If gathering gases from the upper atmosphere doesn't work...

Maybe they could point it towards a spacecraft to get above Low Earth Orbit. The idea here is to get high ISP and high thrust directed at a spacecraft in order to increase useful mass fraction.

It would work on similar principles as the nuclear thermal, but instead of nukes doing the work, a solar thermal solution is employed instead. This would be a variation on the Parkins device.

A solar collector as described in an earlier post would supply the energy. It would focus the energy on an aeroshell, which would get heated up to high temperatures. Liquid hydrogen would be used to keep the aeroshell from melting, and the heated hydrogen would be used as the reaction mass.

An ISP of a thousand seconds would reduce the amount of fuel needed. Compared to a hypergolic engine used in Apollo the mass fraction might well be tripled.

If a fast transit to Mars is desired, then one can post it at a LaGrange point, and have to accelerate the spacecraft to Mars at a high velocity. Perhaps it would get there in 45 days.

The spacecraft could be kept light, so the amount of fuel would needed would not be excessive. However, you'd need to slow down once you got there. Therefore, post another one at one of the Martian moons that would slow down the spacecraft once it got there.

The idea here is really to use the sun as the energy source as opposed to onboard fuel. You'd need a series of "stations" that would boost the spacecraft up from low orbit, and from there to interplanetary destinations. At the destination, you could have a station that would help the craft slow down in the same manner-- a retro rocket type deceleration maneuver.

 

Obama himself said that space has to have an economic basis to it

Hence there has to be an economic rationale for its existence.

Is that possible?

Just carrying forward a bit on my peregrinations on the subject of Lox-Leo.

The latest is about the economics of it. If the economics doesn't make sense, then it won't be done. So how does these economics work?

I'm looking at it in terms of how many launches from the ground that it will make unnecessary. It looks like Starship will need about 10 launches for re-fueling, so that it can go to places beyond low Earth orbit.

If you can reduce that number significantly, then Lox-Leo would at least make more sense that launching from the ground.

Other questions need to be answered though. How much does it take to service these facilities? If it doesn't net out positive, then it doesn't make sense. I don't have some numbers to toss around. There's this one number that might be handy. That number is the number of pounds of thrust that can be generated per MW of beamed energy from GEO. This will determine how much of a facility will be needed to generate the energy.

I think it is 50 pounds per MW. But that could be wrong. If it is correct, let's say that 12k lbs of thrust are needed. I got that number from what the OMS thrusters on the Shuttle needed in order to finish its ascent into orbit. The main engines were good for 98% of orbital velocity. The OMS thrusters had to do the rest.

If memory serves, the Shuttle massed out at 200k lbs. Let's assume that the lox-leo device masses out at that. In order to maintain orbit, you may need 12k lbs of thrust.

To generate 12k of thrust, then you need some multiple of MW of 50 MW increments in order to do the trick. That would be 12000/50 equals 240 MW.

Something less than 1 sq mile of solar panels might do the trick.  You'd have to figure the upkeep of these massive structure in the calculations.  (Not done here.)

It would have to be converted to an energy source to beam to the collecting vessel so as to maintain 12k of thrust for whatever amount of time is needed in order to maintain orbital velocity.

Once you know that, then perhaps you can calculate how much you can collect before having a full tank. This may require even more energy. Indeed, you may even have to count on that. ----12:58 PM, 12/14/24:



7:43 PM:



The 50 MW part is correct, according the source I was thinking about. ( The Nuclear Rocket )

Some reading of this Wikipedia source would seem to indicate that whatever gases found up there may not be what is down at sea level. Hmmm. This may not work like I thought it might. There's a lot of sodium up there!

Instead of space solar on the ground, use it to power other spacecraft from geostationary orbit

 

Consider this space-solar type proposition studied in the late 70's:

 

 

It would consist of a large collector, some 38 sq. miles in area, covered with photovoltaic cells....

 

it would convert solar into microwave power for transmission to rectennas on Earth. The rectennas would re-convert the energy back into electricity that would go into the grid...

 

Such a satellite would mass out at 100,000 tons, and produce 10 Gigawatt of power continuously. It would orbit at a geostationary orbit some 22k miles above earth.

 

 

A few observations here: 1) The collectors are too large. It would take a lot of resources to monitor and service these massive satellites. 2) 10 Gigawatts is a lot of power. That would be the equivalent of several Hoover Dams. 3) 100,000 tons is a lot of mass to lift, even for Starship.

 

You wouldn't need nearly that much power for the atmospheric gas collectors (Lox-Leo). It would not have to be continuous. Energy could be stored and then beamed onward to the spacecraft on an as-needed basis.

 

The Parkins concept posited the use of lead-acid car batteries for powering massive rockets to space from the ground. If that could be achieved, could something that didn't require nearly that much power be used in space instead?

 

 

 

A belated speculation alert for that one.

 

 

 

Cross pollination alert--- Space colonization post

11/27/24:

So I dug a little deeper in order to evaluate this idea.

Not only has Parkins studied it, but others have as well. It seems to be a viable alternative to burning up propellant. It's advantages could be higher ISP. It's downsides are the usual with high ISP concepts---small thrust. Although Perkins advocated its use for large spacecraft, so it may be possible to get it to work for high thrust as well.

Another possibility is to use ablative propulsion. It will heat it up, and the conversion to a hot gas will provide thrust as it rapidly expands.

Posting one at geo seems excessive. Perhaps one could follow another, but at a higher altitude. In that way, the velocity difference won't be too much to force it out of range too quickly. Or so I think.





11/23/24, 8:49 AM:

Methinks this line of speculation belongs on a blog about speculations.

But that would be consistent.

Anyway, I can use this tool in order to continue the discussion here, as opposed to the other place. (LOX-LEO)

Boots and Oil Blog: Elements of a gas harvesting mode (Loxleo) https://t.co/umqM9difiy ---Forgive the shameless self-promotion...

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) November 23, 2024

5:57 PM The red stream around the Starship is the stuff that you could capture for use in space. 80% of the mass needed for the raptor is oxygen, and there's a lot of it available up there. Know what I mean, Vern?

Starship reentry over the Indian Ocean pic.twitter.com/JKoph5QnmW

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 21, 2024

Whither Elon Musk?

There are those like Kizinger who call Trump voters "a cult". Perhaps there are some who are like that, but not me. The same goes for Elon Musk, I'd say. I won't glorify Musk. He has had some success, but he hasn't had THE success that he is aiming for.

In terms of Tesla, his cars are not that good. They are way the hell too heavy, and probably too expensive. They solve no problems. De-carbonization? Nope. The only way to de-carbonize is nuclear, and the greenie weenies won't go there. With nuclear energy, batteries make more sense. But even then, the best possible solution, in my opinion, is fuel cells. Musk won't go there. He's not sold on nuclear energy.

As for SpaceX, he seems to be following Robert Zubrin's Direct Mars approach. He can get people to Mars with that platform alright, but starting a civilization there will take something far more comprehensive than making super rockets that are re-usable. It's going to take more rocket launches than the public will tolerate. Perhaps if he put his rockets out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, he could do it, but such a location is problematic.

He needs to Mine the Sky. One way or another, an economic basis has to pay for the off-world civilization he wants to found, Mining the Sky is the ticket to that kind of future. He has the means at his disposal, but does he have the will?

The way it is

Linux update and other things

The goal is to get away from Windows. This has been largely achieved, but sometimes, it is tempting to go back because Windows is still easier to use, and Linux has a few issues. The issues shall go unspecified here, as that is not part of the overall goal. The overall goal is privacy and security. Maybe that is for me to know and for anyone else to find out.

