New Mars Forums

As it happens Asterofuturism just came out with a video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p230vGS … ROFUTURISM Quote:

There is quite a bit of good information in this one.

Using Iron Pyrites apparently was a trick of the Inca's in their stone work.  But the article indicates that Sulfur will be in relatively short supply on the Moon.  (Not so for Mars).

I have thought that perhaps Iron wool could be used between cast blocks of Basalt.  I would expect that might be possible to melt the Iron wool using a coil to induce strong eddy currents in the Iron.  It is possible that this might help to bond the blocks.  Perhaps a surface preparation of the blocks to give a texture, could make that more effective.

Using Iron Pyrites apparently was a trick of the Inca's in their stone work.  But the article indicates that Sulfur will be in relatively short supply on the Moon.  (Not so for Mars).

I am also encouraged in the video of statements of desire to move Lunar Oxygen to LEO to support a space effort.

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This video annoys me for the sort of sing-song of the dialog.  I don't know how correct it is but it gives an opinion on the problems of #7, #8, #9 each individual.  For the #7-Harmonics, #8-hardware/engine failure, *9-Tank Leaks.  (Ship Problems).

For the Superheavy, they intentionally pushed it to failure.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE
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The Superheavy, if it could survive the test profile, could save propellants, it is said.  So, I guess if they can modify Superheavy to survive the new flight profile, it may be worth it in the long run.  I believe that Raptors #3 are going to be actively cooled, so maybe they will be more tolerant of the new method.

I have recently read that Starship now is intended to be able to lift 200 Tons to LEO, if fully reusable.  And if fully expendable, then 400 Tons to LEO.

I wonder if partially expendable, (Recover Superheavy, expend Starship) can do 300 or 350 Tons?  If a ship was to be expendable, then it would not have the heat shield, or flaps and motors.  A Starship shell in orbit "Expended" could still have value in orbits, I feel.  It could be refilled and used as a booster for another Starship to go to a very far destination.  Or it might be scrapped in orbit, to make things, or to provide propellants for Neuman Drive or Magdrive.

I am not sure I trust the predictions for #10, #11, and #12, but I suppose some parts might happen.

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As requested by (th)(https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 51#p231951) in "Void Postings": https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 50#p231950
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This is a deviation from Humanoid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA_tCoE … LACARWORLD
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A quadruped?

I see utility for it on the Moon and Mars, as for outdoor, in spaces not so much designed for humans.

But I am interested in a Centaur: https://civitai.com/models/138772/rpgcentaur
Image quote:

But this is Spot, partway there: https://robotsguide.com/robots/spot
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You would not want a full sized centaur, for inside your house, but maybe if they can miniaturize some kind of hand/grasper, they could make a Mini-Centaur.

I do understand that Tesla has its hands completely full with Cars, Optimus, and now a dog robot, but somewhere down the line.

I think that such a robot could be quite useful on the Moon or Mars.  It could have a toolbox on top of its saddle.  Plus it could have more battery than a humanoid.  The torso might be built so that it could turn almost 180 degrees at the waist, so that it could access its tool box.

If you had a nuclear reactor, and some kind of a protective tent, these things, might make it OK to get some work done on Mars.

For the Moon, I imagine adding an umbrella with solar cells, so that it could operate throughout most of the Lunar Day.

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I think that evaporative ice mining may be of significant value, compared to working with liquids and so much with solids.

This is intended to convey methods, it should not be considered proportional to actual relative sizes.  However the idea of evaporating a pit, and landing a ship into it, is demonstrated.

Of course the dome and the other items have to be moved out of the way for the landing, but might be brought back after that.

Keeping the ice stable after that may require reducing the amount of sunlight that can enter the dome.  As it happens Mars will try to do that with dust anyway.

It can be obvious that on average the base of the ship will have the most radiation protection from this, both GCR and Solar.  But of course their may be times of day where solar may be more a danger if for instance some kind of a solar eruption.  In that case you might seek a better shelter.

