10/07/2022:
The crew awoke at 0800CST beginning their day with daily surveys and a focused-breathing session at 0900CST. The crew then ate a breakfast of oatmeal, mixed nuts, freeze-dried strawberries, and coffee.
Daily Objectives:
Water Electrolysis
Today electrolysis was conducted with platinum electrodes, graphite, and copper conductors. All three conductors were tested in a solution of distilled water (solvent) at 225mL, and sodium (solute) at 50mL. All tests were powered by a DC converter pushing a force potential of 25V through alligator clamps.
The graphite conductors rendered an electric current of 2.07 Amps and isolated 150mL of Hydrogen is 20 minutes, 15 seconds. It also isolated 75mL of Oxygen in 22 minutes, 40 seconds. Platinum electrodes rendered an electric current of 0.75 Amps and isolated 20mL of Hydrogen in 1 hour, 26 minutes, 40 seconds.
Platinum electrodes also isolated 10mL of Oxygen in 1 hour, 40 minutes, 12 seconds. The platinum electrode tips seem to have broken off, resulting in a very small amount of the electrode’s surface area being exposed to the solution. This would account for the significant decrease in efficiency.
Copper conductors rendered an electric current of 5.75 Amps and isolated 140mL of Hydrogen in 12 minutes. Copper conductors also isolated 70mL of Oxygen in 12 minutes, 20 seconds. As expected, copper has been the most effective conductor for electrolysis thus far.
Further analysis of Mission Day 08’s large time gap in the separation of Hydrogen free radicals versus the separation of Oxygen free radicals was conducted. It was determined the gap was caused by the difference in size (and therefore surface area) of the graphite conductors placed in the Anode test tube versus the Cathode test tube, which has been corrected.
Graphite conductors produced enough oxygen today to keep an average human alive for 15 minutes. Platinum electrodes conductors produced enough oxygen today to keep an average human alive for 2 minutes. Copper conductors produced enough oxygen today to keep an average human alive for 14 minutes.
Additionally, combined hydrogen and oxygen gases from electrolysis were successfully stored safely burned, replicating the ability of water electrolysis to create rocket fuel propellant for lunar operations.
Stress Mitigation Study
Analysis of focused breathing on immediate stress is beginning to show that the subject may need to be properly trained on focused breathing techniques in order to see more stress reduction during an event.
Humanure Plant Study
A fantastic failure was discovered today. The regolith dominate ratio mixture appeared to not yield any vegetation of any type. The decision to terminate the growth process for this mixture was made. After examination of the mixture it was discovered that the Hot Pepper seedling had in fact sprouted. Unfortunately, the seedling sprouted too
deep in the mixture and was unable to receive light from the grow light.
This in turn provides many interesting data points moving forward for the
next mission.
Other experiments and notes
All UND experiments were completed. The following is Mission Specialist Guthrie on her space shuttle back to the Earth.