Author Topic: Lunar landing anniversary today  (Read 9304 times)

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Offline rstofer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #25 on: July 23, 2022, 05:12:32 pm »
["Getting off this rock" is in no way useful to the 7 billion of us who will have to remain behind.  I've never understood why anyone thinks it is important to perpetuate the species by colonizing outer space.  Even if that were an important goal, we are so far from being able to accomplish that, it's not even a dream at this point.  Give it a few hundred more years and maybe we can take another look.  For now, there's no place we've identified as being remotely practical to go.

If the species is to survive, locational diversity is required.  Otherwise we go the way of the dinosaurs.  Richard Feynman had something to say on this subject but I can't find the quote.

Most of our advancements from the vacuum tube era were driven by the space program.  For certain, integrated circuits started from the space program.

https://ethw.org/Integrated_Circuits_and_the_Space_Program_and_Missile_Defense

Advances in science and medicine are directly attributable to the space program.  Science, for science sake alone, is worth the expenditure.  Besides, what other jobs are there for astrophysicists?  In fact, the program created a huge demand for engineering students in the early '60s.  Frankly, October 4, 1957 [1] scared the hell out of us.  I was just starting 7th grade and the shift in emphasis toward math was immediate.  No more post-war screwing around, everybody had to get an education so we would have enough engineers for national defense.

Of course I also remember the reporting of the Strontium-90 levels on the hourly radio news broadcasts.  And the weekly air raid siren tests.  Everybody in San Diego County was supposed to head out toward El Centro when the siren went off.  All those cars and, I believe, a single lane highway for about 100 miles.  I don't think it was well thought out.  Hence the 'duck and cover' drills.

The space program provided an enormous number of jobs scattered throughout the country.  MANY small machine shops employed quite a few machinists and other workers making subassemblies for the space program.  I was ther, I worked in one.  Interesting times...

[1] Sputnik launched
« Last Edit: July 23, 2022, 06:22:40 pm by rstofer »
 
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Offline IDEngineer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #26 on: July 23, 2022, 05:37:41 pm »
+1000 to everything rstofer said above.

Even if we never leave the solar system, the spinoff benefits at the individual, national, and global level are incalcuable. Much of today's electronics technology was prompted by aerospace and the need to drastically reduce volume, weight, and power consumption. Medical advances, and understanding of how the human body works (and thus how to maintain and "repair" it) stem from research into extended spaceflight. The list is nearly endless. A huge number of things the average person takes for granted today exist thanks to the "space race" and its derivative technologies.

There's also the defense aspect. Space is the ultimate "high ground". Whomever has the best space tech will be in a position to control what happens below. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it's the truth and we ignore it at our peril.

Permanent base(s) on the moon are absolutely doable. And the moon is the ideal launch point for more distant efforts. The moon has almost all of the raw materials (including water) and plentiful solar energy to process them. Launches are 1/6th of earth's gravity so less fuel is required - and fuel is the single largest payload, so the ripple effect of its reduction improves everything. It probably makes some missions possible that would otherwise not be.

Permanent base(s) on Mars are doable too, especially if we leverage what we learn from doing it on the moon. Baby steps. And the spinoffs will continue to benefit all of mankind, just as those from the "space race" still do today.

Lots of things were impossible until someone did them. "Man will never fly." "A human cannot run a mile in under four minutes." "Man will never step on the moon." Those who claim something is impossible should get out of the way of those making it happen.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2022, 05:40:10 pm by IDEngineer »
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #27 on: July 23, 2022, 06:35:58 pm »
There's also the defense aspect. Space is the ultimate "high ground". Whomever has the best space tech will be in a position to control what happens below. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it's the truth and we ignore it at our peril.

Permanent base(s) on the moon are absolutely doable. And the moon is the ideal launch point for more distant efforts. The moon has almost all of the raw materials (including water) and plentiful solar energy to process them. Launches are 1/6th of earth's gravity so less fuel is required - and fuel is the single largest payload, so the ripple effect of its reduction improves everything. It probably makes some missions possible that would otherwise not be.


I kind of wonder what the Chinese are doing on the dark side of the Moon.  It certainly isn't tourist weather...

