text:
Mercury (Marvel Comics)

Mercury (Cessily Kincaid) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Keron Grant, the character first appeared in New Mutants vol. 2 #2 (August 2003). Mercury is a teenage member of the student body at the Xavier Institute and a recurring member of the X-Men.

Publication history
Mercury debuted in New Mutants vol. 2 #2 (August 2003), created by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Keron Grant.

Introduction
Cessily Kincaid, an Irish American, was raised in Portland, Oregon by her parents Mark and Jill, who, according to DeFilippis, used to dote over her. When Cessily's powers manifested, her parents were disgusted and made her stay indoors so as to hide her mutation. In response, she was sent to the Xavier Institute where she befriended Julian Keller and was placed as Laurie Collins' roommate for a while. After the school was rebuilt, she was selected by Emma Frost to be on her Hellions squad.

She's extremely close to Santo Varroco and Julian Keller whom she spends most of her time with and looks upon like big brothers. During that time, she developed a crush on her teammate Wither, but her feelings were not reciprocated.

Hellions Miniseries
The Hellions squad won the squad challenge, and during their summer vacation, they travelled with Julian to his home. There they encountered the Kingmaker, from whom they each received a trial wish. Cessily's wish was to have her parents accept and love her, a wish the Kingmaker granted by manipulating her parents with telepaths. When the Hellions eventually refused a permanent deal with the Kingmaker, Cessily's parents reverted to normal and Cessily returned to the institute, defeated.

Decimation
After the events of M-Day only 27 students were left with their powers, including Cessily, although she would have preferred to lose her powers and was devastated that she did not. The depowered students and staff were sent home. One bus was bombed by anti-mutant religious zealot Reverend William Stryker, and Cessily's former teammate and friend Tag was among those killed. The X-Men held a funeral for those students whose parents would not accept them, and Cessily's anguish was very visible.

All of the remaining students were placed by Emma Frost into an all-out brawl, and the ones deemed to be the best were to be assigned to become a group of in-training X-Men. Cessily made the team and began training to become an X-Man.

Childhood's End and Nimrod
In the Childhood's End arc, Cessily and the New X-Men defeated Stryker, Josh killing him. Shortly afterwards the team went to help Forge who had been sought out by Nimrod for repair. During the skirmish X-23 was forced to sever a piece of Mercury's hand to separate her from Nimrod. She later commented she'd "always wanted to lose a few pounds." The team successfully defeated the robot due to combining the powers of Surge, Mercury, and X-23, and Nimrod was sent back in time.

Mercury Falling
After learning of Emma Frost's plan to have X-23 leave the school, Cessily takes Laura to Salem Center for coffee to cool Laura down. Just as Cessily realizes that Laura has feelings for Hellion, the coffee shop explodes. Facility agents led by Laura's former handler, Kimura come for one of them. Laura, believing it is her, begs Cessily to leave, but not before Kimura shoots Cessily with an electric bullet, incapacitating her. After capturing Cessily, Kimura leaves before Laura can recuperate from a grenade blast. At the lab, Cessily questions who they are and what they want but is given no answers. When she replies that her friends will come for her, Kimura informs that "The Elephant" (Mammomax) said the same thing while showing a picture of his corpse in a cell. Before dying, Stryker had requested a living weapon be made, a huge beast called Predator X. Mercury's metal skin was needed to give it added powers and durability. The Facility scientists strip some of Mercury's biometal, granting Predator X her powers. The experiments leave her physically and mentally traumatized, forcing her to recuperate for some time at the institute. She eventually regains some of her lost mass.

Quest for Magik
Mercury is recovering in bed after what happened to her in the last arc when the students are teleported to Limbo. She is held captive by Belasco but breaks free after he 'kills' X-23. She and Dust go up against Belasco and keep getting beaten down but refuse to give up, as both their mutant bodies are resistant to his magic and fight an inconclusive battle until Darkchylde and the other students arrive, teleported by Pixie. Mercury continues to fight alongside the other students, but can only watch as Belasco fends them off and proceeds to pull Earth into Limbo until he is defeated by Darkchylde and Pixie.

World War Hulk
Mercury is one of the students that intercepts the Hulk. Mercury helps in keeping Hulk pinned down in the first attack but is knocked away. When X-23 blinds him she joins in taking him down alongside Surge, Beast and X-23 but they are all knocked away when Hulk's eyes grow back. Mercury gets back up and attacks him from behind but Hulk grabs her and squishes her against the ground. Later while the rest of the X-Men are still defeated from the Hulk's attack, Mercury tries one more time to defeat the rampaging green goliath. During the course of the battle, the Hulk was shown the recent graveyards of all of the deceased mutants that died after M-Day. Mercury then describes in detail the deaths of Laurie Collins and Brian Cruz, causing the Hulk to understand his self-righteous tantrum is wrongly directed towards Xavier's affiliation with the Illuminati. Seeing these graveyards reminds the Hulk of his fallen companions on Sakaar, and with that understanding, he leaves Xavier unharmed.

Children of X-Men
Cessily still maintains her disapproval and distrust of Emma Frost after overhearing her conversation with X-23 during the "Mercury Falling" arc. She also feels that Emma has carelessly "lost" track of Wither and constantly reminds her of the fact that Kevin is no longer in the school or under her surveillance.

Mercury has also been deeply affected by the events of Decimation, as depicted in the "Endangered Species" miniseries. She is distraught by the death of a teenage civilian mutant and is one of the students at the institute trying to determine the youngest mutant, as she believes that the youngest mutant always tends to be killed. Mercury later comforts X-23 after she ran off and wrecked the woman's restroom in rage due to Surge kissing Hellion, and is later seen hanging out with her and Dust.

Messiah Complex
Mercury is one of the New X-Men led by Surge that launch a strike against the Purifiers to incapacitate them and rescue the mutant baby. After Hellion is critically wounded by Lady Deathstrike, Pixie panics and blindly teleports the entire team out of the Purifiers' base, spreading them out between Washington and New York. It does not appear that Cessily suffered any lasting injuries as a result. Iceman arrives with the X-Jet to bring them back to the mansion. She helps to stabilize Hellion in the X-Jet on the way back to the mansion. Later, she goes with Dust and Rockslide to visit the graveyard, and they discover that Predator X has entered the mansion grounds. Mercury battles the monster with the rest of the students and is transported by Pixie, along with the other New X-Men, to the battle between the X-Teams and Sinister's forces on Muir Isle.

Secret Invasion
Cessily is among the several X-Men helping to fight off Skrulls during their invasion of San Francisco.

Manifest Destiny
Mercury and X-23 are walking down Fisherman's Wharf when X-23 realizes Mercury is upset. Mercury misses her parents and feels like a freak because they were disgusted when her powers manifested. While playing with Silly Putty, she comments:

"I'm like this stuff... A blob of malleable goop. Doesn't matter, metal or clay... We're one and the same. You fool yourself and think it's like magic. You can change shape at will. There's freedom in making yourself into anything you can imagine. Until you realize that no matter what... You're still a metal freak. You don't have skin, you don't have... You're not... A person. You're not... Human."

They are then attacked by 3 members of the Hellfire Cult and Mercury takes them all out. X-23 points out she is more than just lifeless metal, she is a person and a hero and to put her past behind her and look at who she is now. She just might like what she sees.

X-Infernus
Mercury and Rockslide are watching a training session between Pixie and Nightcrawler when Pixie stabs Kurt with her soul dagger. They run in and move Pixie away from Kurt's unconscious body, Beast enters and Pixie regains her senses. When she removes her dagger, Magik's soulsword emerges from his chest and Magik teleports in ready to reclaim her sword.

Mercury engages Magik in combat and manages to stab her in the shoulder; Illyana responds by blowing her up, noting that she has some immunity to magic, but is not invulnerable. After she reforms, she is placed on a team of X-Men being sent to Limbo along with Rockslide due to their resistance to magic.

Upon entering Limbo, the team fights their way through many demons. Pixie senses the darkness within her suddenly growing and she teleports off to Belasco's castle by herself.

Hearing the screams from the castle, Kurt teleports the X-Men into the throne room. Once there, Witchfire turns Colossus and Wolverine against Mercury and Rockslide who get taken out, leaving Kurt the last X-Man standing.

Utopia
Mercury, along with fellow students Onyxx and Loa, was tasked with keeping peace at the riots on Telegraph Hill after the mutant-hate group "Humanity Now!" marched from Sacramento to San Francisco to promote "Proposition X", displeasing many citizens of San Francisco, mutant and non-mutant alike. After the riots subsided on Telegraph Hill, Cyclops came and picked them up, taking them to City Hall. During the final battle against Norman Osborn's forces, along with Iceman and many of the other x-students, she takes on Mimic.

After Osborn's defeat by the X-Men and the official creation of Utopia, Mercury is involved in a media tug of war between Norman Osborn, her biological father and their claims that she is being held captive against her will. Although she confronts her father over the phone, during a live television broadcast, and disputes his claims going as far as to call him a bad father her situation gets more complicated as Deadpool intervenes.