I don't like to be that way, but that is the way things are. If things were not that way, the move from Windows wouldn't have been necessary. But it IS necessary, and with it comes a bit of distrust. We have that to thank Big Tech for.

This isn't going to be posted on the main blog, but on the secondary blog. Which reminds me of what I created it in the first place. It is to spin off some items that the main blog need not cover. Among these is one of my other goals. That is to make something out of the land that I purchased. It has been 10 plus years now, and there's really nothing to show for it.

I backed away from settling it, and have been keeping it on hold. But it has now morphed into neglect. The whole project seems to have gone on hold.

Holding is an option for now, but eventually you have to do things, or get off the pot. I've done a lot of work on this project which fits under the category of planning, Not much has gone into execution.

When there are plans, the plans can just go into a big pile of unseen and unused items that get forgotten about. I need to fix that.

One of those was to make videos that I could reference whenever I needed to refresh my knowledge of things studied and planned in the past. This blog and the main blog is also part of that.

But security and privacy is also a part of this. So the videos are going to be held offline. Unfortunately, that is the way that it is these days.

No more videos are being made. The last ones made were a few years ago. I think the idea was to post them here, but as the saying goes, shit happens.

The latest is this move to Linux and the keeping of material offline. I don't like it that way, but that is the way it is.

Ah, computers. So much fun.

11/20/24:

Zorin is back. All is did was wait for a substantial update to be available. Then I set the computer up just as I did when installed everything. That is, everything was in the same place as it was on the last OS install, which was Mint. Then I did the update on Mint. By golly, the thing restored the link to the Zorin OS. Well, goody-goody. I tested it all out too, and it works! It works!





11/14/24:

To think that I started out to try to make a living off these things.

It may seem like belly-aching, but here goes anyway. All that work getting Zorin to work has just been trashed by Mint. It may have been something I did, but the thing DID cut out my connection to it.

Perhaps I can get it back. Perhaps not.

It was caused by an update by the Mint OS. The thing is, I updated it without the Zorin USB in the computer. So it zapped the thing out since it wasn't plugged in during the update.

I'd really like to know what the hell that has to do with another OS on another storage device?

Bitch session concluded.

Ah, I have neglected this blog again.

Not much way to inspect statistics though. There doesn't appear to be much of an audience anyway. But I intend to keep posting here, even though the posts may be erratic.

Project underway at current location

10/21/24:

It's well underway now. Concrete blocks were laid in, and a bunch of dump trucks full of dirt has been laid down. It looks a lot different. When I first moved in, all of that area was full of brush and weeds. It had a slope down to the gully, but the blocks have mad it possible to level out this area up to this point with a steep drop into the gully.

The hackberry tree may not be a hackberry. However, the alternative is a china berry tree. I find that hard to believe, though. The ants are still interested in the paste, which has dried up considerably.

10/17/24:

The reason for the hackberry not making it is that the owner of this property ( not me ) doesn't like them. It is just an experiment after all for yours truly. In the meantime, some improvements to the property are underway. This will make more of the land on the property accessible. ( And a hackberry tree of two in the way ) Also, I'm studying the Linux OS.

As for the experiment with the hackberry, nothing new to report. The ants like the solid paste better than the liquid mix.

Update: There's no toxic look-a-likes for the hackberry, but the berries should be red to purple. These aren't. Not yet, at least.

After Zorin, could there be an encore?

10/20/24:

Mint is supposed to be easy. You simply cannot trust what you see nor hear anymore. More to it than what it being said. Anyway, I trudge on.



10/19/24:

For better or for worse, it now has Mint OS. Still going on a sort of shakedown of the system. Whoop-de-doo.



10/18/24:

I'm considering reusing a disk from the previous attempt at installing Zorin for installing another Linux distro. At first I considered Ubuntu, but that will probably change to something simpler. I'm considering Mint.

More Linux

It's back to the Linux again, as the hackberry idea is going to pot.

Why? Because of events beyond my control. I'll leave it at that.

Update, 10/13/24

10/15/24;

11:33 AM:



The ants have shown an interest in the paste, which has dried somewhat. But not the species of ant that was expected. Instead, there are at least 2 other species of ants besides the ones targeted--which are all over the paste. The ones targeted are bigger ants. The smaller ants are the ones interested in the paste. The liquid part has also lost water, and is like a jello mixture. Still has no interest from the ants.



I'm going to think this is a hackberry tree of a local species to this area until proven otherwise. It's is clearly different from the hackberry trees featured on the YouTube, but these have too many features that check the boxes of hackberry to not be hackberry. So there.

8:18 AM

The ants are sluggish this morning. Temperature has cooled to the low 50's. A poke of the stick will usually get ants moving around pretty good, but that didn't happen. The cooler weather has them sluggish, I suspect. There's no ant activity around the paste, but there was a relatively larger beetle scarfing it down.

The liquid part has no activity at all. I was expecting the sugar type ants to be especially interested. This is a bit of a surprise.

So far, just the beetles. I'll check again later today.

I checked the YouTube for positive identification of the theorized hackberry trees. It checks out on the leaves and on the bark. The berries are a bit different, though. They are a greenish yellow. Or yellow green. They do appear to be somewhat larger than in the videos, but this is Texas. The videos were on the other side of the Missisippi. But they are not desert hackberries, either.



10/14/24:

So I bought a mortar and pestle. It is to grind the berries down like the natives did long ago. Once I got home, I went to work right away. I collected some berries, and placed them inside and attempted to grind them down. The pits are very, very hard. There wasn't much success at getting much of a paste.

After tiring of this, I placed a good number of them into the blender. After grinding them in the blender for a minute or so, I had a liquid paste. There still was a good number of chunks in it. I proceeded to filter out the water, and got a liquid part, and a thicker paste part.

There was never any intention to eat any of this. But it may be useful in attracting ants. So I took the paste and the liquid, and set them outside. If ants are attracted to this, I find out soon enough.

Discussion of the results will come later.



10/13/24: Next step will be to buy something, of course. I think I'll buy a mortar and pestle from Walmart the next time I go by there. Not much to report, but it is what it is.

Let's take a good look in the mirror, shall we?

Not much discussion lately about the off-grid project.

The Zorin thing isn't technically off-grid. But it is definitely not in the mainstream. Screw the mainstream. The mainstream is effed up.

That's why the need for the off-grid solution...

But the grid keeps grinding us all down. Bummer.

This thought is about a bit of philosophy. Our system of doing things here in the USA is to make money. But you cannot eat money. You cannot wear money as your clothing. You cannot make a house out of money. Money is a medium of exchange. This isn't to knock it, but to make it the center of your existence is a mistake.

But it is at the center, and this won't last. It can't. It's part of what's making things so crazy.

So back to the topic at hand. There was one little thing I did yesterday. I went outside to the presumed hackberry tree and picked a berry off it. It seemed a rather thick berry. So I wonder what's normal for these berries. I've been meaning to do something about this, and here we are into October already.

That's it. Ten years of this, and that's all I've done.

Well, I've beat a drum but there's not much interest in hearing that. People will continue on and on until they can't go on anymore. Then there will be a change, because the way it's going cannot last.

Zorin OS progress ( or lack of )

10/10/24:

I'm still in the "what will I do with it" phase. There's definite differences between the Windows environment and Zorin OS. By the way, Zorin is based upon Ubuntu, an OS that I once installed on a USB stick many years ago. This project to re-install this on another USB stick has been a long time coming. Finally, I'm here.

It's been too long to remember why Ubuntu fell into disuse. Maybe it was a hardware problem. But one fine day, I think I tried to plug it back in and it didn't work. What changed? I'm not sure. But the installation has definitely become more complex, or I'm getting stupid. Maybe a little of both.

