Word: oxygenate
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...mission might be going sour once more. In the final minutes of the first revolution, as Gemini 5 came within range of the Guaymas tracking station in Mexico, Astronaut Pete Conrad made a calm, almost routine report. The pressure, he said, was dropping in the fuel cells' oxygen supply. The gauge that normally should have read 800 to 900 Ibs. per sq. in. was dropping fast. Since the fuel cells were the main source of power for the spacecraft's communications, computer and environment control system, they were, in effect, the heart of the Gemini mission...
...they were smaller and lighter than the conventional batteries used on all previous space flights. Unlike conventional batteries, they can supply electricity for as long as they are fed their fuel−an ideal trait for long-duration power supplies. They produce electricity through the continuous chemical reaction of oxygen and hydrogen, and in the process they form water, a most valuable byproduct...
...cell's hydrogen and oxygen are both stored in spherical tanks in a supercold liquid state. Warmed by electric heaters, they turn to gas, build up pressure and push themselves into the cells. And those heaters are among the least complicated devices on the spacecraft: a filament of gold-plated wire curving around the tank. The same type of device is a veteran of all the manned Mer cury and Gemini flights, being used to convert liquid oxygen into gas for the astronauts to breathe. When oxygen pressure started falling in Gemini 5, it was a sure sign that...
Anxious Quiet. Following instructions from Houston, Cooper and Conrad worked desperately to rejuvenate the balky fuel-cell system. Neither the automatic nor the manual controls for the oxygen tank heater would function. And getting at the heater itself was out of the question. Located in the adapter section, it was inaccessible to the crew. The astronauts flicked switches off and on again and again, trying somehow to stir the system into life. They maneuvered the spacecraft around so chat its blunt end, which housed the fuel-cell system, would get the full impact of the sun's rays...
...crops, the sewage triggers a fantastic growth of algae on the lake's bottom. Some 87 tons of phosphates are dumped into the water each day, and each pound is capable of breeding 350 tons of slime. Because dead blue-green underwater plants rob the water of its oxygen, much of Lake Erie is now a "dead" sea incapable of supporting any fish life. When the algae eventually breaks off and floats to the surface, it clogs commercial fishing nets, blocks water-intake pipes and washes onto beaches, leaving foul-smelling deposits of decaying vegetation...