Believing that he is doing them a favor he attempts to kill Mr. Kincaid on live television only to be stopped by Domino. However Deadpool is still attempting to follow through and kill Mercury's father. In the meantime, the X-Men plan on having Mercury declared an emancipated minor in order to counter Osborn. Kincaid is later saved from sniper fire in front the media by Wolverine, thus restoring the X-Men's damaged reputations. He confesses in an interview to the aforementioned witnesses that Norman Osborn put him up to everything.

The following storyline created some continuity errors as it was implied that Mr. Kincaid had been an absentee father for most of Mercury's life, and it also implied that he was divorced/separated from Mercury's mother. This is in direct conflict from the Hellion's mini-series which showed both Mercury's parents living together happily. Furthermore, in a New X-Men flashback during the Mercury Rising storyline it showed a concerned father discovering Cessily during the onset of her mutation.

Regenesis
Cessily left with Wolverine and returned to the school. In the first issue of Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega, she is seen at school.

Powers and abilities
The body of Mercury is composed of a non-toxic metal resembling mercury. She can reshape or solidify it at will. Her molecular adhesion power grants her the ability to cling to solid surfaces and move her body at will. She has demonstrated superhuman strength by supporting huge slabs of concrete. She also possesses superhuman durability owing to her mercury form. Mercury does not require food or drink due to her composition. She is one of the few people who can touch Wither as her body is not organic. Her inorganic body also made her immune to the pheromone based powers of Wallflower and was placed as her roommate. She can also control pieces of her liquid mercury and has the potential to bring it back to her. It usually forcefully separated from her body, her liquid mercury turns into dead flesh, as demonstrated during the Facility's experiments. Some of her mercury has been separated as living mercury tissue and was used for Predator X's skin. She is currently less than her original mass, as she states that when Laura cut off her hands to save her during the fight with Nimrod, she "lost a few pounds." Additionally, she has some resistance to magic due to her transient form.

Critical response
Deirdre Kaye of Scary Mommy called Mercury a "role model" and a "truly heroic" female character. Aparna Ukil of Sportskeeda ranked Mercury 5th in their "5 Coolest Comic Book Characters With Elastic Abilities" list. Alyssa Gawaran of MovieWeb ranked Mercury 7th in their "8 LGBTQ+ Marvel Comics Characters That Need to Be in the MCU" list.

House of M
An alternate version of Mercury appears in the House of M reality. Cessily Kincaid was a student at Karma's New Mutant Leadership Institute, and, unlike her 616 persona, was close with Laurie. When she learned of Prodigy's plan to help Surge find her terrorist father in Japan, she was against going, but then Laurie (a deep cover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent) changed her mind. Once in Japan, the young team found the Project Genesis the terrorists were trying to stop, and Laurie revealed her loyalties, making the Hellions attack the New Mutants. Mercury, however, was immune to pheromones, and pleaded with her friend to stop. When Laurie refused, Cessily Kincaid was forced to stab her in the abdomen. Afterwards, Mercury joined the survivors in a last-ditch assault on Emperor Sunfire's forces.

In other media

 * Mercury makes non-speaking appearances in Wolverine and the X-Men as a resident of Genosha and member of Magneto's Acolytes.
 * Mercury appears in early concept art for X-Men: Days of Future Past.

title: Mercury (Marvel Comics)


text:
Phanagoria

Phanagoria (Φαναγόρεια; Фанагория) was the largest ancient Greek city on the Taman peninsula, spread over two plateaus along the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus. The city was a large emporium for all the traffic between the coast of the Maeotian marshes and the countries on the southern side of the Caucasus. It was the eastern capital of the Bosporan Kingdom, with Panticapaeum being the western capital. Strabo described it as a noteworthy city which was renowned for its trade. It was briefly a Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese while a medieval Genoese colony under the name Matrega, it remains a Latin Catholic titular see. Today the site is located at a short distance to the west of Sennoy in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. Another ancient Greek city, Hermonassa, lies 25 km to the west, on the shoreline of modern Taman.

Antiquity
Phanagoria was founded ca. 543 BC by the Teian colonists who had to flee Asia Minor in consequence of their conflict with the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The city took its name after one of these colonists, Phanagoras. "The unusual nature of the Taman peninsula near Phanagoria, with its ravines, crevices, hills, and low cones of active volcanoes, must have impressed the ancient colonists even more than it impresses us today", historian Yulia Ustinova has observed.

In the 5th century BC, the town thrived on the trade with the Scythians and Sindi. Located on an island in the ancient archipelago of Corocondamitis, between the Black Sea and the Palus Maeotis, Phanagoria covered an area of 75 ha of which one third has been submerged by the sea. In the early 4th century BC the burgeoning Bosporan Kingdom subjugated much of Sindica, including the independent polis of Phanagoria. The town's importance increased with the decline of the old capital, Panticapaeum, situated on the opposite shore of the Crimean strait, or Cimmerian Bosporus. By the first centuries AD, Phanagoria had emerged as the main centre of the kingdom.

During the Mithridatic Wars, the town allied with the Roman Republic and withstood a siege by the army of Pharnaces II of Pontus. It was at Phanagoria that the insurrection broke out against Mithridates VI of Pontus, shortly before his death; and his sons, who held the citadel, were obliged to surrender to the insurgents. An inscription found during excavations testifies that Queen Dynamis honored Augustus as "the emperor, Caesar, son of a god, the god Augustus, the overseer of every land and sea". The loyalty to Rome allowed Phanagoria to maintain a dominant position in the region until the 4th century, when it was sacked and destroyed by the invading Huns.

Middle Ages
By the 7th century, the town had recovered from a century of invasions from the steppe peoples. It served as the capital of Old Great Bulgaria between 632 and 665 under Kubrat. Afterwards Phanagoria became (at least nominally) a Byzantine dependency. A Khazar tudun was nonetheless present in the town and de facto control probably rested in Khazar hands until the defeat of Georgius Tzul in 1016. In 704, the deposed Byzantine emperor Justinian II settled in Phanagoria (then governed by the Khazar tudun Balgatzin) with his wife Theodora, a sister of the Khazar Khagan Busir Glavan, before returning to Constantinople by way of Bulgaria.

In the 10th century, the town seems to have faced an invasion, supposedly by the Rus. After that, Phanagoria could not compete in significance with neighboring Tmutarakan. In the late Middle Ages the town of Matrega was built on its ruins; the site was part of a network of Genoese possessions along the northern Black Sea coast. During the 15th century, it was the center of de Ghisolfi dominions. Henceforth there has been no permanent settlement on the site.

Ecclesiastical history
The Genoese colony was canonically established on 1349.02.21 as Metropolitan Archdiocese of Matriga. It was suppressed around 1400 AD.
 * Recorded incumbent : Giovanni di Zechia, Friars Minor (O.F.M.) (1349.02.22 – 1363?)

Titular see
The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in 1928 under the name Matriga, which was changed in 1929 already to Matrega. It is vacant, having had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :
 * Titular Bishop Teofilius Matulionis (1928.12.08 – 1943.01.09), as Auxiliary Bishop of Mohilev (Belarus) (1928.12.08 – 1943.01.09); later Bishop of Kaišiadorys (Lithuania) (1943.01.09 – 1962.08.20) and on emeritate created Archbishop ad personam (1962.02.09 – death 1962.08.20)
 * Titular Bishop Rafael González Estrada (1944.05.16 – death 1994.03.07), first as Auxiliary Bishop of Quetzaltenango, Los Altos (Guatemala) (1944.05.16 – 1955), then Auxiliary Bishop of Guatemala (Guatemala) (1955 – emeritate 1984.05.29).

Excavations
The location of Phanagoria was determined in the 18th century, when marble statue bases with dedications to Aphrodite were discovered there. Hecataeus and Strabo mention a local sanctuary of Aphrodite as the largest in the Pontic region. Archaeological exploration of the site started in 1822, when "soldiers dug into a large barrow, making rich discoveries of gold and silver objects, many unique, which they divided up between themselves".

Apart from the ancient city itself, archaeologists have been interested in a vast necropolis, which spreads on three sides around Phanagoria. There are thousands of burials, many with cypress or marble sarcophagi — an indication of the well-being of the ancient Phanagorians. Excavations conducted in the 19th century were for the most part amateurish; as many as twelve kurgans would be razed each season. Some of the most intriguing finds were unearthed in the 1860s at the Bolshaya Bliznitsa tumulus, classed by Michael Rostovtzeff as a feminine necropolis with three vaults.

One of the royal kurgans near Phanagoria "has a stone stairway leading down to a rectangular passageway, the entrance to the burial chamber (3.70 × 3.75 × 4.70 m). These two areas are covered by an arch showing remains of painted decoration. The wall frescos imitate encrusted marble. On either side of the entrance to the tomb long stone boxes contain four horse burials along with rich grave gifts; saddlery and harnesses of gold and gilded bronze." Vladimir Blavatsky resumed excavations of Phanagoria in 1936. Among the recent finds is an inscription indicating that a synagogue existed in Phanagoria as early as 51 AD. Underwater investigation of the site has revealed multiple fragments of architectural structures.