Or it may have been something else. It's complicated. Or I'm getting stupid. Oh. I'm repeating myself. Uh,oh.

10/8/24:

Zorin OS seems to be working now. It may have been a matter of adjusting to the new system. My bad for that last discouraging sounding post.

Now for the next phase. What will I do with it????



10/7/24:

5:45 PM

It has been a busy day with this. But not really productive. I got the second installation done. It boots up, and then fails. Nothing appears to have been done wrong by yours truly. Yet...

It may turn out that the installation is going to be just like this, and no better. If there's a way around this, it may take a ton of effort, but is it worth it? I am only achieving a very limited objective, which is to sideline Windows as much as I can. As far as throwing Windows out the window, no. Not ready for that yet, but if  I tippy toe on my toes, I just might be able to see that day.

In between time, in the meantime, ain't we got fun.𝄞𝄞𝄞

10:54 AM



Another interesting thing... I tried an experiment with this installation as it exists so far. That is to say, I haven't gone back and destroyed it by re-installing it on top of what I had there already. It still exists. So, what do I do with this? I think I will keep it for now. The experiment will show why... I got a second boot out of it just this morning. How? By putting it into a different device, and placing it in a different usb slot when I plugged in the usb.

It is being installed on micro disks, you see. These can be placed in dongles or whatever they call them these days. They work like the old floppy disk systems. You can remove the "floppy" and replace it with another "floppy". The "floppy" being the micro disks. These will hold gigabytes of data, as opposed to kilobytes of data, as in the old days with the floppies. Indeed, you may even get these in terabytes by now. In fact, I'm sure that you can if you have the money to spend.

But I'm recycling these, so obviously, I don't want to spend a dime more than I need to. Like I said, an interesting thing...

We live in interesting times. Something tells me that isn't going to go well for some of us out here. But who?????????????????????????????????????????????????

10/6/24,

4:58 PM

Not successful. However, something interesting happened. I got an error message when I tried to do those command line tasks that would have finalized it. I stopped before doing them all, and figured the USB was corrupted, and would not boot up. But an inadvertent attempt to boot up gave me a surprise when it DID boot up.

But it looks like it was a fake out. I managed to get this to boot up once before, and on the next attempt to boot up, it failed. Same thing happened again. I'm absolutely certain that it is now on the USB stick, and with the problems fixed, it will work. It's just proving to be a stubborn problem.

What's next? It may take a complete re-install. Since it won't boot up again, or inconsistently, it is still an unsatisfactory arrangement. Windows boots up okay. It didn't affect windows, but it may have affected the bootstrap part of the system when it is first turned on. I may be able to clear that, but not sure how for the time-being.



11:31 AM:





Back again for more of this, er, installation. Maybe it should be called torture. I'm sure it is so complicated so that any normal person wouldn't dream of putting themselves through all this. I guess that means I'm not a normie. This can be a feature, and not a bug. People may want to pay somebody for this thrill.

But I'm not greedy. I'd like to share my pain, you might say. This latest visit to the torture rack involves the last step, I hope. Then I will have Zorin OS on my Windows machine as a boot option. Yay! /bronx cheer=off

Anyway, this last step involves making more story boards, which I've spent the better part of the day working on. The previous story boards seem to have been validated, but there's still something I'm not so sure about. We'll have to get to that on the next visit to the torture rack. This visit's trip to the rack will have to suffice. Enough punishment for one day.

As of this writing, I've made the story boards, and I'm about to go to the rack. I'm in no big hurry. The story boards themselves were a chore enough. The real fun starts with the final visit to the rack, and hopefully the reward will be a new install of the Zorin OS. ( cross my fingers)











10/5/24,

2:50 PM:

I made progress, sort of. I ran the rest of the install program. But I did not get what I expected. The "live environment" as he called it on the video linked below ( and used as a guide) showed different screens than what I saw. So I don't know exactly what and how it went wrong, but it seems to have at this writing.

Zorin OS will boot up. It loaded some of it, ( maybe all) on the Main drive. I did not want this.

It does recognize the other USB drive. It does get to Zorin if I have it plugged in. It does go to windows (through the "grub" prompt). But it isn't what I thought I had set up. Drat it.

8:11 AM

The video I'm using will see me through to a successful conclusion, I do believe.

Not to be too critical, but there's a LOT of information being presented in a short amount of time. It has to sink in properly.

It is slowly sinking in, and it will be soon when I get it together. But not yet.

I haven't teed it up yet for another run or two. I did some ground prep first. This consisted of a lot of studying over the material so that I could understand what the hell I was doing.

To do that, I made story boards out of the video. Each move of the mouse and click is just too fast to let go by without studying over the entire page for all of its details. Hopefully, this will allow me to go back today with more confidence, and then I will be successful.

10/4/24; 9:17 PM

Not finished yet, drat it. It appears that I'm making progress, and the end may be in sight. I sure hope so.

Perhaps tomorrow I can finish. Not today.

3:12 PM

I spent some time on the web, and on the main blog. Then, back to this maddening exercise. Oh, joy!

In order to try to do this with the greatest chance of success, I am following the video as closely as possible.

Trouble is, the video is a year old, and there appears to be some changes.

Once you get the thing flashed, you have to get the installing disk to the installee disk. Ha, ha.

That appears to be a problem at the moment. You have to know something about partitions. Me no know partitions, senor. So now I have to learn about this little detail. What a pain in the neck, or lower perhaps.

He says you need about 500 MB for the system and the rest for data. But this thing has a bunch of stuff here, so what's what? Hmmm. I have to sort this all out, and get to it latersville.

That's cuz other sheet needs doing, and I haven't got all day to spend on this one thing.

Just one example of what could go wrong. If you click on the shortcut, it will try to install on your main drive for your computer, as opposed to installing on a USB stick. I caught that one in progress. So I had to backtrack and check for any damage done to my main drives.

These things can be like runaway trains that can wreak havoc on your system. That's the kind of thing that you want to avoid. Hence, the great caution that must be taken so that a detail like this doesn't ruin your day, and your computer. Know what I mean Vern?

11:47 AM

Here it is, nearly noon. I've spent the entire morning screwing around with this thing. Just shows to go ya how labor intensive some of this can be. By labor intensive, maybe I should say time consuming instead.

Whatever way it is expressed, I'm still not finished with this project. The reason ( or excuse? ) is that there's a learning curve for me to overcome.

Even though I have a degree in Computer Science, the last 30 years or so, I've let it all go. My computer skills need updating ( BIG TIME ), so I'm having to learn some stuff that may seem pretty basic to the computer nerds out there. I may be considered a computer nerd drop out.

So I'm re-establishing my nerdiness with respect to the computers. How enchanting.

Well, at least I have some knowledge base to work with, which isn't much admittedly.

Last time I mentioned this project, I got stuck. It seems that you cannot just reformat a drive anymore like the old days. You have to go to the command prompt in Windows. ( By the way, I REALLY REALLY want to dump WINDOWS NOW )

In Windows, there is a program called diskpart. I had to do that in order to fix a previously installed Linux disk.

Aha! Windows gotcha there. But Windows is still gracious enough to have this program that can help you fix a disk that is discombobulated as far as Windows is concerned. Windows may not speak Linux, or may need some serious tweaking to speak Linux.

I'd just as soon not tweak, but wipe it out. I'll start over from Tails, which I don't find particularly convenient. At some point, I can reinstall Tails, but right now, I want Zorin. I don't want to have to buy new disks, so Tails has got to go.