The ship will also be thermally buffered in a hole under a dome.

The nuclear itself might be put into an evaporation hole of its own, to protect the ship, and perhaps moved a bit elsewhere.

It is possible that a great deal of setup could be done prior to a ship landing.

While landing precisely in a hole from space, seems too demanding to me, I would suggest that if the ship could land, disgorge its equipment, and be partially refilled, then the site prep could be done and then the ship activated to do a hop.  Hops were done with early starship using raptor #1, so I do not think that is too demanding.

A big hope would be that this could be done by a collection of Optimus-Like and other types of robotic equipment.

I know it is not going to be popular, but I suggest again a side landing ship.  I am pushing my luck but I will suggest again that it not have movable flaps, but rather a "Flange" all around its long perimeter, to expand its air braking footprint.

This is the idea:

So, I don't think that flaps are going to be that effective for Mars anyway, and I suggest that perhaps thrusters on the leeward side could be able to maintain the angled-horizontal presentation of side #2's heat shield to the atmospheric burn.

By having a larger surface area than that of the ship itself only, I hope to get a better braking effect to slow to a lower terminal velocity prior to landing, thus hoping to reduce the amount of propellants needed for landing.

Of course, if the thrusters are to orient the craft during passage through the atmosphere to landing, then those will consume more of the propellants.

But, you would not have the weight of the flap motors, or the power system to run them.

I am not thinking of carrying cargo in a ship like this.  It is the cargo, so you could justify the weight of the flange and the legs by the idea that you skipped carrying 200 tons of Cargo.

After the aero burn the ship will have to rotate 180 degrees to present the thrusters and landing gear to the ground. and I don't know it could endure the forces imposed by doing that.

About terminal velocity.  (I am hoping to cut it in half with the flange):
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So, you would do the 180-degrees roll somewhat high in the atmosphere, so the air density would not be as much as on the ground.  On the ground saying the air density if 1% that of Earth is being generous.

So, I am hoping that the ship could survive the 180-degree roll because the air is so thin.

As for the flanged ship being pushed to LEO though Earths atmosphere, I am hoping that it could be streamlined enough that it could be done.  Landing gear and reinforcement structure could be added in LEO, I hope.

My notion is that this would only need a one-time heat shield as you would not be flying it again from Mars.

Here again you might do a crude landing and then be partly refilled and then hop into a evaporation pit, to be then in a buffered environment, where radiation and thermal issues are reduced.

Post landing you could have some choices:
1) Remove the flange for another material use.
2) Put water bags over the horizontal craft to freeze and be further radiation protection.

A horizontal landing then avoids the need to tip the ship over and put braces under it.

As for the thrusters, Rocket Lab and Relativity Space will have smaller engines that are Metha-Lox, that might work.
And SpaceX has notions for special engines to land on the Moon.

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This goes into a lot of detail about this topic and also some about synthetic labor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTH7RRj … ithHerbert  Quote:

This gives me an opportunity to unload some stuff from the Attic of my mind.

Among this are stirring, heating, splitting, and collecting.

A scheme I have in mind that I do not have 100% certainty on is distillation of water on the floor of an ocean.

I read that Optimus might be able to work underwater to about 10 bar level.  (This is having a lot of uncertainty).  This then opens some continental shelf, and some lake bottoms.

If you have a tank of 10 bar atmosphere, with a pool of warm water in it, and in cold water deeper, and we circulate the 10 bar air, we may hope to condense, fresh water in the interior top of the tank.  We may want to have fans to circulate the "Air" rather vigorously.

Unlike vacuum distillation this is evaporation and condensation in a body of gases that might convey more moisture due to the thick nature of the air within.

In my dream world we could make these tanks out of Carbon.  If so, we will need to anticipate microbes that will evolve to eat it so we may want to perhaps cover the Carbon walls, to keep Oxygen away.  (Carbon eating microbes will perhaps not be too much of a problem for a while).

