who responds.
At some point it may be possible to increase the number of Admins who can host a meeting.
Please try the link and let us know your experience and observations, using this topic.
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For offtherock re new post in Oil...
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 09#p233609
Thanks for this interesting post! As a possible improvement, please edit the post to include a brief line about why anyone would want to follow the YouTube link? We are all busy and have limited time. We may not have time for a YouTube that is not directly relevant to something we are interested in.
Thank you for summarizing the conversation with ChatGPT. Most of us will be content with your summary. Few will have time to go read the chat itself unless there is a reason to do so.
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Thanks i updated the post significantly.
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For offtherock re Python program to calculate Air Capture above gas gun launcher...
It is good to know that you have downloaded one of the programs offered in the Python topic, and that you were able to run it on your equipment. Here is the latest version of a Python program designed to investigate the commercial possibility of capturing air above a gas gun launcher. It turns out that only a fraction of the mass above the launcher can be captured, but capture of that fraction makes a remarkable difference in the performance of the system. In this latest version, Gemini and I are adding a feature to allow specification of the amount of water in the air above the launcher. Please note that the "doors" option is ** off ** by default. When you run with the doors open, the collected gas escapes and pushes against the momentum of the projectile. With the door closed, the collected mass is added to the momentum of the projectile, and it is able to fly much higher. All such projectiles ** must ** include a solid fuel motor to circularize the ellipse of the launch orbit.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 80#p233680
If you are able to run this program, please provide feedback. I run the program on a different computer than the one where development is carried out, and the forum provides a convenient staging area for the versions.
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For offtherock re Canvas
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 42#p233742
Thank you for your post, with additional information about how you've used the toolset.
We have folks who are engaged in rocket engineering projects, as well as members who are reporting on interesting projects that are a bit more habitat related than travel.
My guess is that everyone would like ot be able to present their work in ways that communicate effectively.
It may take a while before the existing members figure out how to use the capabilities you have shown us.
If you have an interest in helping with any of the projects, I'd expect most folks would welcome support.
Members whose active projects come to mind at the top level include (not in any order - just as I remember them)...
GW Johnson has written extensively about a wide variety of transportation solutions and exploration missions.
Oldfart1939 started a series on design of a 17 person mission to explore Mars. This was a project that stalled out but which could resume at any time.
Void has created a great number of interesting scenarios to consider but both near and far future.
kbd512 has written on a wide variety of subjects, and created visions of several transport systems.
The list of contributors is far longer and goes back 20+ years, so I'll close here.
As you study the range of offerings, there may be one that you'd really like to see advance.
I might be able to assist in some way as we go along. Some members are not comfortable with new fangled computers, so a bit of assistance will be required.
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Yes the modern computer world.
Its a clusterfuck.
And complexity is.. bad.
And we have a lot of complexity.
And this complexity, just, grows.
Its really hard to keep it down.
Keeping the complexity down is one of the most important qualities.
To keep the complexity down, we often need to, work in ways which appear inefficient to capitalists.
Because we need to truly understand what we are doing.
Its important to understand,
how little we understand about the world.
Even though one has studied for years and decades.
The world is still almost entirely just a mystery.
I may have understood some canvas stuff over there.
But what you guys are working on,
im almost not exaggerating when I say its just a black box to me.
Not qualified to evaluate it or anything like that.
Im a little bit in darkness as to how it all works here.
But my guess is it would be worthwhile for this community to have a raspberry pi.
With an nginx setup.
And some canvas.
Then Im not quite sure how it would be best to proceed from there.
Feedback appreciated.
But my thinking is you guys are, often,
displaying some objects in some world.
The way I think it,
is that, we have a world.
And in this world,
there are objects.
This is the problem with assumptions.
They are usually wrong down the road.
Like now, not everything is an object.
But still,
if we assume everything is an object.
And we have a world of objects.
And each object, is of a type.
Could be for instance, rectangle, ball, triangle, car, human...
list goes on.
And then we have a class for each type of object.
And as we, in every frame, go through all of those obejcts that exist in this world.
We want to render each object.
And we make an instance of the class to which that object belongs.
And draw that object accordingly.
Then there is behaviour of those objects.
And its here that, i dont really know how to make those objects behave.
Feedback would be appreciated i think a discussion would be a good thing.
Im not even sure if we should do this at all.
And if we should, then how.
Lots of darkness.
I made a computer game once, never finished it but u can see it here:
https://openage.org/tank_fight/index.html
a tank is an object,
bullet is an object which gets created when u press fire.
and a bullet has behaviour which gets implement in each frame.
So does a tank
and a turret.
always a class and an instance of that.
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For offtherock.... This place (topic) is good for as wide ranging topics as you want to discuss. Thank you for post #39.
Thank you for the link to an example of an unfinished but still partially working computer game.
The kind of thing I am hoping to offer as an opportunity for your talents is the work of GW Johnson in design of a complete fleet of rockets and space transportation systems for every conceivable application. Dr. Johnson works with the modern equivalent of slide rules. His work is supported by beautifully rendered 2D drawings, and he has gotten a long way with those and text to support them, and the equations to support them. If you were to decide one of those projects is worth showing in a modern form with accurate animation, I expect he'd be pleased.
If you are interested in planning a space flight for recreation or for business purposes, Dr. Johnson offers a complete course to get you started. I've been waiting literally ** years ** for someone to come along who is interested in learning to use GMAT to plot actual flights. Dr. Johnson's course can be found by putting the word "traditional" into the search window, and topics as the search field. Your feedback on the course would be valuable, because no one has provided feedback, despite outreach efforts of various kinds. This ** is ** rocket science, but Dr. Johnson tries as hard as humanly possible to bring the student along.
I expect it would take you a year of study and interaction with Dr. Johnson and others before you are ready for GMAT, but your computer skills would make using that tool easy, once you have the knowledge of celestial mechanics to understand what the program is doing.
Update after looking at the game: Good start! The controls seem to work as advertised. No one get's hurt despite the mayhem. That might be a metaphor?
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Nah that was just lack of time.
If i had the time i would have put like, massive destruction in there.
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