That Russia and China are going to joint venture a permanent Moon base in the next 15 years (give or take) isn't really good news.  The US simply doesn't have the will to counter that with our own base(s).  We need one base yesterday and a half dozen more by next week!

NASA is just a shell of its former organization, incapable of doing much of anything.  It's certainly not the NASA I remember from the '60s and '70s.  We had been subcontracting to Russia to get to the space station and back - unacceptable!  SpaceX (and Elon Musk) has improved on that situation! 

Still, we are the only country that was sent 6 spacecraft and 12 astronauts to the Moon.  Funny how the first is the most well known (Armstrong) and I doubt that many people could name the last (Cernan).
« Last Edit: July 23, 2022, 06:48:21 pm by rstofer »
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #28 on: July 23, 2022, 06:37:25 pm »
Quote
You missed my point.  If there is nothing useful to do at the moment, then we should do that.

There is nearly always something useful to do. Just finding out how not to die for an extended period can be useful!

Waiting for a warp drive to pop into existence is futile, even if one could exist. And suppose it did - we're not going to just hop on and find EarthII all ready for the first colonists. That's if we even last long enough for such a drive to be a twinkle in anyone's eye, which it won't be if we're sitting around waiting for something to happen before getting off our arse.

Sometimes I wonder, if the Russians had of kept going, if the US would have had by now a Antarctica-style moon base set up with regular visits/crew shifts like the space station.

The fact China has moon programs is exactly why the US is getting interested in moon programs again as well. This is happening again.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #29 on: July 23, 2022, 06:41:14 pm »
One thing I like to point out:  The Moon landing on July 20th, 1969 should take "can't" out of the dictionary.  That word should be banned in all its forms:  written, spoken or thought.  There's no such thing as can't.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #30 on: July 23, 2022, 07:23:59 pm »
If the species is to survive, locational diversity is required.  Otherwise we go the way of the dinosaurs.  Richard Feynman had something to say on this subject but I can't find the quote.

I guess I never really understood why this is important. What is so special about our particular species that we need to try to ensure its survival after our planet is dead? It's not like you or I will survive, the vast majority of the billions of humans on this planet are going to die eventually and our civilizations will eventually crumble. What advantage is it to spread our species to other planets? The dinosaurs had a good run, we've been doing ok so far, we'll be gone eventually, nothing lasts forever. It's not going to rescue people on earth to find a new habitable planet, it's just going to create some new people somewhere else, and it's extremely unlikely that will ever succeed given the vast distance we would have to cover. I kind of see this as people grappling with their own mortality and not wanting to accept that none of us will exist forever. We should be trying to solve our problems right here on earth rather than focusing on finding somewhere else to go. I am quite confident that humans are going to create their own demise long before our planet becomes uninhabitable due to natural reasons.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #31 on: July 23, 2022, 07:25:48 pm »
One thing I like to point out:  The Moon landing on July 20th, 1969 should take "can't" out of the dictionary.  That word should be banned in all its forms:  written, spoken or thought.  There's no such thing as can't.

I disagree. You can't create something from nothing. Do you think we could create an over-unity machine if we put the sort of effort into the project that was put into the moon missions? I don't think so. There are things that are difficult but achievable, and there are things that can't be done.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #32 on: July 23, 2022, 08:52:27 pm »
Quote
I guess I never really understood why this is important. What is so special about our particular species that we need to try to ensure its survival after our planet is dead? It's not like you or I will survive

It's built in. Propagating the species is the reason we can have sex, so it's not like we don't care (as a species).

And you're right that we personally won't be here for long, so why fart around with the climate stuff and anything else that takes more than 20-30 years? We won't be around to worry about what the next generation has to put up with.

But, for some reason, we do care. We do give a toss about what we're leaving our kids or even other people's kids. That's what's special about our species, if nothing else, and I don't see why that should be an issue. After all, if you don't want to be a part of that you can always check out early.
 

Offline magic

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2022, 05:55:12 am »
I guess I never really understood why this is important. What is so special about our particular species that we need to try to ensure its survival after our planet is dead? It's not like you or I will survive, the vast majority of the billions of humans on this planet are going to die eventually and our civilizations will eventually crumble. What advantage is it to spread our species to other planets?
Individuals and populations like you are a self-correcting problem, even before taking dunkemhigh's advice.