A big warning to anyone out there who may want to try this. You could wipe out something that you don't want to wipe out with this diskpart command. A computer nerd doesn't need to be reminded, but those who aren't certified computer nerds should take heed.

Formatting a disk will do that too, as you may already know. Diskpart is even more powerful, so beware.

Fortunately, I didn't wipe out anything that I didn't mind wiping out. ( So far as I know as of this writing.)

The video I'm using as a guide to install Zorin is here.

As of this writing, I'm up to the part where the disk is flashed successfully with Zorin, but we're not done yet.

That's all for now.

Tig Welding 101

This will go into the How-to category if I still have it. One of these days, I may need to know stuff like this. One of these days, the world will fall apart, and you'll have to know how to do things because the rest of the world will have gone to the dogs.

알곤용접 tig welding #shorts https://t.co/sGsjGEAMjm via @YouTube Comment: Interesting mix with the music and the video which shows tig welding. You might need skills like this if the world falls apart. That just might happen you know.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) October 1, 2024

Mining for methane on Mars

9/29/24:



Comment:

In order to streamline my blogging efforts, I am employing AI in order to do a lot of my grunt work.

Sorry to be a hypo-twit, but time is short.

Me

Please characterize smectite, in terms of it's chemical composition and it's mining potential on Mars, or for element extraction



GAB AI

Smectite is a group of phyllosilicate minerals with a general chemical formula of

X0.3Y1.7[(Al, Mg, Li)3(Si, Al)4O10(OH)2].

Here, X represents exchangeable cations like Na+, Ca2+, K+, or Mg2+, and Y represents divalent cations like Mg2+, Fe2+, or Zn2+.

In terms of mining potential, smectite is a common mineral on Earth, known for its use in ceramics, paints, and as a component in some plastics. On Mars, smectite is also likely to be present due to its abundance on Earth and the similar geological processes that may have occurred on Mars. Smectite can be found in the Martian soil, particularly in the clay-rich regions.

Its presence suggests past water activity on Mars, as smectite forms in the presence of water.

Mining smectite on Mars could potentially be valuable for creating construction materials, as well as for use in the production of plastics and other industrial applications.

The extraction process would likely involve mining the clay-rich regions and then processing the smectite through a series of steps, including crushing, grinding, and chemical separation to isolate the desired cations. However, the mining and extraction of smectite on Mars would require further research and development to determine its feasibility and potential economic benefits.



Gemini AI ( Google )



Me:

As is commonly known, SpaceX wants to colonize Mars. Recently there has been news about methane being present in connection with smectite clays. Please discuss how this methane could be extracted, and or how to extract elements from the smectite for use on a potential Mars colony.

Gemini AI ( Google )

## Extracting Methane and Elements from Martian Smectite Clay

The discovery of methane trapped within smectite clay on Mars presents exciting possibilities for future colonization efforts. Both the methane and the clay itself could be valuable resources.

### Extracting Methane * **Heat Extraction:** One of the simplest methods is to heat the clay. As the temperature rises, the methane trapped within the clay's structure will be released. This can be achieved using solar energy, a common resource on Mars, or by burning other fuels. * **Vacuum Extraction:** Another method involves creating a vacuum around the clay. This lower pressure can cause the methane to be released more easily. This technique might be particularly effective if the clay is heated at the same time. * **Chemical Extraction:** Certain chemicals can be used to react with the clay, causing the methane to be liberated. This method could be more efficient but might require additional processing steps to remove the chemicals.

### Extracting Elements from Smectite Clay

Smectite clay is rich in various elements, including silicon, aluminum, magnesium, and iron. These elements could be crucial for building structures, manufacturing tools, and producing other essential materials on Mars. * **Thermal Decomposition:** Heating the clay to very high temperatures can break down its structure, releasing the individual elements. This could be achieved using a solar furnace or a plasma torch. * **Chemical Leaching:** Certain chemicals can be used to dissolve specific elements from the clay. For example, strong acids can be used to extract aluminum. * **Electrolysis:** If the clay is suspended in a liquid, an electric current can be passed through it to extract specific elements. This technique is often used to extract metals from ores.

### Challenges and Considerations

While these methods seem promising, several challenges must be addressed: * **Energy Consumption:** Extracting resources from Martian clay requires significant energy, which must be sourced sustainably. Solar power is a viable option, but it may not be sufficient for large-scale operations. * **Equipment and Technology:** Developing the necessary equipment and technology to extract resources on Mars will be a major engineering challenge. * **Environmental Impact:** Any mining or extraction activities on Mars must be conducted with extreme care to avoid damaging the planet's fragile environment.

The discovery of methane and smectite clay on Mars represents a significant step forward in our understanding of the planet's potential as a habitable world. By developing efficient methods for extracting these resources, future Mars colonists may be able to establish a self-sufficient society.





9/30/24:

Me:

There's been discussion recently about clay-rich regions on Mars. Please show where these clay-rich regions have been located on that planet.



Gemini AI

Unfortunately, I can't help you find clay-rich regions on Mars using Google Maps. Google Maps is designed to help you find places on Earth, and it doesn't have data for other planets.

However, I can provide you with some information that I found on the web. There are several clay-rich regions on Mars, including:

* **Cerberus Fossae:** This region is located in the southern hemisphere of Mars and is home to a number of clay-rich deposits.

* **Echus Chasma:** This canyon is located in the eastern part of the Chryse Planitia and is also home to clay-rich deposits.

* **Nili Fossae:** This region is located in the northern hemisphere of Mars and is home to a number of clay-rich deposits, including some of the oldest known rocks on Mars.

* **Opportunity Rover landing site:** The Opportunity rover landed in a region called Meridiani Planum, which is known for its clay-rich deposits.

You can learn more about these regions by searching for them online or by looking at images from Mars rovers.

What would happen if you used a gas gun in space?

The topic has come up on the main blog, but I will post these brainstorm type post on this here blog instead.

Anyway, if a gas gun can expel an object at an escape velocity ( if memory serves ), then it might be useful as a propulsion system in space. That is, the recoil of the huge gas gun could be harvested for delta-v for a rocket. Presumably, it would be better than a rocket, but the effective velocity would be much higher.

Or would it be higher? I'm not savvy enough on these calculations. Perhaps a mathemetically inclined person could answer this. If a gas gun emitted a "shell" that massed out at 1000 kilos, then what kind of delta V could you get out of it to propel a payload through space?

It would depend upon a few considerations, such as the mass of the spacecraft. But also the amount of thrust in the metric system ( newtons ? ). The rocket equation may be able to determine the ISP, I would think.

It's possible that it may be superior to burning the fuel and sending it out a rocket nozzle. If the hydrogen gas were heated more than the heat of combustion from burning it, that would indeed be the case.

How to heat up the gas? Questions, questions.

Somebody smarter than I am could figure it out.

Update, 9/22/24 ( Zorin OS)

9/29/24:

Made an attempt. There's something hanging it up. It's an OS issue, I think. Trying to clean it up, and re-use it. That's a micro-ssd, or whatever it is called. It had Tail OS, and now I'm tryng to use it for Zorin OS. Tails isn't very useful, you know. Not for me, anyhoo. If I master this problem, I could use it for whatever I want. Famous last words???

9/28/24

The goal is to getting Zorin on a USB stick. I've been studying a video on how to do that, and I may make the attempt soon. Indeed, I already have it on a stick, but it is only an installation disk. I can't use it for anything substantial, so it is pretty much useless right now.





9/22/24:

Let's see if I can get through a post without a typo.

Normally I don't write about computers on this particular blog. Perhaps better here than the main blog.