So, I feel that this process is capable of consuming lots of superpower, in various ways and we hope to provide strong economic value: https://superinnovators.com/2024/08/wor … s-99-tons/  Quote:

So, now we have a market for our Hydrocarbons.  If we pull the Hydrogen off, we might make Carbon objects we can submerge under water.

You may heat the water in the tank by several methods.  Electric Heat Pump?  Electric Heater, Pulling Tropical Surface Water pumped into the bottom of the submerged tank.

The cold of the water on the Continental Shelf, a certain distance down will serve to drive a condensation process that will dry the "Air" interior to the tank, and so then will promote evaporation from the surface of the warm water in the bottom of the tank.  I will make a diagram.

Pause..............

So, for the gasses in the tank, we might want to avoid explosions or burning, so to limit the Oxygen.  We might store Hydrogen or CO2 in them.

Of the choices, I suggest Hydrogen/Nitrogen, and to introduce some CO2, and maybe Air.
As the water is to be warm at least we might grow things in the water that consume the gasses.

In doing this we may be doing a bit of Stirring.  If we heat the water inside the pool inside the tank and water evaporates and the condenses on the cold tank wall, then the cold water is made more warm, and so then may rise, and may carry nutrients with it.  This may make the seas more fertile at those locations.

We might do this in lakes as well for instance Lake Erie,  it is rather shallow, but the water might not be that clean.

Dealing with interior salt lakes:  Great Salt Lake, Dead Sea, Aral Sea, Salton Sea, Caspian Sea.

As for the Great Salt Lake, heating may cause the lake itself to evaporate more.  But if you put solar panels over it, it may inhibit evaporation.  So, then you may be able to cause the lake to expand, if you reduce evaporation.

Salton Sea, same thing more or less, make it swell.  If California had any brains actually, they would route more water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sea.

Because if you did the Carbon Tank thing off the arid coastal areas of California, you might get quite a product of water and also produced biomass.  You might be able to shut off the Aqueducts, and reroute the water.

Thankfully there are other salt lakes on the planet so that our "Green Tards" will not be able to stop the research.

Sorry, but I group the liberals in to the royal thinkers.  Just look at Carbon Trading/ Carbon Taxes.  They are simply trying to elevate themselves to the elite and to reduce common people to peasants whose resources will "Wisely" be metered, until they will be happy to pay with their "Worthless" lives to kiss the heal that crushes their mouth.

The "Green Tards" are the ones who bite the hand that feeds them.

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Why am I so brutal?

Well these "Green Tards" want to ring the alarm bells to have their butts wiped for them but they will not fix anything.

Of course I am annoyed.

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I have what I consider to be good news on batteries for Mars: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 77#p231877
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So, with some protection and perhaps on necessity battery heaters, robots might do pretty good on Mars.

It is being proposed to send some Optimus Robots to Mars, some prior to human arrival.

And I think I have something that they could do.  Please take a look and consider:

I do provide for some nuclear power so that the robots can charge up again.

We will however hope to exploit solar power as well that is intermittent.

The soil has been removed from part of an ice slab, and a solar dome put over that.  We are hoping to promote the evaporation of ice to create an ice cave.  At the same time, we intend to suck the moisture out of the air inside of the dome and port it into a condensation bag with enough pressure to allow for the storage of water ice.  This could be relatively clean ice, I hope, as it is a sort of distillation process.  Of course we do not want to get dust into it.

While sunshine may promote evaporation, we might also use fans, and a radiative heater to influence where the ice melts.

I suppose that you might go so far as to also include a greenhouse to grow some kind of food, but I want to get the parts in current illustration figured out.

With the ice cave we are starting to provide a radiation shelter, and also some protection from thermal extremes of cold.

When the humans arrive, considerable assets might have been set up before them.

This probably offers improved chances of success/survival.