You can thank you rationalist-neoliberal brainwashing for your feelings about life. Many such cases in your country, and a big reason why it totally sucks today.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #34 on: July 24, 2022, 07:00:49 am »
The reason for why no Moon base:



 ;D
 
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Offline Brumby

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #35 on: July 24, 2022, 09:34:33 am »
Even as fiction, Star Trek is a bit ridiculous.  I guess I've never paid attention to whether they've left the galaxy, still, within the galaxy, you have to exceed the speed of light by huge factors to get around.  It's 52,000 light years across.
:palm:  How to kill your credibility.

You might want to pay more attention next time you pull out some numbers.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #36 on: July 24, 2022, 01:36:54 pm »
Oh, common, please don't speak in riddles, I have no idea what that number should be, and most of all don't try to denigrate others.  If you see a mistake, just say the correct info.



Anyway, came here to say the full documentary is on YouTube (the one from 2014, that has in it Buzz Aldrin telling about that "UFO" like he observed).

Aliens On The Moon The Truth Exposed 2014 New SyFy Documentary
X Comet İson
https://youtu.be/wxERd9ImAwY

Very interesting documentary for the UFO enthusiast, just don't bet everything on that.  :)

SPOILER:  If you don't have 90 minutes to spend, the documentary has a lot of grainy pics, but also intriguing tales and mysteries, and at the end it has a few images showing huge installations from the dark side of the Moon, reminding of a refinery by the look of those structures (at 1:12:50).  Not sure if that was CGI, or film/photos, or if it was entirely make-up.  And the body/leftovers of one or two human-like alien female around minute 1h:17min.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2022, 01:58:46 pm by RoGeorge »
 

Offline IDEngineer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #37 on: July 24, 2022, 03:17:02 pm »
So there IS a moon base. Just not a human one. Yet.

Which proves it's doable!  :)
 

Offline coppercone2

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #38 on: July 24, 2022, 03:24:05 pm »
ridley scotts first gig
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #39 on: July 24, 2022, 03:56:19 pm »
Guess I'm late to the party, but reading about "we need to spread out, and start on the moon, because the Chinese and the Russians are doing it" proves that we should not. And why, we are already fucking up one planet with war and overpopulation and the rest of the shit.

Sure let's go out to the moon and do it there too, and then next up mars, and whats next.  |O

Would you like to live on a station on the moon? No fresh air, no outside nature, no naturally filtered sunlight, well not me.

But aside from that there are also things like DNA diversity to consider. Traveling to a distant livable planet would mean going there with enough people to not create an inbred society of retards, or taking along a huge amount of human eggs and sperm to be able to make a lot of people from it to start a new healthy population. This would require a big and special space craft. But of course Elon Musk to the rescue.

I agree with james_s, let thing run their course here on earth and lets not waste a lot of resources on something that in the end will not be doable.

And sure you can care about the next couple of generations, but what are you actually doing about making it better? Buy into the whole renewable energy foolery? As I wrote before, that is just shifting the problem. Not a solution. It won't safe humanity, and neither would setting up camp on the moon, mars or what other planet you have. Self destruction is in our DNA, and it is called greed and envy.


Offline PlainName

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #40 on: July 24, 2022, 04:06:02 pm »
Quote
But aside from that there are also things like DNA diversity to consider. Traveling to a distant livable planet would mean going there with enough people to not create an inbred society of retards

Don't worry - the radiation will damage DNA enough to make offspring very diverse :)
 
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Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2022, 04:07:14 pm »
Quote
But aside from that there are also things like DNA diversity to consider. Traveling to a distant livable planet would mean going there with enough people to not create an inbred society of retards

Don't worry - the radiation will damage DNA enough to make offspring very diverse :)

LOL  :-DD  :-DD

Offline cannoli

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #42 on: July 24, 2022, 04:16:22 pm »
Quote
But aside from that there are also things like DNA diversity to consider. Traveling to a distant livable planet would mean going there with enough people to not create an inbred society of retards

Don't worry - the radiation will damage DNA enough to make offspring very diverse :)

LOL  :-DD  :-DD

I laughed at this too. I joined the forum, new and encountering something like this. You made me smile. :)
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #43 on: July 24, 2022, 04:41:13 pm »
So there IS a moon base. Just not a human one. Yet.