For at least a year now, I've been trying to implement the ideas from Braxman. The latest thing I did is to try the Zorin OS, which is a Linux distribution.

So it looks like I'm not doing anything, but I am.

That is all.

Tried to cook on battery power

I tried cooking on the egg cooker, which draws about 300 watts. This was back at the old place, more than a year ago. Maybe two. By the way, there was success in cooking a meatball, if memory serves.

This was a step up, but it doesn't work well. Electricity does get to the hot plate, but it draws about 1200 watts ( if memory serves ). Quite the voltage drop at the inverter, and it started to whine loudly.

There was also a smoke rising from the wires. Uh, oh! I had to do a quick shutdown.

Hopefully, no damage done. But that may be wishful thinking. I will inspect it a bit later. There's a lot of food waiting to be cooked.

Update, 9/26/24

Since I stopped with the dehumidifier, I haven't used the solar panels for anything.

Today, I moved the small battery close to the door, and hooked up the small inverter so that I could use the computer with the power off that battery.

Cool.

This involved moving the raspberry pi computer from the bedroom to the living room area.

If I get insomnia again, I'll have to go to the living room to use the raspberry pi computer.

That's an incentive to get my butt to sleep. Won't be fiddling around with the machine for too long and then there's a problem getting asleep.

Update, 9/18/24

9/22/24: Yikes!

I made a boo-boo... I transposed a nine for a six. oops...

Nothing new to add here at the moment besides that. The blog ain't dead yet.

I just don't want to be burdened by what has been. bwah, hah, hah

9/18/24: The focus has been so much upon water and power subjects that there isn't enough attention paid to other subjects.

This morning, I checked a tree on the property, and there's some berries on it. I think these are hackberries, which are said to be common in these parts. Indeed, there's more trees like this in the immediate vicinity.

I took a berry off the tree, because they seem to be ripening. I won't eat it, of course. It hasn't been positively identified yet. But it is highly likely to be a hackberry tree, and its berries are starting to ripen up.

There's a lot to learn about these berries. I learned something just now. They are very hard inside. I made the mistake of taking a metal object and trying to smash it, and it bent the metal. Imagine what that would do to your teeth.

It has a thin coating that is said to be sweet. The indigenous peoples of this region used to subsist upon hackberries. They ground them up into a paste and prepared them for eating; perhaps by cooking, but I'm not sure about that.

There's a lot of cacti around here. Those have ripened awhile back. A local supermarket prepares these for consumption and put them on sale. I haven't tried any.

Changing habits is hard. But it may become necessary if times get especially hard.

Update, 9/15/24

Moved the swamp cooler out and moved the washer inside. The washer is light enough to lift up and carry outside a short distance so that it can be used to do some pre-washing. The battery needs charging, so the solar powered battery is being used to charge up the lead acid battery that I'm using for the washing machine.

Washing clothes is another way to use the solar panels. Then hang the clothes out on a clothes line. Hey, that takes you back in time, eh? Clothes lines used to be quite common. Not so much now.

I put the waste water from washing on an ant-hill. Insects do not react well to detergents. It messes up their oily external skeletal structure, and makes it hard for them to breathe properly. Just thought of something. Insects cannot tolerate boron. I noticed that Borax has boron in it, so the use of this type of waste water on ant beds may actually be quite effective. If they don't drown, they'll die of boron poisoning.

Update, 9/9/24

This thing gets away from me pretty easily. Almost a week and no posts. Nothing is happening. Just checking in.

Took down the water filtration

It's pretty rainy lately. There's not much sun to power the dehumidifier.

So, I took it down the water filtration. Some of the set up for the solar power to the dehumidifier was taken down too. In other words, there's no power connection to run the dehumidifier, except from the grid.

The solar power station is still there. But there's not much reason to use it. It doesn't put out that much power. The dehumidifier was the only thing worth running, but it has no real job to do now.

I'll have to think up something else.

Trying the new schedule

9/1/24; 3:45 PM

It didn't last for the full three hours. The battery wasn't fully charged, and it was too discharged to continue for the last half hour.

There was plenty of water in the bucket, and it is still being consumed by the evaporative cooler as I type this. It was about as much as I had predicted.

Today was mostly cloudy, so the battery may not get fully charged. Tomorrow, I've got other things to do. So nothing tomorrow on schedule. That didn't last long.





7:13 AM

Gonna run it from 6:30 AM to 9:30 AM. Didn't get started early enough to do the 6 AM time schedule.

There were nearly 2 gallons in the bucket this morning. Happens every time I run the evaporative cooler. That proves it is mostly coming from inside. Add that to the half gallon I collected yesterday while making the run. Nearly three gallons total. By the way, I saw another way to treat water with reverse osmosis. It looks like a good deal, but it costs a lot. There's always a catch.

Anyway, with this schedule, the solar panels will get nearly an entire day's worth of light to recharge. It doesn't get enough light earlier because the sun isn't high enough to stop casting shadows over the panels. It gets light earlier, but not very much.

Integrated the system

Another 3 hour run. This time with the new inverter, which didn't make a difference.

By integration, I mean that the water goes into a closed loop. It is collected and reused, over and over. At least that is the goal.

Problems along the way have interfered with the system being implemented on an operational basis. It is still experimental. It may always be that way because this really isn't worth much, as we'll see.

There are only a few hours each day to gather the solar power that will run the system. It may be best to start before daylight so that the amount of water collected is maximized. Perhaps 6 AM to 9 AM would be best. The ending time is about the beginning time when the solar power can be collected in order to recharge the battery.

The condensing part will continue with the mini-split after the dehumifier run in the morning. The mini-split can collect more water than the dehumifier because it is more powerful. The evaporative cooler will run with the water that will come from the previous day's collection from the mini-split, plus any water that was collected from the dehumidifier run early in the morning.

All together, I may collect close to three gallons of water per day. That will run the evaporative cooler for several hours. The late afternoon will probably not have any assistance from the evaporative cooler. It will dry out the inside, and it will go into the collection can outside where the mini-split works, to be used the next day.

So there's the system, for what it is worth. What's it worth? Probably not much. It may not save but a few pennies worth of electricity each day. It's not at all economical. But it's "green". How lovely. The water gets used over and over. How admirable.

The water would be worth more with some other use, but this is sufficient for now. Water on the desert is priceless. Or the same if the water service is disrupted in the city. So there's that going for it.

The weather really is changing

8/30/24: I did a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris. Oh no! Had to cover up my mistake.

10:54 AM:

It was shut down about 30 minutes early due to threatening looking cloud cover, and a forecast of rain in the morning. This forecast had been changed. Since then, the clouds have cleared. Oh, well.

Something I hadn't been noticing until now. There's a big voltage drop at the inverter. The controller will say 12.9 volts, but the inverter says 11.5 volts. I wonder if there's something amiss with this inverter. It is an old inverter now. Bought it in 2015.

This was about 2.5 hour run. I'd say the battery held up well.





7:16 AM

This looks to be an early fall. The forecast is for rain chances for the next 10 days. Quite the change over the weather pattern just 10 days ago.

I'm going to make a solar power run this morning. That means powering the dehumidifier for at least 3 hours depending upon its state of charge at the end of that time ( or before ), it will be shut down. Then I'll switch modes to recharging the batteries.

Time for a little thinking

8/29/24, 6:47 AM A bit of fine-tuning needs to take place while the weather does its thing. Got a bit windy yesterday. The seasons are changing. Instead of very hot and dry weather, we've entered a period of sudden thunderstorms and rain.

I've built some structures to keep things dry. It won't do to have electronics get wet. This has worked mainly, but it could be better.