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It is always possible that I do not understand correctly.  It seems to have been said that for most of its orbit, the object could not have been detected from Earth with current technology.  So, that suggests to me that there could be an enormous amount of objects, similar that are not currently observable.  But that is not certain at all, it is a maybe at best.

I have on occasion tried to think of a solid radiator.  The solid would be first cooled by radiation into the universe, but then would cool a secondary device by contact and conduction.

I do not feel that I can yet offer a potentially practical solution yet.

Obviously, a pile of metal dice on the Moon, could be "Flowed" into a machine and presented to a flat surface to convey their low vibration state onto the plate, then sent back out to the Moons surface to cool again.

Selective magnetism might be helpful, perhaps the dice could be ceramic but with some magnetite inside of them.  To do this vacuum welding has to be avoided.

This brings questions about vacuum gap and conduction.  Does heat flow into the "Die", only through physical transfer of vibrating molecule to molecule, or is there a radiation transfer across a very small gap?

Will the photons flow from the hot plate to the "Die" because of the proximity of the cold "Die", or must molecular vibration atom to atom be the only way of transfer?

If you have an opinion, I am interested.

Lets go the other way and consider hot marbles.  If they are heated, then we cannot use magnetism, most likely as it would be above the curie point.

We could use gravity or synthetic gravity though, I think.

Can we heat up our marbles in a device, such as a solar concentrator and "Flow" them into a storage area?

Here, if we then "Flow" them to a boiler, contact will transfer some heat, but photons from the hot marbles will transfer quite a bit more.

It is not that I think I have a practical machine yet, but a means to visualize some questions.

But I am interested.  Technically in microgravity it might be possible to magnetically manipulate the "Dice", to be exposed to the universe to cool, for instance if they heated above the curie point they could be ejected outwards, but upon cooling a magnetic field might suck them back towards the radiator, to make contact.

Again I do not propose that I have created a practical machine, but a set of questions instead.

Isaac Arthur seems to think that Mirrors will work for solar power even in the Kuiper Belt.  I would have supposed out to Saturn.  If we have fusion or solar, then we may want good radiator method.

A somewhat metal disc might do as well, if the radiator could move on it, and clamp the condenser to the surface, by a force, such as magnetism.

It might be that a practical machine will be created some day.

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Perhaps a solid ring of material which the condenser could physically embrace the small circumference of for the promotion of physical contact.  And still I wonder if close proximity promotes faster photon transfer of energy across a very small vacuum gap, or if vibrations must transfer molecule to molecule by touch.

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Two posts back #77, I mentioned growing alpine plants, in what essentially would be a radiator/water condenser on the surface of Mars.

Obviously, Algae and Cyanobacteria might do very well also for that. 

And you could grow mushrooms on the organic materials created.

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This is worth watching, I feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC8-fxQ … l=RethinkX  Quote:

They mentioned a notion of using heat from a data center to help do precision fermentation.

They kind of suggested a decision tree of sorts.  With a weather forecast, you might rate how the sunshine of the next day will feed energy into your system.  If it looks good for tomorrow, then you can consume more of the power in your battery system.  If tomorrow is not too promising, then you conserve your battery power.

This feeds into a system I would like to describe.

This system may draw on several power sources, but I add a new one that I don't think has been factored in very much .
The temperature difference between day and night.  This will very likely work best in arid areas with clear night skies being common.

Post #21 could be considered as prior reference materials to some extent: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 13#p231013
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So, a sort of decision tree could exist for this due to weather forecasts.  Normally we don't get magic wishes, but in this case maybe we can.  You know what the Relative Humidity will be tonight.  You know what the low temperatures will be.  So, based on that you can draw air though the ice-water of the circular canal to catch moisture into it and also CO2.  But you would further judge if to do that, depending on the forecast for tomorrow for solar energy, and the battery levels you have.