Which proves it's doable!  :)

You won the Internet at the "Best Optimist" category!  ;D

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #44 on: July 24, 2022, 04:47:58 pm »
So there IS a moon base. Just not a human one. Yet.

That is from our fore fathers, hundreds of thousand years old 8)

Offline james_s

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #45 on: July 24, 2022, 06:34:14 pm »
It's built in. Propagating the species is the reason we can have sex, so it's not like we don't care (as a species).

And you're right that we personally won't be here for long, so why fart around with the climate stuff and anything else that takes more than 20-30 years? We won't be around to worry about what the next generation has to put up with.

But, for some reason, we do care. We do give a toss about what we're leaving our kids or even other people's kids. That's what's special about our species, if nothing else, and I don't see why that should be an issue. After all, if you don't want to be a part of that you can always check out early.

Farting around with the climate stuff, or whatever efforts needed to preserve our planet is saving or improving the lives of vast numbers of people that are already born and that will soon be born. It serves a purpose to prevent the deaths of people that are already alive and reduce their suffering. Finding a new planet to inhabit doesn't accomplish that, it does nothing for the *vast* majority of the population that are going to die in a cataclysmic event. It is not possible to evacuate the population of the earth even if we had somewhere to go, all we can do is send a few seeds somewhere else and that is not the same thing at all. To put it into perspective, no matter how badly we screw up or pollute our planet, it's going to remain far more habitable than any other place we are capable of reaching without some kind of warp propulsion. Rebuilding earth after a nuclear holocaust is easy next to colonizing Mars.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #46 on: July 24, 2022, 07:32:23 pm »
To put it into perspective, no matter how badly we screw up or pollute our planet, it's going to remain far more habitable than any other place we are capable of reaching without some kind of warp propulsion. Rebuilding earth after a nuclear holocaust is easy next to colonizing Mars.

Yup. Of course.
We'd literally need to blow up the Earth in order to make colonizing another (close) planet a viable alternative.
(I added 'close', just in case we end up finding a very far away planet, in a completely different galaxy, that would be easier to colonize than, say, Mars. But that hypothesis is still pretty unlikely, if just for the probable distance if such a planet does exist, making it a lot more likely that the human species would have long disappeared by the time we could.)
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #47 on: July 24, 2022, 09:12:01 pm »
Individuals and populations like you are a self-correcting problem, even before taking dunkemhigh's advice.

You can thank you rationalist-neoliberal brainwashing for your feelings about life. Many such cases in your country, and a big reason why it totally sucks today.

I don't even know what nationalist-neoliberal means, nor do I see what politics have to do with any of this, I just call it as I see it. Life is a series of rather impressive chemical reactions. Even being one of them, I view humans as somewhat of a parasite on the universe. We consume vast quantities of resources, destroy the landscape, pollute the air, and we kill our own species both in wars and on smaller scales over trivial matters and material goods. The planet is overpopulated and getting worse all the time. I grew up in a nice quiet rural area which has now been completely overrun. All of our open space including loads of prime agricultural land have been paved and built over with thousands of cookie cutter housing developments. Our roads are clogged at almost all hours of the day and night and everywhere is so crowded that it feels suffocating and is becoming unbearable, I have a constant feeling that people are in my way. I would absolutely love it if the population dropped to 1970s levels but I don't see that happening, and some people actually want it to keep growing which boggles the mind. Talk about a self correcting problem, at some point wars over diminishing resources will destroy us, long before our planet dies of natural causes. At some point mother nature is going to slap us down into our place, the Covid pandemic was a bit like a warning shot.

We have an amazing planet to live on, one that is perfectly suited to us, and we are busy trashing it and looking for the next place to take over and trash rather than focusing on taking care of the place we have. If there is life elsewhere in the universe that is aware of us, I would not blame them in the least for not making themselves known.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #48 on: July 24, 2022, 09:24:13 pm »
Quote
We have an amazing planet to live on, one that is perfectly suited to us

Actually, one to which we are perfectly suited.
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Lunar landing anniversary today
« Reply #49 on: July 25, 2022, 04:31:04 am »
Farting around with the climate stuff, or whatever efforts needed to preserve our planet is saving or improving the lives of vast numbers of people that are already born and that will soon be born. It serves a purpose to prevent the deaths of people that are already alive and reduce their suffering.