In 2009 was discovered the palace of Mithridates VI.

In 2021, archaeologists discovered coins in the broken neck of an amphora. They are thought to have been minted in the late 3rd or early 4th century and circulated through the 6th century. The coins are thought to have been hidden before an attack by the Huns or the Turks, who burned and destroyed large parts of the city. Most probably an early Christian basilica stood on the site where the coins were found.

In 2023, archaeologists announced "the discovery of one of the world’s oldest synagogues and, according to analysis of fragments found at the site, it likely stood for over half a millennium after being constructed around the beginning of the first century BCE." The remains of the Second Temple-era synagogue included "several menorahs, altars, and marble stele fragments," making it one of the earliest, if not the earliest synagogue ever uncovered outside of Israel.

Honours
Phanagoria Island in Antarctica is named after Phanagoria.

Notable people

 * Sosicrates (Σωσικράτης) of Phanagoria, ancient Greek poet.
 * Castor (Κάστωρ) of Phanagoria, the leader of the city revolt against the King Pharnaces II of Pontus.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Phanagoria


text:
Talk:Benoît Lecomte

Untitled
This sounds like a massive accomplishment. Why isn't this guy more famous?

Regarding the suspected typo (and the absentfamousness), please take ocean currents into account when you look at the average speed. Ynh 14:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

A comment on the factual accuracy follows. Originally by User:131.156.3.93, moved from the article text here by me. GregorB 17:04, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

 * Note that there must be a typo or something here and in the reference below, which states he swam 72 days. Swimming that long at 8 hours per day, a 3736-mile journey would require an average speed of over 6 mph. The world record speed for a single mile is just 4 mph. Perhaps "16-18 hours a day" was intended, although even at that, a sustained 3mph pace is a very good speed.

although you do make a good point for the impossibility of such a feat, here are a few references to back the story: http://www.france-amerique.com/infos/dossier/September11/anniversary6.htm http://www.legendinc.com/Pages/ArchivesCentral/COTDArchives/1998/10198.html http://www.freep.com/news/nw/wswim19_19991119.htm http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/09-98/09-26-98/zzzwnppl.htm http://www.hsilai.org/english/merittimes/detail.asp?index=16396&page=A http://www.ambafrance-us.org/news/statmnts/2002/franceus082802.asp

And they all agree on the facts. He made the swim in 1998 to raise money for cancer research after his father died. He performed the feat in 72 although some say 71 days from Hyannis, Mass., to Quiberon, France. he now lives in Austin Texas. He's also swam across the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast between Washington DC and NYC on September 11, 2002, an event he called the 'swim for Liberty'

Also, he used a "monofin" which enables swimmers to swim quite a bit faster than traditional swim strokes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/180273.stm

Time On Your Hands
WOW! I am quite glad to see you have enough free time and raw ambition to muse over swimming speeds and actually go and back yourself up with those websites (BLATANT SARCASM). The truth is the IP adress from the edit is the Pennridge High School of Perkasie, Pennsylvannia network. Me and many other students use and abuse wikipedia from there and also frequently vandalize. You could of just told the kid that he is a frikin idiot and been done with it he'll never see the talk anyway. --Igilli 02:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

He SHOULD be more famous
We had a chance to meet and interview Ben Lecomte a few years ago, and he provided us footage taken by his support crew during the marathon swim. We have no reason to doubt his accomplishment, and have alwyas been surprised that he only achieved 15 minutes of fame for it.

Our interview and some of the footage can be seen at walkie-lookie.com.
 * Please, do it without a boat an electric forcefield and I'll be impressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.90.116 (talk) 18:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hm, try it yourself and stop whining. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.234.220 (talk) 00:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Google Maps
The Google Maps directions no longer appear. Just "We could not calculate directions between Hyannis, Massachusetts and Quiberon, France."Kylefreeman (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Took this out
It looked like it belonged here instead: " The world record for 1500M freestyle is 14min:34.56sec set by Grant Hackett of AUS in 7/30/2001.  1500 meters is .93 miles. This converts to 15:39/mile. If a swimmer swam at this pace for 8 hours a day it would take 120.768 days to swim 3,716 miles. The pace per mile for the swim listed above at 8 hours a day is 9 minutes 18 seconds which is 6 minutes per mile faster than world record pace for merely one mile.  Did Lecomte actually swim this distance in the time state above?"

128.36.70.173 (talk) 07:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

 * And I took out the spurious calculation of his average speed and distance, which showed him exceeding the world record (in a 50m race ) for the entire crossing of the Atlantic!)

The "spurious calculation" was based on the numbers listed in the article. If the numbers in the article are correct then you would find the calculation of the average speed per mile was not only objective, but also correct, hardly spurious. (which is why I showed the step by step math)Why it was completely deleted rather than put in discussions is curious. The post that was deleted was as follows: "Lecomte covered 51.6 miles per day swimming 8 hours a day his pace per mile would be 9 minutes and 18 seconds. (8 hours x 60 minutes/hour = 480 minutes. 3716 miles / 72 days= 51.6 miles/day.  480minutes/51.6 miles= 9.30 minutes per mile )"  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.179.162 (talk) 19:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Clearly he did NOT actually swim the whole distance, as the previous comment shows (I agree it was inappropriate in the main article.) See also the comment to this effect by Jennifer Figge's manager (original here). Earthlyreason (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If the calculation was "spurious" then so are the numbers in the main article because the calculations are based on the numbers from the article. So by that logic, the numbers in the article need to be verified or justified by supporting facts or should be deleted as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.179.162 (talk) 02:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the numbers appear to be fishy (ha), but that is what the sources cited say. Your calculation is good, but Wikipedia is not the place for original analysis of data. If you can find a -published- source with this analysis, feel free to add a section back in. 128.36.70.173 (talk) 06:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Article Incomplete
As an encyclopedia entry more facts should be listed to make the article more credible. An encyclopedia article should cover the facts of the topic in its entirety. For example:

1. Did the boat remain at the same GSP coordinates at the end of each session in order for him to start the next session at the same location?

2. Did the boat drift or sail during his breaks, thus changing the actual distance that he swam?

3. Did ocean currents enhance his pace?

4. Was it a freestyle swim or was a snorkel and mono-fin used?

None of these items would diminish the remarkable feat achieved by Benoit Lecomte, rather they would more clearly describe his phenomenal achievement. The calculation of the pace merely adds perspective and raises some questions about the details of the event that are missing from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.179.162 (talk) 02:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

This man is a FRAUD. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News while investigating the Jennifer Figge scandal, Lecombe's "feat" is physically impossible http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/09/aspen-womans-atlantic-swim-carries-asterisk/. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smratlik (talk • contribs) 02:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I just deleted some original research from the article, suggesting that the Gulf Stream could have given Lecombe a 4 mph push. That's spurious (I doubt he followed the Gulf Stream perfectly, and the speeds still defy credibility), but I deleted it only because it was original research. If someone can find a source making this same claim, we can include it in the article. David (talk) 22:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Benoît Lecomte. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070310210758/http://www.ambafrance-us.org:80/news/statmnts/2002/franceus082802.asp to http://www.ambafrance-us.org/news/statmnts/2002/franceus082802.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 17:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Benoît Lecomte. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140320092352/http://thelongestswim.com/about/why-swim-the-pacific/ to http://thelongestswim.com/about/why-swim-the-pacific/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:31, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Benoît Lecomte


text:
Kohl (cosmetics)

Kohl (كُحْل), Kajal or Kajol (Sanskrit: काजल), Surma, or Tiro is an ancient eye cosmetic, traditionally made by grinding stibnite for use similar to that of charcoal in mascara. It is widely used in India, the Middle East and North Africa typically as eyeliner to contour or darken the eyelids. The content of kohl and various ways to prepare it differ based on tradition and country. Several studies have questioned the safety of kohl due to the dangers of lead poisoning. Importing kohl into the United States is banned.

Etymology

The Arabic name كحل formed the Arabic root k-ḥ-l, "to apply kohl". Transliteration variants of Arabic dialectal pronunciation include kohl or kuhl. The Arabic word cognates with Syriac-Aramaic word כוחלא/ܟܘܚܠܐ kuḥla. Both words derived from Akkadian guẖlu(m) meaning stibnite.

The English word  is a loan of the Arabic word (via Middle Latin and French; originally in the sense "powder of antimony", the modern meaning is from the 18th century).

Middle East and North Africa
Kohl has been worn traditionally since the Naqada III era (c. 3100 BCE) by Egyptians of all social classes, originally as protection against eye ailments. There was also a belief that darkening around the eyes would protect one from the harsh rays of the sun.

Galena eye paint (later termed Kohl in Arabic from the Akkadian word for the cosmetic) was widely applied in Ancient Egypt. Upper eyelids were painted black and lower ones were colored green, as depicted in ancient texts that describe the use of both black galena and green malachite. Ancient graves from the pre-historic Tasian culture point to the early application of galena in Egypt, a custom stretching from as old as the Badarian culture through to Greco-Roman era. Although found locally, both black galena and green malachite were also imported from nearby regions in Western Asia, Coptos, and the Land of Punt.

