NewMars On phpBB3

For RobertDyck ...

Any chance you can make the Google Meeting Sunday evening?

We are joined by FOQ1 (Friend of Quark 1) who accepted promotion to Moderator.

SpaceNut has been attending in recent times.

GW Johnson may be able to fit the meeting into his schedule.

FOQ1 has taken an interest in the forum and it's structure.

We have an opportunity to rebuild with new membership.

The FluxBB forum may come back at some point, but it may not.

We have all the contents saved as of late in 2024.

I am looking for encouragement to invest further time in this forum. For example, I understand I might be able to add email support to the forum, using a third party that is part of the Azure infrastructure. That would allow the "Contact" button to actually do something, and it would allow members to send email to each other.

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tahanson43206 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2026 1:55 am For example, FOQ1 just suggested a very practical "terraforming" procedure... in a recent post he suggested sintering (solidifying) batches of regolith to make flat plates that won't support sand storms. That seems to me to be a very practical idea, and it could be carried out with nothing but sunlight as the heating agent.
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While it is possible to "hot" sinter simulated Martian regolith, you want about 1,300C of heat to do that effectively and need a slow cool down to produce a material that won't be friable and thus is useful as construction material. I envision "Bricks", not "Plates!" If you add NaOH as a catalyst, you can get the job done (under pressure) with only 250C of heat. You are looking at large mirrors to get to the bigger number with about 1/3 of Earth sunlight available. Doable but unwieldly.

The process to get NaOH from the percholates in the regolith is to add water (from polar ice) and electricity. You will also get Cl2 gas and H2 gas as useful byproducts. And largely detoxified dust/silt/sand/etc that might make for a useful growing medium.

For RobertDyck re Mars Government ....

Will there be a government before Mars is terraformed?

If so, how will the decision be made to proceed with changes on that scale?

The scenario that seems most likely to me is that Mars might be terraformed very gradually, and no one would be impacted dramatically.

For example, FOQ1 just suggested a very practical "terraforming" procedure... in a recent post he suggested sintering (solidifying) batches of regolith to make flat plates that won't support sand storms. That seems to me to be a very practical idea, and it could be carried out with nothing but sunlight as the heating agent.

I haven't ready your writings about Mars Government recently, but it seems clear that China will be a major player. The US might be but at present it is hard for me to see a scenario where that happens. The Chinese are working a multiyear plan that will lead to landings, and landings will lead to settlements, and settlements will lead to military protection systems.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you adapt your thinking to the realities that are most likely.

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For RobertDyck ...

Thanks for keeping in touch following the change to new-mars.org/phpBB3/

We have a new (old) member ... Friend of Quark 1 came back with the shorter name of FOQ1.

In the past you've invited acquaintances to join newmars, but something always seemed to get in the way.

Perhaps you might have better luck now. We could rebuild if we can bring in members by personal invitation. It will take a while, but it might be more productive that depending upon random chance, as we've been doing.

FYI ... The procedure FOQ1 and I worked out was convenient and fast. We coordinated by email. I opened registration, he registered as a full member and created a post, so I closed registration to prevent spammers from "joining" ...

That was a lot faster than the convoluted process I had to use at FluxBB because I was only a Moderator.

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For RobertDyck ...

Thanks for renewing your interesting (and important) topic here...

If we have to rebuild here we can.

I have a copy of the FluxBB database and (theoretically) restore specific threads that our members might want to see again.

Your Large Ship thread is one for sure, but there may well be others.

One thing you should know .... I had opened Registrations for our members to create their accounts here, and no one took advantage of that, except for a spammer. I closed Registration and deleted the spammer.

You are welcome to think about the problem of how to manage a forum in the current age.

I am about out of ideas.

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For RobertDyck ....

Just FYI ... The most recent backup of our database was saved on Dropbox almost exactly two years ago.

fluxbb-master
ZIP • 379.67 KB
Name
Size
fluxbb-master
3/18/2024

Your work on Large Ship is still there.

A backup of the updated FluxBB system is there as well.

You ** could ** install the entire system on your PC, but I recommend you build a Linux box that is separate and distinct from your Windows machine.

We might yet be able to secure a backup of the FluxBB forum.

My work on the Optical Plane deep space vessel was all performed within the two years since the last backup saved on Dropbox.

The procedure for updating from FluxBB format to phpBB format is a two stage process.

There is code available to convert from FluxBB to phpBB2, and then from phpBB2 to phpBB3.

User passwords are not preserved, but I assume users can log in with a temporary password and change the password back to a preferred value.

Update: I have a running copy of FluxBB on my development PC. That copy dates back to when we were upgrading the software for FluxBB, following a crash of the Mars Society web site. The most recent post in the Large Ship topic was 2023-10-22 19:51:17, after the bulk of work on the topic appears to have wound down. In the post on that date, you reminded readers of a proposed centrifuge system that was built but not launched.

You can (or at least I am reasonably confident you can) install the updated FluxBB system on a Linux box and restore the backup from two years ago.

A Linux box would be a good investment in any case, because the entire Internet below the presentation layer runs on Linux boxes, so learning about them would seem to me a good idea for a consultant.

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For RobertDyck re "open to the Internet" status.

Thanks (again) for your bringing up the exposure of this site to the Internet.

I think our forum actually ** is ** open to the Internet.... If you are able to stop in at a library or other location where a computer is available for access to the Internet, please see if our new address is accessible. We're not behind a paywall.

Every computer I've tested on locally has been able to reach the site.

**** Question for you about Terraformer and Calliban ... have you corresponded with them from your computer? I ask because your email address may be on their OK list, and newmarsmember may be blocked. If you still have access to them, please let both of them know we available at the new address.

I received a nice note from Calliban's secure email provider, informing me that they will not contact one of their clients on behalf of a third party.

That makes sense. After all, Calliban is (presumably) paying for protection from spammers.

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Hi RobertDyck!
Thanks for your feedback!
I ** just ** learned that I may have caused delay by failing to enter all the needed IP addresses for CloudFlare.
I only entered about half because I was entering them manually, and was trying to get the system to run at all.
Cloudflare has to be granted admission to the Azure site. The rules to grant permission need ** all ** the IP addresses that Cloudflare has paid for.
I'll fix that tomorrow.
My experience has been that the delay takes about 17 seconds on all the computers I've tested here. However, the ISP is providing a fairly high speed line so that may account for the time. Gemini tells me that Cloudflare may be timing out with the IP's it tries before it finally finds one that works.
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I logged on using the IP address. new-mars.org is registered, but times out. Error code 522.

RobertDyck has confirmed the forum is visible.

With any luck we should see a post here soon.

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