As for running the dehumidifier, I am beginning to wonder if that is a total waste of effort. But I haven't built it the way I need to, so that conclusion is a bit premature.

To repeat, the dehumidifier and evaporative cooler are intended to work together as a type of climate control. The principles are the same, but instead of chemicals, I am using plain old water.

For instance, in any cooling system, there is an evaporating unit and there is a condensing unit. The cooling effect comes from the evaporator, and a warming effect comes from the condensor. The idea is to remove heat from an area by having the evaporator cool an area down, but the water has to come out, which heats things back up. To actually get the heat out, the hot air is sent out a window through a ventilation device. The problem is that my ventilation device is not working properly.

Such an arrangement with water isn't very effective, but it is low energy. Probably can be considered low-tech too. The advantage is that it is lower hanging fruit, so to speak. Any yahoo can do this, so here I am doing it.

1:08 PM

Just completed a re-work of the ventilation for the dehumidifier. Checked it out, and it does seem to be doing much better. There won't be any use of the solar panels, so it will run on grid power to test out the dehumidifier, and there's a change in how the mini-split will work, too. Perhaps I can find out something useful in this exercise.

No experiments today

Very dry lately. But rain has arrived, and is in the forecast in the next 10 days. Looks like my experiments may have to go on the shelf for awhile.

Experiments are hitting a snag

8/26/24, 7:01 AM



There haven't been updates for the last few days. Writing a blog has to be a habit, otherwise, the outcome is like before. The blog gets neglected.

Let's not make that mistake again.

Work continues, despite the lack of blogging. It seems that my mosquito control needed a part, so I got it. However, I noticed when I put it in, which is a screen, that my plastic water receptacle broke. The trouble is that it was leaking all over the place, as opposed to leaking into the bucket like I wanted it to.

I tried repairing the old Frisbee. The Frisbee is turned upside down, which allows it to collect water. I cut a notch into the side of the Frisbee, so it would leak out and into the bucket. Alas, the Frisbee cracked. That's what happens with plastic. It gets old, and it cracks easily.

I used some Flexiseal to repair the crack, but it didn't work. This morning, there was water all over the place again, as the Frisbee is leaking where I don't want it to.

I may have to engineer a new receptacle that is like a Frisbee if this thing isn't repairable.

Thing is, I need it to rest on two by fours that the weight of the sand and pebble mixture that makes up the bulk of the home-made water-filtration device. It sits on top of the 5 gallon bucket which collects the filtered water. This is one heavy mother with all that wet sand and pebbles inside of the other 5 gallon bucket being used to house the filter.

In short, this isn't going smoothly.

As for the solar power aspect, I am running another experiment. That's not going like I'd like either. It seems that I gather plenty of power, but there's not enough ways to get use out of it. Dehumidifying and collecting the water will use up the battery for sure, so that leaves out climate control. Now I'm just gathering water with the excess power. And not much water at that. Power is only "excess", because there's not enough power to run the mini-split.

10:43 AM

The fix using flexiseal is working after an adjustment in its position. A four hour run with the dehumidifier on and the swamper off produced NO WATER. It doesn't seem worth it to use it in the summer. Maybe the winter.

Another run with solar powered dehumifier

8/20/24:

Running this again, but it looks like the same thing. So, I need to make a change.

It needs a ventilation tube custom built to attach to the dehumidifier. Then, the window needs to be fixed up so that the ventilation tube connects directly with it. Otherwise, partially opening the window in order to let the hot air out isn't going to work very well. This is very inefficient, I suspect.

The battery is holding up well. At 4 hours, it was still going strong. I'm going to go for 5 hours this time. The test is still ongoing as I write this. About 9 minutes to go. Incidentally, this easily could be the hottest day of the year so far. I saw a forecast for a high of 106. Don't know if we're there right now, though. Quick update: Nope. It's 104.

8/18/24: This time I ran it over 4 hours. The dehumidifier didn't pull out that much water inside, so that may explain the long lasting run.

I monitored the battery, expecting it to run out of juice after about 3 hrs, like it has been doing. Since it lasted a lot longer, and seemed far away from being fully discharged, I have to scratch my head and wonder what was the difference this time?

If it didn't pull out much water, then maybe it was because it wasn't running the compressor. If it wasn't running the compressor that much, then the battery would last longer.

Not too sure why it wasn't pulling the water out. I collected but a small amount during the 4 hour run.

The read out on the dehumifier said low humidity. But the evaporative cooler, aka swamp cooler, was running. The fans should have recirculated it back to the device, so it should have pulled out more.

Mainly, I'm just happy that the thing didn't run the battery down fast like the last time. The solar panels have been charging that battery for several days with no load on the battery. Maybe it hasn't been fully charged until now.

If it isn't fully charged now, then it will never be. Perhaps that explains the long longetivity. Like I said, I don't know why it lasted 4 hours plus, and could have lasted longer.

Water filtration

Up until now, I haven't used any activated charcoal or carbon or whatever this stuff is. The idea here is to remove anything that might have gotten in that the dehumification may have put into the water. Perhaps it is some sort of volatile stuff that may have gotten into the water. Hopefully, the activated carbon will take that stuff out.

There is no plan against the mosquito larvae except to look out for them once I get the filtered water out. The filtered water goes into a 5 gallon bucket, and is pumped out by an electric pump placed inside of it. Stuff is stacked above it, so it is a pain in the butt to take all that down and clean out the bucket. Eventually, I will need a screen to place over it so that it will keep the mosquitoes out, so they won't be able to lay their eggs there.

The screen will go on the shopping list, along with the materials I will need for my lean-to shack outside.

Dehumidifier and swamp cooler

8/16/24:

Emptied the "evaporative cooler" to find mosquito larvae. Well, there won't be any of that anymore.



8/15/24:

No swamp cooler today while I use the mini-split to run off all that excess water in the cooler. I guess I could have used the dehumidifier. Too lazy I guess. The mini-split can do it better, but it will use a lot of juice in the process.

3:50 PM

Ran the swamp cooler along with the dehumidifier again, but this time without the solar power. It collected 150 oz. of water, which went back into the cooler.

It got warmer in here, alright. But it wasn't all that bad. About 84 degrees. With a nice wind off that swamp cooler, which includes a bit of evaporated water that cooled the air to about 78 degrees, made it all seem like not such a big deal.

There's likely to be a lot of water coming off the mini-split. I'll check that tomorrow morning.

8:44 AM The idea was to limit the amount that the mini-split was needed so as to economize upon its operation. The mini-split uses 1200 watts when the compressor engages, and that is a lot. On the other hand, the dehumidifier uses only 300 watts, and could conceivably be powered with the solar power resources I have available.

But there's a problem with the solar power end of the deal. At present, I don't charge and discharge at the same time. Therefore, if the battery is being used to power the dehumidifier, the solar panels are on stand by. This is the prime part of the day, so there's a problem right there. The solar panels are being lost all during that time.

That could be as much as three hours. A way to improve upon this state of affairs? I could run a pair of wires from the main battery to the lead acid battery, and let the big battery charge the little battery while the big battery is also being charged. This would be no problem to set up. But the little battery could discharge faster than the big battery can charge it back up.

That's another conundrum. The obvious solution would be to add another big battery, and do the same thing. It could work for at least the three hours and maybe a couple more since it is constantly being replenished.

The problem here is that I don't want to keep buying this stuff.

I've got to choose quickly. Time doesn't stand still. Before you know it, the seasons will change.

One hazard to look out for

Mosquitoes. They are attracted to standing water, and will lay their eggs in it. I found some mosquito larvae in the filtered water, which is not good. I wonder now if I have imported any of these into the swamp cooler inside. After today, I will drain the cooler, and then there will be no doubt. Too bad I didn't think of this first this morning. The cooler is filled to the brim with water collected and filtered outside. Woof.