The 18th Dynasty female Pharaoh Hatshepsut would also grind charred frankincense into kohl eyeliner. This is the first recorded use of the resin. The frankincense itself had originally been obtained during an expedition to the ancient Land of Punt in this New Kingdom dynasty (c. 1500 BCE). Cosmetic ingredients such as cinnamon bark and other spice components – used for fragrances – alongside copper kohl sticks were exported from Tamraparni (ancient Sri Lanka) towns Pomparippu and Kadiramalai-Kandarodai to ancient Egypt.

Additionally, the pioneering Muslim scholar ibn Abi Shaybah described in a legal compilation how to apply kohl to the eye, as narrated by earlier authorities.

Berber and Semitic-speaking women in North Africa and the Middle East, respectively, also apply kohl to their faces. A vertical line is drawn from the bottom lip to the chin and along the bridge of the nose. Originally the line from the bottom lip to the chin showed whether a woman was married or not. This form of using kohl on the face originated from the Arabian Peninsula, and was introduced in the seventh century in North Africa.

Kohl has also been used in Yemen as a cosmetic for a long time. In addition, mothers would apply kohl to their infants' eyes soon after birth. Some did this to "strengthen the child's eyes", and others believed it could prevent the child from being cursed by the evil eye.

Horn of Africa
Usage of kohl eye paint in the Horn of Africa dates to the ancient Kingdom of Punt. Somali, Djiboutian, Ethiopian, and Eritrean women have long applied kohl (kuul) for cosmetic purposes, as well as to cleanse the eyes, lengthen eyelashes, and to protect the eyes from the sun's rays.

West Africa
Kohl is also applied in parts of West Africa by many peoples, including the Fulani, the Hausa people, the Tuareg, and the Yoruba. In addition, it is utilised by Muslim inhabitants of the Sahel and Sahara regions. Kohl is used by both sexes, and by people of all ages during weddings festivals, and outings.

For women, kohl or black-henna is applied to the face as well in a similar manner as that practiced by communities in North Africa.

India

In many parts of India, especially in Southern India, Karnataka in particular, local tradition considers it to be a traditional remedy.

Some Indian Ayurvedic or ancient Indian herbal medicine manufacturing companies add camphor and other medicinal herbs that are meant for eye health.

In Punjabi culture, kohl is a traditional ceremonial dye predominantly worn by men around their eyes on special occasions. It is usually applied by the wife or the mother.

Some women use kohl to ward off bad omens.

Kohl is also an integral part of Bharatanatyam and Odissi dances in India. The dancers apply heavy kohl to their eyes so as to draw attention to their eye gestures and movement.

Preparation
Preparation of homemade kohl holds importance to many people across the world. It traditionally involves burning sandalwood paste with cloth wicks and castor oil, collecting the soot, and adding fat to the soot.

The ingredients used the homemade preparation of kohl are believed by local peoples to have medicinal properties. They are still used in Indian therapies like ayurveda and Siddha medicines.

Health concerns
The content of kohl and the recipes to prepare it vary greatly. In North Africa and Middle East, homemade kohl is often made by grinding galena (lead sulfide). Western manufacturers use amorphous carbon or organic charcoal instead of lead. Plant oils and the soot from various nuts, seeds, and gum resins are often added to the carbon powder. The non-lead products are considered to be of inferior quality to the older, traditional varieties and therefore there has been an increase in the use of handmade, lead-based kohl.

For decades, various conflicting reports in the literature have been published relating to kohl application to eyes being responsible for causing higher blood lead concentration, which may cause lead poisoning. At the same time, a number of research studies and reports have also been published refuting any such links with increased blood lead level upon kohl application.

A group of researchers in China tried to find some scientific basis of this claimed property of lead sulfide (galena) relating to absorption of sun rays when applied into the eyes in the form of kohl. The authors reported the ultraviolet (UV) absorption spectra of a thin film of lead sulfide prepared on "indium tin oxide" (ITO) substrate. The spectra showed that lead sulfide thin films had higher absorption and lower transmittance in the UV light band, which further increases with the increased deposition voltage.

The drive to eliminate lead from kohl was sparked by studies in the early 1990s of preparations of kohl that found high levels of contaminants, including lead. Lead levels in commercial kohl preparations were as high as 84%. Kohl samples from Oman and Cairo, analyzed using X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, were found to contain galena. One decade later, a study of kohl manufactured in Egypt and India found that a third of the samples studied contained lead, while the remaining two-thirds contained amorphous carbon, zincite, cuprite, goethite, elemental silicon or talc, hematite, minium, and organic compounds.

Lead-contaminated kohl use has been linked to increased levels of lead in the bloodstream,   putting its users at risk of lead poisoning (also called lead intoxication). Complications of lead poisoning include anemia, growth retardation, low IQ, convulsions, and, in severe cases, death. Anemia from lead poisoning is of special concern in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries where other forms of anemia are prevalent, including iron deficiency anemia (from malnutrition) and hemoglobinopathy (sickle cell anemia, thalassemia). These banned products are different from lead-free cosmetics that use the term "kohl" only to describe its shade or color, rather than its actual ingredients. Some modern eye cosmetics are marketed as "kohl", but are prepared differently and in accordance with relevant health standards.

Eye cosmetics such as surma are recognized as one of the important sources of lead exposure in Pakistan. As adverse health effects of heavy metals are a public health concern, where especially lead may cause negative health impacts to human fetal and infantile development, a study in Pakistan of pregnant women's nails in 2016, showed 13 nail samples out of 84 analyzed, contained lead concentration exceeding the (13.6 μg/g) found in a fatal case of lead poisoning. Not the possibility of an external contamination. The observations showed that lead-containing surma consists of fine particle of galena (ore of lead sulfide) in respirable dust range (less than 10 μm) and relative in vitro bioavailability of lead in the surma was determined as 5.2%. Thus, lead-containing surma consists of inhalable and bioavailable particles, and it contributes an increased risk of lead exposure.

"Blue" kohl is a dark-bluish black pigment composed of both lead-based compounds as well as a compound of antimony. The lead-based compounds in kohl are galena (PbS) – dark grey and gloss laurionite (PbCl(OH)) – white phosgenite ((PbCl)2CO3); cerussite (PbCO3) – blue. The antimony-based compound in kohl is stibnite (Sb2S3) – blue.

In January 2010, French researchers reported that the particular heavy eye makeup that ancient Egyptians wore may have had medical benefits. At submicromolar concentrations, the specially made lead compounds can elicit overproduction of nitric oxide (NO), which in turn can trigger an enhancement of the immune response.

The ancient Egyptians, documented in the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE), discuss these compounds within kohl as protective for the eyes. Indeed, kohl was used an eyeliner and cosmetic. There are a number of endemic ocular diseases in the Nile region including trachoma – which is caused by a chlamydial bacterium and can cause corneal scarring – and conjunctival cicatricial disease, with visual loss. Kohl was used not only as a cosmetic but also as a medicinal collyrium (from Greek kollurion). Two of kohl's lead compounds – the lead chlorides laurionite and phosgenite – were not natural to the Nile valley. It is believed they were intentionally synthesized by the ancient Egyptians for this purpose. The widespread use of kohl across the Mediterranean and the Middle East attests to its ability to protect the eye from infectious disease and be used as a cosmetic.

Legal status
In the United States, kohl is not on the list of color additives approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which considers kohl unsafe for use due to its potential lead content. It is illegal to import into, or sell in, the United States. Kohl is considered unsafe partly due to risk of lead exposure.

title: Kohl (cosmetics)


text:
User:Calgarian

Love the Wiki!

title: User:Calgarian


text: User talk:70.178.36.51

title: User talk:70.178.36.51


text:
Louise Glaum

Louise Glaum (September 4, 1888 – November 25, 1970) was an American actress. Known for her roles as a vamp in silent era motion picture dramas, she was credited in her early career with giving one of the best characterizations in such parts.

Glaum began her acting career on the stage in Los Angeles, her hometown, in 1907. After a few years, she went on the road with a touring company and performed as an ingenue in the play Why Girls Leave Home. She stayed on in Chicago, where she appeared in a number of productions. After returning to Los Angeles in 1911 because of the death of her younger sister, Glaum found acting work at a movie studio. She appeared in over 110 movies from 1912 to 1925, her debut being in When the Heart Calls.

After starring in Greater Than Love (1921), she retired from the screen and moved to New York. In 1925, she sued for money owed her for movie work amounting to $103,000. The suit was ultimately dismissed by the court due to technicalities. Glaum made a final movie appearance in 1925. Under contract with Associated Exhibitors, she starred as the conniving other woman opposite Lionel Barrymore in a drama directed by Henri Diamant-Berger titled Fifty-Fifty.

For over three years, Glaum headlined on the vaudeville circuit in dramatic playlets. She presented a play in which she starred, Trial Marriage, in Los Angeles in 1928. Continuing to act on the stage, she opened and appeared in her own theatre in Los Angeles in the mid-1930s and became a drama instructor. Glaum was active in music clubs over the following decades. She served as president of the Matinee Musical Club for many years and was also state president of the California Federation of Music Clubs.