In a similar manner you may run the heat pump, that makes ice water, and could dump heat into the exhaust air, if you do decide to collect CO2 and water.

So, you would use battery power to collect CO2, moisture, and cold from the night air, if it is considered a good investment to drain part of the power in the batteries.

On the other hand if the situation is not optimal for getting CO2, moisture, and cold from the night air, you might make Hydrogen instead, or just conserve battery power.  During periods when you did have daytime superpower you could make these same evaluations as well.

Then you might mate these processes with the idea of running a data center, and using the waste heat for precision fermentation, as you have then collected CO2, Hydrogen, and moisture for it.

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This video that is a bit old, has several useful bits of information in it: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … 38a92e6a8c  Quote:

1) Thin frost on many volcanoes, 1/100th of a mm or the thickness of a human hair.  I mention this as it might be possible for a robotic system to vacuum up enough water for human settlements.

2) The polar ice does not seem to flow.  This is important because if humans and robots were to make vaults in the ice, unlike many Earth glaciers, the ice will not flow, which is probably a good thing.

3) He indicates that lava tubes are probably not a very good possibility on Mars.  I don't really understand why, but it is good to know what is real.

4) Impactors will be some level of concern on Mars, so undersurface may be helpful.

It has been claimed in the previous post materials that the surface materials of Ceres do not flow very much as apparently dirty ice tends not to flow as much as clean ice.

Again, from the prior post and post #57:

I have suggested a robot room temperature of -10 degrees C which can be temporarily compatible with humans having the proper clothing and other needed life support gear.  Probably some sort of battery may work at those temperatures, but in the end, if needed you could have a battery heater.  It might be that robots may often hibernate in times of power depravation.  (Dust Storm, Polar Winter).  Of course, if you had some type of nuclear then solar would not matter as much.

I have an idea about a minimum solar powered life cultivation.  This could be tied into shedding waste heat in the ice tunnels as necessary or also the same for tunnels in soft rock.

This claim might be partly trustworthy, I think: https://www.newsweek.com/desert-moss-su … nt-1918887  Quote:

In the drawing above a surface building could be a very low pressurization greenhouse.  Offering some improvement on the raw Martian environment.  But it would also be important in water recycling.  If you wanted to use water evaporation as a coolant to get rid of excess heat in your underground facilities, then you could do that, and if the greenhouse was not too leaky, then at least in nighttime this would heat the greenhouse a bit, and also condense water out as ice and maybe even liquid, if you had a sufficient pressurization in the greenhouse.  This would irrigate any plants you were trying to grow.  And with pressurization, daytime thawing might yield, liquid water flows.

There may be other plants capable of enduring such a night freeze and day thaw environment.

So, you could recycle the cooling water to some extent.  Some leakage would be expected, so you probably would be extending the tunnels in ice all the time to provide "Make-Up" water.

Here is a query that may have value: "Alpine plants that endure daily freezing"

Here is a general response: https://www.bing.com/search?q=Alpine+pl … c0&pc=DCTS

Here is one particular response: https://rarest.org/nature/beautiful-alp … h-climates  Quote:

So, if we are going to have our industrial robots in under ice/underground industrial factories, heat is going to build up.
To be rid of it, water can absorb the heat though heat pump methods, and the water could be pumped to a surface greenhouse and vented to boil.  While the greenhouses will inevitably leak some water vapor, we will probably be able to replace that water by melting more ice tubes, for robots to work in.  So with that waste heat, perhaps preferential vented at night, you then cool the undergrounds and buffer the level of deep cold of the Martian nighttime in a greenhouse.

Of course, using liquid water in the cold environment of Mars, then requires that you have methods to keep pipes from freezing and bursting.  In the mines, if the flow of slurry shut down, we used to drain the pipes, so that pipe damage would be prevented.

While Alpine plants are not food crops, I suggest that with some forms of selective breeding and even some GMO, these might be modified to grow happily in such "Radiator/Greenhouses".