We consume vast quantities of resources, destroy the landscape, pollute the air, and we kill our own species both in wars and on smaller scales over trivial matters and material goods. The planet is overpopulated and getting worse all the time.

These two statements are a bit contradictive. On the one hand you want to prevent death, and on the other hand you are complaining about overpopulation.

The latter is the sore truth we don't want to hear. And the more the population grows the harder it gets to feed and keep them all alive. But it is the only economic viable option, because that is the system we adhere.

Rebuilding earth after a nuclear holocaust is easy next to colonizing Mars.

In comparison probably true, but it still would take a lot of effort and resources. The biggest problem I see in the whole survival of the human race is the availability of resources. It is not just fossil fuels that are not endlessly available, it is a lot of other resources too. There is not enough easy obtainable lithium on the planet to make batteries for every car on the planet, the same goes for cobalt, and all the other materials needed to keep all industry a float.

So saving the human race needs a whole other attitude than the thought of science and technology will save the day. But that is not convenient, because we can't do without it anymore. Just take a look at the smart phone. Go out onto the streets of whatever city and you see people walking with the thing glued to their hand.

Talk about a self correcting problem, at some point wars over diminishing resources will destroy us, long before our planet dies of natural causes. At some point
mother nature is going to slap us down into our place, the Covid pandemic was a bit like a warning shot.

Very true. If you look at it closely, we are no different than large colonies of, for instance, rats. When there are to many of them they start eating each other and disease starts to spread more and more reducing their numbers to a livable level, to just start over again.

With the way we are roaming the world nowadays diseases will spread much faster, and indeed Covid is a good example of that. But with only a less then 5% death rate it would have made just a very small dent in the global population, no where near what is needed to reduce the population to a true sustainable level. That is what mankind will do themselves eventually when resources are so scarce that wars will be started over them.

And then, just like the rats, it will start all over again, only to find itself on a planet without natural resources. Sure at first it is possible to recycle what was harvested before, but that also is not endless.

And this al might seem gloom, but it is the ugly truth.

We have an amazing planet to live on, one that is perfectly suited to us, and we are busy trashing it and looking for the next place to take over and trash rather than focusing on taking care of the place we have.

Very well said. It is very beautiful and for as far as we can see or tell unique, but boy do we fuck it up.

I grew up in a nice quiet rural area which has now been completely overrun. All of our open space including loads of prime agricultural land have been paved and built over with thousands of cookie cutter housing developments. Our roads are clogged at almost all hours of the day and night and everywhere is so crowded that it feels suffocating and is becoming unbearable, I have a constant feeling that people are in my way.

And that is why the wife and I fled the Netherlands to rural France. Here we can go for a nice walk without a single encounter with an other person. Going to the supermarket is a bit of a travel, but it is always a confirmation that we did the right thing. Way to many people mindlessly going about filling their shopping carts with trash :o

If there is life elsewhere in the universe that is aware of us, I would not blame them in the least for not making themselves known.

At least with our way of living we did one thing right. We made our planet unattractive for whatever life there is in the universe. Only when they like human flesh they can have a large feast  :-DD


Edit: And think about it, in the grand scheme, does it really matter when the human race goes extinct? Are we so special compared to, for instance, the dinosaurs or any of the other species that we actively eradicated from the planet?

Only a small number of people actually made big discoveries to further the species as a whole, but this does not stop everyone pounding its own chest and saying how great we are. And when it goes wrong it is always someone else to blame.

Just like with your favorite football team. When they win it is "we did great" and when they loose it is, "dammit the assholes lost the game". Or "I'm from Armenia", like a chef in a restaurant told us, "and some famous people come form there. Like Cher and Charles Aznavour." Yes, but what does that say about you? Did you have anything to do with them becoming famous?
« Last Edit: July 25, 2022, 06:04:26 am by pcprogrammer »
 


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