Early life and stage career
Glaum was born near Baltimore, Maryland, the third of four daughters of John W. Glaum and Lena Katherine Kuhn. Her sisters were Hattie Helen "Phyllis" Glaum, Lena K. Glaum, and Margaret Olive Glaum.

Her father was born as Johannes Wilhelm Glaum in Germany, emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1869, and lived in Indiana, then Prince George's County, Maryland, while her mother was born in New York City to German-born parents. John and Lena Glaum and family moved to Southern California in the late 1890s, and lived in Pasadena for several years before moving into Los Angeles. Louise attended Berendo School on South Berendo Street in Pico Heights. Glaum began her acting career in stock stage productions. She was in the cast of Crucifixus, a Passion play, which opened on November 12, 1907, at the Gamut Auditorium, 1044 South Hope Street, in Los Angeles, before a good-sized audience. In early June 1908, she appeared in the Owen Davis play How Baxter Butted In, a melodramatic comedy, at the Los Angeles Theatre on Spring Street. The cast included Lulu Warrenton and a number of others. Glaum then toured as an ingenue with a road show in Why Girls Leave Home. She earned $25 a week and furnished her own gowns, which she made herself. After reaching Chicago, she played ingenues in the Imperial Stock Company there for a year and a half, appearing in The Lion and the Mouse and The Squaw Man, among other plays. While performing in a summer stock engagement in Toledo, she created the ingenue role in Officer 666. Its playwright, Augustin MacHugh, who was also her theatre director in Toledo, tried it out there before Broadway ever saw the successful farce.

Upon the death of her younger sister, Margaret, in June 1911, Glaum resigned and returned home to Los Angeles. On July 29, the Los Angeles Times read, "Louise Glaum, ingenue, who made her professional start here a few years ago, is at home on a short visit. Of late she has been playing in Chicago."

Her mother wanted her to remain in Los Angeles, but the desire to return to the stage possessed her. She compromised, however; while acting as the ingenue in a local theatre company, she began making the rounds of the movie studios.

Motion picture career

Glaum made her movie debut playing the ingenue role as Mary Gordon, the rancher's daughter, in the Al Christie directed short western/comedy When the Heart Calls (1912) at Nestor Studios, the first studio actually located in Hollywood. She acted in straight comedy, never doing slapstick, from the start, and played leads exclusively. She starred in the title role of the Broncho Motion Picture Company's two-reel drama The Quakeress (1913) opposite Charles Ray and William Desmond Taylor. The year Glaum arrived, Nestor was merged with the Universal Film Company. A large number of episodes in the Universal Ike series of one-reel comedies are among her body of work in 1914.

Signing with Thomas Ince, her first role as a vamp, and first starring role in the new five-reel features, was as Mademoiselle Poppea in The Toast of Death (1915) opposite Harry Keenan and Herschel Mayall. It was directed by Thomas Ince at his Inceville Studio in Topanga Canyon. That same year, she appeared in the role as cabaret star Kitty Molloy in The Iron Strain, the first American film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a modern version in which she starred opposite Dustin Farnum, Enid Markey, and Charles K. French.

Glaum played Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (1916). She appeared in six westerns opposite William S. Hart, including her roles as Dolly in Hell's Hinges (1916), Trixie in The Aryan (1916) and Poppy in The Return of Draw Egan (1916). She played Leila Aradella in The Wolf Woman (1916); and Marie Chaumontel in the war drama Somewhere in France (1916) opposite Howard C. Hickman.

On February 27, 1915, she and director Harry J. Edwards were married. They were divorced on March 17, 1919.

She played the role of Lola Montrose in the drama A Strange Transgressor (1917). She then starred in the title role as a gun-slinging heroine, the female equivalent to Bill Hart, in the Triangle Company's western Golden Rule Kate (1917).

She played Mary Thorne in the drama The Goddess of Lost Lake (1918), which she also co-produced through her own production company, the Louise Glaum Organization. It is the story of a young woman who is a quarter Native American and decides to pretend she is a full-blooded Indian princess when she visits her father's rustic cabin after completing college in the East.

Glaum then began working with J. Parker Read Jr. Productions, which she later described as J. Parker Read, Jr.'s unit as a subsidiary producing company for Thomas Ince. She signed a four-year contract, with a salary starting at $2,000 a week and increasing to $4,000, and some of the features she starred in for that company were as Mignon in Sahara (1919), a big financial success that was written especially for the star by C. Gardner Sullivan, with the production supervised by Allan Dwan; and the dual roles as Princess Sonia and as her daughter, Sonia, in the crime/thriller The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1919).

She played the roles as Adrienne Renault in the provocatively titled Sex (1920), the story of a New York cabaret star who uses her sex appeal to end a marriage then leaves her lover for a wealthier prospect only to have her selfish way of life come back to haunt her; and the title role in The Leopard Woman (1920), a secret agent adventure set in Africa. She then played the role as Natalie Storm in a romance/drama titled Love (1920).

Glaum was maintaining her own household in Los Angeles, when the 1920 census was enumerated, with a married couple, housekeeper and caretaker, and a gardener. After starring in the role as Grace Merrill in the drama Greater Than Love (1921), directed by Fred Niblo, she retired from the screen and moved to New York.

On March 16, 1925, she filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York against producer J. Parker Read, Jr., for $103,000 and asked for an attachment against money owed him by various film distributors in New York City. The complaint stated she starred in several pictures under Read's direction, and on December 23, 1921, he made a promissory note to her for the money, payable in four installments. Nothing was paid, however, and in the fall of 1923, according to Glaum, he went to Paris without paying her. According to her attorney, Read's departure took the form of a flight and he had disguised himself as a stoker on a ship.

She then sued the estate of Thomas H. Ince, Read's partner, stating that Read was insolvent and asking for the $103,000 plus $290,000 for breach of contract. The Appellate Division, however, decided that she could not prosecute a suit in the state against the executors under the will of Ince on the grounds that the New York courts had no jurisdiction over the executors, who were appointed in California, in which state Ince was a resident at the time he died in November 1924. She then filed suit in California, but a copy of the contract was not attached. By the time that arrived, the time had elapsed in which she was legally entitled to make a claim against the Ince estate and the court dismissed the suit on technicalities.

She made one screen comeback. Signing a contract with Associated Exhibitors, she played the role as Nina Olmstead, the conniving other woman, in the Henri Diamant-Berger directed drama Fifty-Fifty (1925) opposite Hope Hampton and Lionel Barrymore.

Vaudeville and the stage
Glaum stayed away from Los Angeles for over three years as she headlined on the big-time vaudeville circuit in the East. She did a tour of Loew's Theatres in two dramatic playlets. One of them was The Sins of Julia Boyd by Paul Gerard Smith. The other was The Web, which Glaum wrote herself. She was the only character in the one person show, putting over the argument of the piece chiefly by a telephone conversation.

On January 19, 1926, Glaum and movie theater owner Zachary M. Harris were married in New York City.

When she returned to Los Angeles, with her husband and business manager, Zack Harris, to visit her family and friends, they decided to stage the play Trial Marriage at the Egan Theatre, 1320 South Figueroa Street, with Glaum in the starring role. When asked by a reporter for the Times whether she would be doing any picture work, she said she had not thought of it, but acknowledged that she was interested in talking pictures.

On November 16, 1928, Glaum opened in Trial Marriage, the story of a woman who wants to test the suitability of her prospective mate and herself to each other without the benefit of wedlock before they make it permanent. Although she received good reviews, the play did not fare so well.

She and Harris lived at 2282 Cambridge Street in Los Angeles, in 1930. Glaum continued to act on the stage and also became a drama instructor, opening and appearing in her own theatre in Los Angeles in the mid-1930s.

Glaum's theatres
On January 6, 1935, Glaum announced in the Los Angeles Times the opening of the Louise Glaum Little Theatre of Union Square, which was inside a remodeled and redecorated movie theater with a seating capacity of 400 located at 1122 West 24th Street near Hoover in the West Adams District. The stated purpose was to provide drama with enlivening moments by way of scheduled plays of moment and actual integrity. Several New York plays were considered, and the intention was to present original manuscripts with motion picture possibilities, as well as tried plays from around the world. Both professionals and students were to be cast in productions, as well as some of the featured players of the past." Classes for students wanting to join the Union Square Players, and "learn by practical experience," began on January 21.

The little theatre generated a great deal of interest among local playwrights inasmuch as Glaum had received some 15 plays by January 27. One of the most intriguing was Eulalia Andreas's A Friendly Divorce, which went into rehearsal with Johnstone White directing. Noted stars were lured to perform. In March 1935, Glaum and Betty Blythe, another star of the silent screen, starred in Angel Cake, which was written by Ansella Hunter, who had three plays staged by the Shuberts.

In May, the Union Square Players presented the comedy Ask Herbert, which was written by Katherine Kavanaugh and declared in the Los Angeles Times to be "a riot of laughs" and "a fast-paced farce of Broadway caliber." Among the cast that Glaum assembled was Herbert Vigran, who went to New York and made his debut on Broadway later that year.