In making machines, it is important to ask the question, "Does it serve us or do we serve it?"

In choosing to adapt to Mars and meet it "Halfway", we may be more likely to get service from machines rather than to have to baby the machines, and bear such a burden.

There are Ice bodies near the Equator, which may be suitable.  We don't know that yet though.

However, at a higher latitude we have this one the size of Texas and California: https://www.space.com/30502-mars-giant- … y-mro.html  Quote:

For comparison, the latitude of southern Spain is about 38 degrees.  So Mars having a similar tilt solar energy would be similar to that except attenuated by distance from the sun, and also the problem of dust storms.

But there could be sunlight in the winter, worth harvesting.  But also the ability to hibernate much of the robot community may be a good option to have in times where solar power is blocked.

So, the tricks learned for Mars, might eventually be applied in part to other worlds believed to be icy such as Ceres, and Callisto.

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To go a bit further:

I am presuming that at least in places, pools of fine dust exist, such as in old craters. 

Starship is the model I am thinking to work with or ships like it: https://marspedia.org/Phobos
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So, to start the "Castle" I am hoping to "Swim" ships into the dust layer.  The rocket engines at the tail firing, and a small pushing of a gas out of the nose.  Between the gas and the vibrations of the engines firing, I am hoping for a fluidization of the dust layer, but it will need a gentle touch, or the dust will be blown away.

Perhaps multiple instances of this.  Further anchoring methods might include the use of electrostatic or magnetic forces.

At some point robotic arms attached on expandable tracks (Nod to Calliban), the collection of fine regolith, some ships might be filled with it, to gather more weight.

The "Sanctuary" might start with a orbital Starship collection.  At least two ships.  A cube would have 12, so we could pretend we are borg, as in Sci-Fi.  But I like better 9 used to make a double tetrahedron.

Tetrahedron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron
Image Quote:   Here you can visualize a triangle of 3 Starships, and an apex rising towards you approximately, of another 3 ships.  Then imagine an mirror apex of 3 more, that points from the triangle base away from you.

Wrap it in a tent, of selected albedo/color.  This may reduce thermal stresses on the Starship walls.  It also may serve as a bit of a micrometeors protection as tiny ones may explode before hitting the ship walls.

Two methods of extended radiation shielding come to mind.  In one, we have bags of regolith that we wrap around the areas that we select for radiation storm shelters.

The 2nd one may involve pools of water.

This image is to indicate methods, it is not an engineering drawing:

The regolith provides some protection, but in radiation storms from the sun, the humans may need to get into the "Gym" inside of a diving bell inside of a pool of water, to escape severe damage.

The water can come from ???  Earth? Moon? Mars? or Oxygen from Phobos or Deimos and Ammonia from Mars.  Reacting Ammonia with regolith may produce water and Nitrogen both having value in such a "Sanctuary".

The sanctuary ships could be spun to give synthetic gravity.

Over time the "Sanctuary" itself could be built up into a solar power plant that could beam power to the "Castle".
In bulking up with shielding materials, the need to jump into diving bells in water pockets will be reduced.  Eventually to zero, it is hopes when the ships are docked with the "Sanctuary".

So, the "Sanctuary" and "Castle" will be built up over time to each provide protection from the harshness of space.

At first it will be too dangerous to have a spin gravity device in the "Castle".  Something like a unbalanced washing machine marching across the laundry room floor.  But in time as the "Castle" is bulked up, and perhaps anchored to big slabs of rock, then a spin gravity device might be included.  But the "Sanctuary" will still be desired, as it may provide extra power to the "Castle".

As for collecting materials into the "Castle" just now, I am thinking of metal tracks extending from the "Castle" that robot collectors can ride on.  Over time they may encompass the moon and connect to another "Castle" at the other pole.

It is my hope that this setup could provide propellants such as Oxygen, and metals.  And of course habitat for humans and many more useful robots.

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