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Old September 15th 04, 07:51 PM
John Doe
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Derek Lyons wrote:
Utterly false. Elektron has been *in orbit* for four years, not *in
operation*. It's spent a goodly part of that time partially or
completely inoperable.


I wouldn't say that it spent such a great deal of time "inoperable". Problem
is that you only hear about it when it has hiccups. But the rest of the time,
it does function. I'd say it has require far less maintenance than the US
threadmill for instance.

Consider this: you have anode and cathode in a glass of water. You apply
power. Oxygen bubbles form on one, hydrogen bubbles form on the other. Gravity
means that those bubbles eventually detach from the metal part and rise to
surface. You want to keep the O2 separate from H2 because you want to send O2
to cabin air, while capturing H2 and vent it to space without venting the
water with it.

Remove gravity and start to think about how one would capture those tiny O2
bubbles that form, capture those tiny H2 bubbles that form and extract those
while leaving the water in there. (oh, and you need to measure water level so
that you can continue to add water as needed, and since there is no gravity,
you can't use anything the "floats" to tell you about the water level.

And consider the implications of having any impurities in the water over a
long period of time.
(can pure distilled water be electrolysed, or must it contain a few impurities
to allow current to flow through it ?)