In 1936, Glaum joined the Matinee Musical Club. A drama department was introduced as an innovation to the club and Glaum was appointed the director. Plans for three one-act plays to be presented in November at the club were discussed by the department members on August 7, at the department chairman's home in Beverly Hills. She presented three one-act plays for the club on November 17, 1937, in the Creative Arts Center at 4950 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.

In late September 1939, Glaum took over a theatre at 11th Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, designating it the "Louise Glaum's Happy Hollow." Opening on Wednesday night, September 27, in the rural play Aaron Slick From Pumpkin Creek, which had a continuous run for three months in Long Beach, specialties were offered between the acts.

Another rural play with specialties was presented at the Happy Hollow Playhouse on January 11, 1940, for the Matinee Musical Club, which had a Gay Nineties party at the theatre.

In September 1952, Glaum reopened the Beaux Arts Theatre, at the corner of West 8th Street and Beacon Avenue in Westlake, as the Louise Glaum Playhouse, which was generally referred to as the Louise Glaum Beaux Arts Theatre. The initial attraction, which she produced, staged and directed, was a comedy farce titled O.K. By Me, which was written by Sheldon Sheppard. The play concluded a seven-week run on November 22.

Later life
Glaum was also a busy clubwoman over the last three decades of her life. She served as president of the Matinee Musical Club for many years and also as state president of the California Federation of Music Clubs.

Louise Glaum died at age 82 of pneumonia in Los Angeles. Her funeral service was held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 28, 1970, at Pierce Brothers Mortuary, 720 West Washington Boulevard. She is interred in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, along with her second husband, Zachary Harris, and others of her family. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard, for her work in motion pictures.

title: Louise Glaum


text:
Space manufacturing

Space manufacturing or In-space manufacturing (ISM in short) is the fabrication, assembly or integration of tangible goods beyond Earth's atmosphere (or more generally, outside a planetary atmosphere), involving the transformation of raw or recycled materials into components, products, or infrastructure in space, where the manufacturing process is executed either by humans or automated systems by taking advantage of the unique characteristics of space. Synonyms of Space/In-space manufacturing are In-orbit manufacturing (since most production capabilities are limited to low Earth orbit), Off-Earth manufacturing, Space-based manufacturing, Orbital manufacturing, In-situ manufacturing, In-space fabrication, In-space production, etc.

Three major domains of In-space manufacturing are ISM for space (space-for-space) where products remain in space, ISM for Earth (space-for-Earth) where goods with improved properties produced in outer-space microgravity are transported back to Earth, and ISM for surface where goods are produced on or sent to surfaces of celestial bodies like the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

In-space manufacturing uses processes such as additive manufacturing (printing a 3D object in successive layers), subtractive manufacturing (making 3D objects by successively removing material from a solid), hybrid manufacturing (usually combining additive manufacturing and subtractive manufacturing) and welding (joining together pieces of material by melting or plasticizing along a joint line).

In-space manufacturing removes spacecraft design limitations due to launch parameters (mass, vibration, structural load, etc.) and volume limitations imposed by payload size. It allows for recycling of launched materials, utilization space-mined resources and on-demand spare parts production, which enables on-site repair of critical parts (increasing reliability and redundancy) and infrastructure development. It takes advantage of unique space features such as microgravity, ultra-vacuum and containerless processing, which are difficult to do on Earth.

In-space manufacturing is a part of the broader activity of In-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) and is related to in situ resource utilization (ISRU).

Areas
In-space manufacturing (ISM) can be categorized into three different areas according to the end use of manufactured products. In-space manufacturing for space (space-for-space) involves activities focused on in-orbit construction intended for use in space. ISM for Earth (space-for-Earth) is the production of new materials and products that exhibit enhanced properties when manufactured in microgravity, subsequently transported back to Earth. Lastly, ISM for surface extends to surface operations on celestial bodies such as the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

Rationale
There are several motivating factors behind in-space manufacturing. The space environment, in particular the effects of microgravity and vacuum, enable the research of and production of goods that could otherwise not be manufactured on Earth. Secondly, the extraction and processing of raw materials from other astronomical bodies, also called In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU), could enable more sustainable space exploration missions at reduced cost compared to launching all required resources from Earth. Furthermore, raw materials could be transported to low Earth orbit where they could be processed into goods that are shipped to Earth. By replacing terrestrial production on Earth, this seeks to preserve the Earth. Moreover, raw materials of very high value, for example gold, silver, or platinum, could be transported to low Earth orbit for processing or transfer to Earth which is thought to have the potential to become economically viable. In-space manufacturing supports long-duration space missions and colonization by enabling on-site repair and infrastructure development beyond Earth. Additionally, in the area of spaceflight technology, space manufacturing enhances mission safety by decentralizing manufacturing activities and establishing redundancy in critical systems, allows for customized production tailored to specific mission requirements, fostering rapid iteration and adaptation of designs, drives technological innovation in materials science, robotics, and additive manufacturing, with applications extending beyond space exploration, and lays the foundation for space-based infrastructure development, supporting a wide range of commercial activities and scientific research.

History
During the Soyuz 6 mission of 1969, Russian cosmonauts performed the first welding experiments in space. Three different welding processes were tested using a hardware unit called Vulkan. The tests included welding aluminum, titanium, and stainless steel.

The Skylab mission, launched in May 1973, served as a laboratory to perform various space manufacturing experiments. The station was equipped with a materials processing facility that included a multi-purpose electric furnace, a crystal growth chamber, and an electron beam gun. Among the experiments to be performed was research on molten metal processing; photographing the behavior of ignited materials in zero-gravity; crystal growth; processing of immiscible alloys; brazing of stainless steel tubes, electron beam welding, and the formation of spheres from molten metal. The crew spent a total of 32 man-hours on materials science and space manufacturing investigation during the mission.

The Space Studies Institute began hosting a bi-annual Space Manufacturing Conference in 1977.

Microgravity research in materials processing continued in 1983 using the Spacelab facility. This module has been carried into orbit 26 times aboard the Space Shuttle,. In this role the shuttle served as an interim, short-duration research platform before the completion of the International Space Station.

In February 1994 and September 1995, the Wake Shield Facility was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle. This demonstration platform used the vacuum created in the orbital wake to manufacture thin films of gallium arsenide and aluminum gallium arsenide.

On May 31, 2005, the recoverable, uncrewed Foton-M2 laboratory was launched into orbit. Among the experiments were crystal growth and the behavior of molten-metal in weightlessness.

The completion of the International Space Station has provided expanded and improved facilities for performing industrial research. These have and will continue to lead to improvements in our knowledge of materials sciences, new manufacturing techniques on Earth, and potentially some important discoveries in space manufacturing methods. NASA and Tethers Unlimited will test the Refabricator aboard the ISS, which is intended to recycle plastic for use in space additive manufacturing.

The Material Science Laboratory Electromagnetic Levitator (MSL-EML) on board the Columbus Laboratory is a science facility that can be used to study the melting and solidification properties of various materials. The Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL) is used to study the behavior of liquids in microgravity.

Material properties in the space environment
There are several unique differences between the properties of materials in space compared to the same materials on the Earth. These differences can be exploited to produce unique or improved manufacturing techniques.

 * The microgravity environment allows control of convection in liquids or gasses, and the elimination of sedimentation. Diffusion becomes the primary means of material mixing, allowing otherwise immiscible materials to be intermixed.
 * The environment allows enhanced growth of larger, higher-quality crystals in solution.
 * The ultraclean vacuum of space allows the creation of very pure materials and objects. The use of vapor deposition can be used to build up materials layer by layer, free from defects.
 * Surface tension causes liquids in microgravity to form perfectly round spheres. This can cause problems when trying to pump liquids through a conduit, but it is very useful when perfect spheres of consistent size are needed for an application.
 * Space can provide readily available extremes of heat and cold. Sunlight can be focused to concentrate enough heat to melt the materials, while objects kept in perpetual shade are exposed to temperatures close to absolute zero. The temperature gradient can be exploited to produce strong, glassy materials.

Material processing
For most manufacturing applications, specific material requirements must be satisfied. Mineral ores need to be refined to extract specific metals, and volatile organic compounds will need to be purified. Ideally these raw materials are delivered to the processing site in an economical manner, where time to arrival, propulsion energy expenditure, and extraction costs are factored into the planning process. Minerals can be obtained from asteroids, the lunar surface, or a planetary body. Volatiles could potentially be obtained from a comet, carbonaceous chondrite or "C-Type" asteroids, or the moons of Mars or other planets. It may also prove possible to extract hydrogen in the form of water ice or hydrated minerals from cold traps on the poles of the Moon.

Unless the materials processing and the manufacturing sites are co-located with the resource extraction facilities, the raw materials would need to be moved about the Solar System. There are several proposed means of providing propulsion for this material, including solar sails, electric sails, magnetic sails, electric ion thrusters, microwave electrothermal thrusters, or mass drivers (this last method uses a sequence of electromagnets mounted in a line to accelerate a conducting material).