Perhaps a screen will keep them out. It is hard to see how they could get in, but they are small and resourceful little critters.

Yesterday, the experiment resulted in over 3 gallons of water collected. That's amazing.

However, no solar power was used. In order to gather this much, the batteries and the number of panels must be increased. Not interested in spending more money on this. That leaves me with a problem. There's enough power to do this much, but it isn't enough to make the whole thing solar powered.

It would cost hundreds of dollars to get it to that point, and I'm just not that interested.

Update, 8/13/24

4:45 PM

Shut down the experiment after only 1 1/2 hrs. The main battery was discharging faster than yesterday. That's the main reason.

I have to re-think this, and come back to it some other time. This is really not worth all this effort. The conclusion at this point is that if you need electricity to power climate control, you will have to pay a lot. Better to find some other way than to use electricity. Less is more, to put it succinctly.

9:00 AM Over time, this can become something of a routine. For instance, first thing in the morning, collect the water. Run it through the water filter and/or use it to do a pre-wash. Yes, I've got a small washer thing that I've hardly used.

Back at the trailer, it was buried beneath all the stuff I had inside. Since I've been here, it has been buried beneath the stuff I've got in the van. It has been liberated as I've emptied the van. Relatively liberated that is. I'd like to build a lean-to shack in back to stow it so that it is more accessible. Right now, it is by the back door of the van. I have to climb inside to access it. What a pain in the butt.

So, the next project is to build that shack. As for the solar power system, I'll be using that equipment to power my tools that I'll be needing to build that shack. I've got a little power trailer that I can pull around with me which can reach any point on this property. Just bring along the power tools and the power trailer, and get down to business.

It has taken awhile to get to this point. Things are coming along. Slowly, because I move slowly these days.

Update 8/12/24

8:15 PM

Nope, not enough power to do anything really. Indeed, I may be pressing my luck to go much further with it. I have to say that this move is not recommended.

6:28 PM

The latest run just completed, was from 3:00 PM to a little after 6:00 PM. I'd say it ran for nearly 3 1/2 hours. It powered the dehumifier to produce a little over a half gallon of water.

At present, I'm guessing it has enough power to run a charger that will charge up the lead acid battery. We'll see. I haven't checked on it since it conked out on the dehumifier. I will mention it if it does, but not now. Cuz I just don't know yet.

11:46 AM The solar power system is starting to become mature, as I work out the details one-by-one. Today, I extended the weatherproofing of the system, since certain parts need to stay dry. In the meantime, I am running the system through its shakedown and getting to know its capabililties. For instance, the dehumidifier can be run about three hours before the battery runs down. I may be repeating myself, so I'll stop here. There's another run to do today, and that will begin in the late afternoon.

Modern folks are spoiled rotten

8/11/24:

Can't say that I'm surprised at the discharge rate now. It did pretty much the same as before. So, the capacity is about 3 hrs for this dehumidifier, and it will produce about 3 quarts of water. One wonders if this is all worth it. Only now do I think like that. Oh, well.

The system is inadequate for all but the most low energy tasks. It's rather expensive for such small results. Back to being spoiled, I guess.

8/10/24: 3:35 PM

Surprised me how fast it discharged this time. It isn't a straight line thing, or so it seems. The voltage went down pretty fast. Much faster than I expected. Now it is charging.

1:30 PM

Making another run after a few modifications. The idea is to maximize efficiency while maintaining a reasonable level of comfort. Also, an objective to actually run the big battery down and see what it can do. It has amazing capacity, or so it seems.

8:31 AM Continuing with the experiment. Using the battery to run the dehumidifier while the swamp cooler humidifies. Why? Basically to test it out at this point. Don't really need to run anything at the moment. Just want to observe this while it works.

8/9/24: 8:11 AM

Just did some "morning chores" that I deem necessary to run my experiments. This off-grid stuff is a LOT OF WORK. Then why do it?

Good question. It seems crazy. I know my mother, if she were still alive, would say I was crazy. She said that enough while she was still alive.

The point of this is to have something to count on in case of the SHTF, which could occur at any time. Assuming I survive the initial holocaust, I will be able to live off the land and sustain myself.

Not too sure why I would want to survive that though. There was the saying that the livng would envy the dead.

Enough with the gloomy stuff. Another reason is to wean myself off the Big Government/Corporate tit. It is that dependency which is feeding the monster that may consume us all.

The monster being the all powerful government.

Another reason for doing it is that I am an old cantankerous fart.

5:20 PM

A short blurb here to mention that the inverter arrived, and is now hooked up. The big batt is charging the little batt, and it is also running the dehumifier. Until it blows up or something. Cross my fingers.

Beating the heat

9:44 AM

This is the hottest time of the year in these parts. Yesterday was over 100 degree F. The climate control in this location is actually quite good. You only feel it when you go outside. It feels like you're stepping into an oven.

So my efforts are along the lines of how to improve upon this. Well, you can't do it by much. But maybe it can be made more energy stingy. I put a watt meter on this ductless mini-split set up, and it will pull about 1200 watts when the compressor is engaged. There's some room for improvement right there.

Not to say that it's inefficient. Only that when it does kick in, it is a pretty heavy draw on electric current.

If the time it spends in the on mode is minimized, the energy stinginess factor increases. That would usually entail a higher thermostat setting. As I type this, I am looking at the readout. It is set at 27 degrees Celsius, which is about 81 degree F. The compressor kicks in ocassionally. If it ran all the time, that would not be what I'd want. I will keep the thermostat as high as I can get away with in order to minimize its use.

While the compressor is on, it is drawing water out of the room, which makes it drier inside, as well as cooler.

So I collect the water, and re-use it in my swamp cooler. The swamp cooler will evaporate water, and the dehumidifying function of the mini-split will draw the water back out and dump it outside in my collection bucket. This makes it a closed loop for that water. It so happens that I have another dehumidifier that I salvaged from my trailer when I moved out. It uses about 300 watts or so. So if I run this dehumidifier more, it means the dehumidifier on the mini-split will run less. That will make it more energy stingy.

The dehumidifiers pull out a LOT of water. More water than the swamp cooler can use. So I have an additional source of water unless I can run that swamper more often. Anyway, the plan is to hook up the solar power station to the dehumidiifier, which means that it doesn't use any grid power at all. The solar panels should be able to run this dehumifier almost all day while the sun is up.

I haven't got it all set up yet, but I'm getting there. I ordered another part from Amazon, and it will arrive tomorrow. When I hook up everything, the dehumifier will run on solar power for most of the day. This will reduce the amount of work that the mini-split will have to do in order to keep me cool and comfy. It will do so at the mimimized use of grid power, I hope.

5:00 PM

About noon-ish, I got an idea to run an experiment. The dehumidifiers were working, and the swamper was working, so why not put it through its paces? It seems that I can maintain a reasonable comfort level with the swamper going full blast and the mini-split set at its highest temperature--32 deg C. That's on a hot day with the temp above 100 Deg Farenheit.

It produces a bunch of water, which will require some way to use it. Recycling through the swamper won't be enough, because the swamper can't keep up. At 32 deg C, the mini-split runs about 1/3 of the time. If that holds, then solar power might be running about one half of my energy needs. It should make a dent in the electric bill.

Nice experiment, but I don't have my part from Amazon yet, so I cannot hook up the big battery and run it off solar power yet.

Update, 8/6/24

8.7.24:

The solar power system seems to be working okay.  The water filter seems to be producing cleaner water than before.  There's progress.  It's going to rain tomorrow, so I need to improve upon my protective measures to keep the electronics dry.  Update to the update:  Weatherization complete.