At the materials processing facility, the incoming materials will need to be captured by some means. Maneuvering rockets attached to the load can park the content in a matching orbit. Alternatively, if the load is moving at a low delta-v relative to the destination, then it can be captured by means of a mass catcher. This could consist of a large, flexible net or inflatable structure that would transfer the momentum of the mass to the larger facility. Once in place, the materials can be moved into place by mechanical means or by means of small thrusters.

Materials can be used for manufacturing either in their raw form, or by processing them to extract the constituent elements. Processing techniques include various chemical, thermal, electrolytic, and magnetic methods for separation. In the near term, relatively straightforward methods can be used to extract aluminum, iron, oxygen, and silicon from lunar and asteroidal sources. Less concentrated elements will likely require more advanced processing facilities, which may have to wait until a space manufacturing infrastructure is fully developed.

Some of the chemical processes will require a source of hydrogen for the production of water and acid mixtures. Hydrogen gas can also be used to extract oxygen from the lunar regolith, although the process is not very efficient. So a readily available source of useful volatiles is a positive factor in the development of space manufacturing. Alternatively, oxygen can be liberated from the lunar regolith without reusing any imported materials by heating the regolith to 2,500 C in a vacuum. This was tested on Earth with lunar simulant in a vacuum chamber. As much as 20% of the sample was released as free oxygen. Eric Cardiff calls the remainder slag. This process is highly efficient in terms of imported materials used up per batch, but is not the most efficient process in energy per kilogram of oxygen.

One proposed method of purifying asteroid materials is through the use of carbon monoxide (CO). Heating the material to 500 F and exposing it to CO causes the metals to form gaseous carbonyls. This vapor can then be distilled to separate out the metal components, and the CO can then be recovered by another heating cycle. Thus an automated ship can scrape up loose surface materials from, say, the relatively nearby 4660 Nereus (in delta-v terms), process the ore using solar heating and CO, and eventually return with a load of almost pure metal. The economics of this process can potentially allow the material to be extracted at one-twentieth the cost of launching from Earth, but it would require a two-year round trip to return any mined ore.

Manufacturing
Due to speed of light constraints on communication, manufacturing in space at a distant point of resource acquisition will either require completely autonomous robotics to perform the labor, or a human crew with all the accompanying habitat and safety requirements. If the plant is built in orbit around the Earth, or near a crewed space habitat, however, telerobotic devices can be used for certain tasks that require human intelligence and flexibility.

Solar power provides a readily available power source for thermal processing. Even with heat alone, simple thermally-fused materials can be used for basic construction of stable structures. Bulk soil from the Moon or asteroids has a very low water content, and when melted to form glassy materials is very durable. These simple, glassy solids can be used for the assembly of habitats on the surface of the Moon or elsewhere. The solar energy can be concentrated in the manufacturing area using an array of steerable mirrors.

The availability and favorable physical properties of metals will make them a major component of space manufacturing. Most of the metal handling techniques used on Earth can also be adopted for space manufacturing. A few of these techniques will need significant modifications due to the microgravity environment.

The production of hardened steel in space will introduce some new factors. Carbon only appears in small proportions in lunar surface materials and will need to be delivered from elsewhere. Waste materials carried by humans from the Earth is one possible source, as are comets. The water normally used to quench steel will also be in short supply, and require strong agitation.

Casting steel can be a difficult process in microgravity, requiring special heating and injection processes, or spin forming. Heating can be performed using sunlight combined with electrical heaters. The casting process would also need to be managed to avoid the formation of voids as the steel cools and shrinks.

Various metal-working techniques can be used to shape the metal into the desired form. The standard methods are casting, drawing, forging, machining, rolling, and welding. Both rolling and drawing metals require heating and subsequent cooling. Forging and extrusion can require powered presses, as gravity is not available. Electron beam welding has already been demonstrated on board the Skylab, and will probably be the method of choice in space. Machining operations can require precision tools which will need to be imported from the Earth for some duration.

New space manufacturing technologies are being studied at places such as Marshall's National Center for Advanced Manufacturing. The methods being investigated include coatings that can be sprayed on surfaces in space using a combination of heat and kinetic energy, and electron beam free form fabrication of parts. Approaches such as these, as well as examination of material properties that can be investigated in an orbiting laboratory, will be studied on the International Space Station by NASA and Made In Space, Inc.

3D-printing in space
The option of 3D printing items in space holds many advantages over manufacturing situated on Earth. With 3D printing technologies, rather than exporting tools and equipment from Earth into space, astronauts have the option to manufacture needed items directly. On-demand patterns of manufacturing make long-distance space travel more feasible and self-sufficient as space excursions require less cargo. Mission safety is also improved.

The Made In Space, Inc. 3D printers, which launched in 2014 to the International Space Station, are designed specifically for a zero-gravity or micro-gravity environment. The effort was awarded the Phase III Small Business Innovation and Research Contract. The Additive Manufacturing Facility will be used by NASA to carry out repairs (including during emergency situations), upgrades, and installation. Made In Space lists the advantages of 3D printing as easy customization, minimal raw material waste, optimized parts, faster production time, integrated electronics, limited human interaction, and option to modify the printing process.

The Refabricator experiment, under development by Firmamentum, a division of Tethers Unlimited, Inc. under a NASA Phase III Small Business Innovation Research contract, combines a recycling system and a 3D printer to perform demonstration of closed-cycle in-space manufacturing on the International Space Station (ISS). The Refabricator experiment, which was delivered to the ISS aboard Cygnus NG-10 on November 19, 2018, processes plastic feedstock through multiple printing and recycling cycles to evaluate how many times the plastic materials can be re-used in the microgravity environment before their polymers degrade to unacceptable levels.

Additionally, 3D printing in space can also account for the printing of meals. NASA's Advanced Food Technology program is currently investigating the possibility of printing food items in order to improve food quality, nutrient content, and variety.

Airbus is developing and planning with the European Space Agency to send and test the first 3D-printer printing metals in space at the ISS in a year from 2022, and establishing space manufacturing in three to four years from 2022.

Products
There are thought to be a number of useful products that can potentially be manufactured in space and result in an economic benefit. Research and development is required to determine the best commodities to be produced, and to find efficient production methods. The following products are considered prospective early candidates:

 * Growth of protein crystals
 * Improved semiconductor wafers
 * Micro-encapsulation

As the infrastructure is developed and the cost of assembly drops, some of the manufacturing capacity can be directed toward the development of expanded facilities in space, including larger scale manufacturing plants. These will likely require the use of lunar and asteroid materials, and so follow the development of mining bases.

Rock is the simplest product, and at minimum is useful for radiation shielding. It can also be subsequently processed to extract elements for various uses.

Water from lunar sources, Near Earth Asteroids or Martian moons is thought to be relatively cheap and simple to extract, and gives adequate performance for many manufacturing and material shipping purposes. Separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen can be easily performed in small scale, but some scientists believe that this will not be performed on any large scale initially due to the large quantity of equipment and electrical energy needed to split water and liquify the resultant gases. Water used in steam rockets gives a specific impulse of about 190 seconds; less than half that of hydrogen/oxygen, but this is adequate for delta-v's that are found between Mars and Earth. Water is useful as a radiation shield and in many chemical processes.

Ceramics made from lunar or asteroid soil can be employed for a variety of manufacturing purposes. These uses include various thermal and electrical insulators, such as heat shields for payloads being delivered to the Earth's surface.

Metals can be used to assemble a variety of useful products, including sealed containers (such as tanks and pipes), mirrors for focusing sunlight, and thermal radiators. The use of metals for electrical devices would require insulators for the wires, so a flexible insulating material such as plastic or fiberglass will be needed.

A notable output of space manufacturing is expected to be solar panels. Expansive solar energy arrays can be constructed and assembled in space. As the structure does not need to support the loads that would be experienced on Earth, huge arrays can be assembled out of proportionately smaller amounts of material. The generated energy can then be used to power manufacturing facilities, habitats, spacecraft, lunar bases, and even beamed down to collectors on the Earth with microwaves.

Other possibilities for space manufacturing include propellants for spacecraft, some repair parts for spacecraft and space habitats, and, of course, larger factories. Ultimately, space manufacturing facilities can hypothetically become nearly self-sustaining, requiring only minimal imports from the Earth. The microgravity environment allows for new possibilities in construction on a massive scale, including megascale engineering. These future projects might potentially assemble space elevators, massive solar array farms, very high capacity spacecraft, and rotating habitats capable of sustaining populations of tens of thousands of people in Earth-like conditions.

Challenges
The space environment is expected to be beneficial for production of a variety of products assuming the obstacles to it can be overcome. The most significant cost is overcoming the energy hurdle for boosting materials into orbit. Once this barrier is significantly reduced in cost per kilogram, the entry price for space manufacturing can make it much more attractive to entrepreneurs. After the heavy capitalization costs of assembling the mining and manufacturing facilities are paid, the production will need to be economically profitable in order to become self-sustaining and beneficial to society.

The economic requirements of space manufacturing imply a need to collect the requisite raw materials at a minimum energy cost. The cost of space transport is directly related to the delta-v, or change in velocity required to move from the mining sites to the manufacturing plants. Bringing material to Earth orbit from bodies such as Near-Earth asteroids, Phobos, Deimos or the lunar surface requires far less delta-v than launching from Earth itself, despite the greater distances involved. This makes these places economically attractive as sources of raw materials.

title: Space manufacturing


text:
Tsukumogami

In Japanese folklore, tsukumogami (付喪神 or つくも神, lit. "tool kami") are  tools that have acquired a kami or spirit. According to an annotated version of The Tales of Ise titled Ise Monogatari Shō, there is a theory originally from the Onmyōki (陰陽記) that foxes and tanuki, among other beings, that have lived for at least a hundred years and changed forms are considered tsukumogami. In modern times, the term can also be written 九十九神 (literally ninety-nine kami), to emphasize the agedness.

According to Komatsu Kazuhiko, the idea of a tsukumogami or a yōkai of tools spread mostly in the Japanese Middle Ages and declined in more recent generations. Komatsu infers that despite the depictions in Bakumatsu period ukiyo-e art leading to a resurfacing of the idea, these were all produced in an era cut off from any actual belief in the idea of tsukumogami.

Because the term has been applied to several different concepts in Japanese folklore, there remains some confusion as to what the term actually means. Today, the term is generally understood to be applied to virtually any object "that has reached its 100th birthday and thus become alive and self-aware", though this definition is not without controversy.

History and etymology

The word つくも髪, which is also pronounced tsukumogami, appeared in a waka poem in the 9th-century The Tales of Ise, section 63. It is a compound of つくも tsukumo, of unknown meaning, and 髪 kami 'hair'. In the poem it referred to an old woman's white hair, so tsukumo has been interpreted as meaning "old", often metaphorically represented as ninety-nine years.

The element 髪 kami 'hair' is a homophone of 神 kami 'spirit'; both may be pronounced -gami in compound words. Thus the word tsukumogami has come to mean a 99-year spirit. The kanji representation 付喪神 for tsukumogami in this sense dates to a Tenpō period otogizōshi, an emakimono called the Tsukumogami Emaki. According to this emaki, a tool, after the passage of 100 years, would develop a spirit (kami), and with this change would become a tsukumogami. This emaki has a caption stating that the word tsukumo could also be written with the kanji 九十九, meaning 'ninety-nine' (years).

Outside of these uses, the word tsukumogami is not attested in the surviving literature of the time, and so the historical usage of the term itself has not been handed down in detail. The concept, however, does appear elsewhere. In collections such as the late Heian period Konjaku Monogatarishū, there are tales of objects having spirits, and in the emakimono Bakemono Zōshi, there are tales of a chōshi (a saké serving-pot), a scarecrow, and other inanimate objects turning into monsters, but the word tsukumogami itself does not appear.

The Tsukumogami Emaki describes how an object would become occupied by a spirit after one hundred years, By doing this, they prevented objects from becoming tsukumogami, but according to the captions of this emaki, it's written that ones that are "a year from one hundred," in other words, objects that are "tsukumo" (ninety-nine) years old would become angered and become a yōkai by some means other than the mere passage of time, and then cause a ruckus.

In the first place, the idea of becoming a yōkai at one-hundred or ninety-nine years old does not need to be taken literally. Those numbers can represent the idea that humans, plants, animals, or even tools would acquire a spiritual nature once they become significantly old, and thereby gain the power to change themselves. Writing tsukumo as 九十九 ("ninety-nine") is not simply referring to a number, since the word was used since old times to loosely mean "many". The yōkai that are depicted are not ones that gained the power to change themselves as a result of being used for a long time, but rather ones that were thrown away right before it, becoming a yōkai through some different means.

Paintings
In the Tsukumogami Emaki, which depicted tsukumogami, it is written at the very beginning, "It's told in the Onmyō Zakki. A tool, after one hundred years pass, would change and acquire a spirit, and deceive people's hearts, and it's said these are referred to as tsukumogami," thus referring to changes or mutations of tools as "tsukumogami" (however, no book called the Onmyō Zakki has actually been confirmed to exist). In the emaki, it's written that they can take on "the appearance of people male and female, old and young" (appearance of humans), "the likeness of chimi akki" (appearance of oni), and "the shape of korō yakan" (the appearance of animals), among others. Its form after its change/mutation is referred to with words such as "youbutsu" (妖物).

Even in emakimono that came before the Tsukumogami Emaki, paintings of yōkai based on tools can be confirmed, and in the Tsuchigumo Zōshi, there were depictions of gotoku (trivets) with heads, stamp mills with the body of a snake and two human arms attached to it, and a tsunodarai (four-handled basin) with a face and growing teeth, among others. Also, a face that appears to be what the tsunodarai is based on appears in the Yūzū Nenbutsu Engi Emaki (融通念仏縁起絵巻) and the Fudō Rieki Engi Emaki (不動利益縁起絵巻) where a yakugami with almost the same appearance appears. However, all of these were not merely tools, but ones that are a hybrid with a tool or oni. This characteristic can also be seen in the Tsukumogami Emaki and the Hyakki Yagyō Emaki.

The Hyakki Yagyō Emaki (百鬼夜行絵巻) from the Muromachi period also depicts many of what appear to be yōkai of tools. In the present day, these tools yōkai are thought to be depictions of tsukumogami, and it has been inferred that the parade depicted in the Hyakki Yagyō Emaki is likely the "youbutsu" (aged objects) of the Tsukumogami Emaki in a festival parade.

Works about tools
In works about tools having a human personality, tools such as the "chōdo uta-awase" that would perform uta-awase can be found before the Muromachi period, and it is thought that these are close in concept to being the idea of "things that tools turn into" as depicted in the Tsukumogami Emaki.

Understood by many Western scholars, tsukumogami was a concept popular in Japanese folklore as far back as the tenth century, used in the spread of Shingon Buddhism.

In Japanese folklore
According to Elison and Smith (1987), Tsukumogami was the name of an animated tea caddy that Matsunaga Hisahide used to bargain for peace with Oda Nobunaga.

Like many concepts in Japanese folklore, there are several layers of definition used when discussing Tsukumogami. For example, by the tenth century, the Tsukumogami myths were used in helping to spread the "doctrines of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism to a variety of audiences, ranging from the educated to the relatively unsophisticated, by capitalizing upon pre-existing spiritual beliefs in Tsukumogami." These "pre-existing spiritual beliefs" were, as Reider explains:

"Tsukumogami are animate household objects. An otogizōshi ('companion tale') titled Tsukumogami ki ('Record of tool kami'; Muromachi period) explains that after a service life of nearly one hundred years, utsuwamono or kibutsu (containers, tools, and instruments) receive souls. While many references are made to this work as a major source for the definition of tsukumogami, insufficient attention has been paid to the actual text of Tsukumogami ki."

By the twentieth century the Tsukumogami had entered into Japanese popular culture to such an extent that the Buddhist teachings had been "completely lost to most outsiders," leaving critics to comment that, by and large, the Tsukumogami were harmless and at most tended to play occasional pranks, they did have the capacity for anger and would band together to take revenge upon those who were wasteful or threw them away thoughtlessly – compare mottainai. To prevent this, to this day some jinja ceremonies are performed to console broken and unusable items.

List of tsukumogami

 * Abumi-guchi – A furry creature formed from the stirrup of a mounted soldier that died in battle
 * Bakezōri – A possessed zōri (traditional straw sandals)
 * Biwa-bokuboku – An animated biwa
 * Boroboroton – A possessed futon
 * Chōchinobake – An animated lantern, also known as burabura
 * Furu-utsubo - An archer's quiver
 * Ichiren-bozu – Animated prayer beads
 * Ittan-momen – A roll of cotton
 * Jatai – Possessed cloths draped from folding screens
 * Kameosa – A possessed sake jar
 * Kasa-obake – An animated paper umbrella. Also known as karakasa-obake.
 * Kosode-no-te – A possessed kimono robe
 * Koto-furunushi – An animated koto
 * Kurayarō – An animated saddle
 * Kutsutsura - Kutsutsura are tsukumogami of shoes. They can take either a human form or an animal form. In human form, they look like a court noble wearing a shoe as a hat. In animal form, they appear as a round, hairy beast with a fur boot for a snout.
 * Kyōrinrin – Possessed scrolls or papers
 * Menreiki – A spiritual creature formed out of 66 gigaku masks
 * Minowaraji- An animated mino straw coat
 * Morinji-no-kama – A possessed teakettle. Another variation is zenfushō
 * Shamichoro – An animated shamisen
 * Shirouneri – Possessed mosquito nettings or dust clothes
 * Shōgorō – An animated gong
 * Ungaikyō – A possessed mirror
 * Yamaoroshi – A possessed vegetable grater
 * Zorigami – A possessed clock

title: Tsukumogami


text: Category:443 BC deaths

title: Category:443 BC deaths


text: Category:522 BC births

title: Category:522 BC births