8.6.24:

Spent most of the day on the solar power system. It was supposed to be easy, but nothing seems to come easy.

Made a cover for the battery and electronics. They're not supposed to get wet. It does tend to rain around here.

The trouble came when the sun came out, but the battery didn't seem to charge. I suspected a problem, so I started diagnosing it. Changed out some parts, but it probably wasn't necessary. The battery didn't charge because it was already charged.

I could have discovered this if I read the instructions. That does help sometimes.

Update, 8/2/24

8/5/24:

It is scheduled to arrive sometime this afternoon. The battery, that is.

The only thing I need to do is to swap out the battery that is hooked up now. The panels have charged the lead acid battery up to full, so the system is working. Once the LifePo battery gets here, the settings have to be adjusted, but that is no biggie. Shouldn't take too long now.

Update to the update: It has arrived. It is also installed and charging. It won't make 100% charged because it is so late in the day. We'll tee it up, and go at it again tomorrow.

8/4/24:

Getting ready to hook up the big battery once it arrives. Scheduled for tomorrow. Things have a way of getting complicated, though. A shipment was screwed up, so how to handle it? It turns out I could fix it, or send it back. I decided to fix the problem, because I didn't want to wait around again for parts. What was the problem? These guys reversed the polarity of a connection which can fit only one way. The fix was to cut the wire into and splice it back together again.

The fix is where the complexity came in. It's a bit of a shaky fix. Hopefully, it will be suffiicent for the job that I will call upon it to do.

It is a lot easier to think up a plan than to execute it. Interesting days these days. Lots of frustration, but eventually it seems to work out.

8.2.24



Parts for the solar power system keep dribbling in. Almost everything is here now, except the battery.

While waiting for the battery, I set up the wiring, and tested it with a voltmeter. Everything is just about set.


Also, the water experiment continues. I just wish the thing would leave the water cleaner, not dirtier. The filter doesn't filter too well. That's all for now.

Update, 7/29/24

7/31/24:

Still waiting on the battery. As for the water experiment, it's producing fairly clean water. But clean water is going in. At least it's not dirtier than when it started. My methods are producing more water than I'm consuming in the swamp cooler. Also, I am tempted to try to hook up the climate control ductless mini-split heat pump. It would be really cool ( as a manner of speaking), to recycle water that was produced with the solar energy produced while cooling down the joint. Not to mention that there would be some left over. Water that is.

More parts came in, and I'm puzzling out this Pixel phone. One of these days I will learn that plans just don't go as well as they are planned to do when I think them up.

7/30/24:

It's pretty lively around here. Too lively. I have to scale back the activity, and keep it simple. It's getting a bit too complex.

That said, the filter thing is coming along, and the parts are coming in slowly. Maybe by the time the parts get here, the hooking up process for the solar panels shouldn't be too much of a pain. Famous last words? Hope not.

7/29/24: Set up a new water filter, and testing it out.

A new battery is still on the way, some of the other parts may arrive today.

A quick review shows that the quonset idea would be the quickest and cheapest way to set up a shelter out there.

However, I would need a septic arrangement. I looked into that back then, and got an application for a permit for a septic system. Obviously, I did not install it.

In fact, I think I'd rather get something more basic. Something like a composting toilet. These are on the list of approved devices for a septic permit in Texas. But I have to get serious about building something out there before I even start in on a project like that.

Nothing is ruled in, nothing is ruled out. The property is being held in case a bug out of here is necessary. If and when an acceptable bid is made, it won't be sold. In any event, a serious attempt at marketing this thing won't be made either. I will honor my post for only so long. If I take it down, it goes completely off-market.

Holy cow.

I thought I took down the page that was displaying my land out in West Texas.

As mentioned earlier, I had all but forgotten this blog.

It seems that somebody or somebodies made an offer(s) for the land, which kinda puzzled me a bit. Well, maybe not so much anymore.

In case somebody is actually interested in making a purchase of this land, then make a serious offer. The offers were absurdly low.

I don't remember if I actually mentioned a price back then. This is at least four years ago, so excuse the failed memory test, please.

Once again, a serious offer for all 40 acres may be considered. A serious offer is one that is comparable for what the land is selling for out there. Now I realize that those prices may be inflated, so we have a little wiggle room there.

Nothing has changed, except my attitude

Let's say I caught a second wind. I am returning with a lot more something, which I don't have a word for at the moment.

I'm going back over my water experiments. One thing I'm doing is to reconstruct my home-made water filter. Another thing is my solar power project. I brought the panels with me from the old place, and ordered a new battery. It is on the way. The other batteries? I gave them away back in February. They weren't operating properly, and I thought them to be unsafe. But I bought a new battery, and it isn't lead acid.

I brought everything that I could salvage, and sold off the RV trailer. Currently, I have no trailer, except the little 5x8 that I bought way back when. I brought it over here too. The solar panels are resting on top of it. However, the trailer has not been improved at all. It is the same as it was when it came out of the box. The plan was to build it out to a 5x8 box. Not sure if I will end up doing that, but it isn't out of the question. It will need a lot of work though.

The one thing that hasn't changed is the attitude of my older brothers. None of them like my ideas. So I'm pretty much on my own with this off-grid stuff.

Dragons aren't always bad

NASA Says Boeing Starliner Is Too Risky for Return Mission, SpaceX Drago... https://t.co/xKIPiY62bl via @YouTube Comment: Dragon to the rescue.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) July 26, 2024

Series cross-linked to main blog

7/25/24:

The summary written up below is incorrect. I do not advocate terraforming Venus at all. Actually, there is no need. Instead, the idea is to live in the clouds of Venus, somewhat like the movie Star Wars, in which Lando Calrissian ran the city in the clouds.

This AI stuff leaves something to be desired sometimes.



7/23/24:

 Link to multi-part series of posts relating to the use of Spacex's Starship to colonize Venus

Summary of post courtesy of Gab AI:

Can you summarize this url please?https://greg-bno.blogspot.com/2024/06/water-and-carbon-dioxide-from-venus.html

The blog post discusses the possibility of extracting water and carbon dioxide from Venus' atmosphere for potential use in terraforming the planet. The author proposes using high-altitude balloons equipped with solar panels and electrolysis equipment to split CO2 into oxygen and carbon, while also condensing water vapor. This process could potentially create an environment more suitable for life on Venus.

GAB.AI

Can MIT Breakthrough Save Us?

Unlimited Fresh Water: Can MIT's Breakthrough Save Us? https://t.co/MDYWYmoHs8 via @YouTube Comment: Another youtuber describes this as a type of photoelectric effect.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) July 25, 2024

The post order is back assward. I saw the following video first, then clicked on the link that brought me to the link above within the tweet.

Water is very important to my project. So this got my attention.

Where does this blog go for the future?

Not only will off-grid posts go here, but also cutting edge tech. Not much else to say on the subject right now. Politics has the floor, so to speak.



Correction to right sidebar when I get around to updating it. In the link described as up to date spacex mission info, substitute this link. Still going through the list, so bear with me.

And JP at JP Aerospace is going great

Thorium Energy Alliance still going! Great!

Note: This blog has been neglected.

Starting today, I will do a little to keep the blog going. Otherwise, why have it?

From the main blog to this one. Back by unpopular demand. Uh, no. Can't back that up.

Boots and Oil Blog: Reusable Rockets vs. Expendable Rockets: A Perform... https://t.co/J0nc5CJKFP Comment: This is to cross post this post to my other blog. At least an attempt will be made.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) July 22, 2024