April 14, 2023

South Windsor's Contributions to Space

See one of only three Apollo PC-3 Fuel Cells in existence
Sunday, April 16, 2023
from 2-5pm.

There are only three Apollo PC-3 Fuel Cells in existence. One is housed in the Smithsonian, another calls the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX home, and the third will be making a one-day-only, special appearance at the Wood Memorial Library and Museum for the opening day of the Friend's new exhibit, South Windsor’s Contributions to Space. Tom Gilmartin, Ted Koch, Warren Luoma, Dave Busemeyer, and long-time Friends' Board Member Henry Cote, along with several other local engineers and scientists will participate in a panel discussion moderated by the exhibit's curator, South Windsor High School Senior and Friends’ volunteer, Ria Saxena.  Learn about how these local Connecticut engineers along with their colleagues, brought NASA to the Moon, and discuss how fuel cell technology and research continues in the twenty-first century.

South Windsor’s Contributions to Space is the culmination of countless hours of research spearheaded by Saxena, into the Joseph A. Bost Collection of UTC Fuel Cell Papers, along with documents and objects provided by Vicky and Paul Margiott, Henry Cote, Ted Koch, and Tom Gilmartin.

Doors open at 2pm.
Panel discussion will take place from 3pm-4pm
Wood Memorial Library & Museum is located at 783 Main Street, South Windsor, CT.
More details available at www.WoodMemorialLibrary.org.

 Thank You to Tom Gilmartin for writing this week's Musings From Main!    

South Windsor's Contributions to Space

GLITCH?

Glitch is derived from glitsh, Yiddish for a slippery place, and from glitshn, meaning to slide or glide.  It was used in the 1940's by radio announcers to indicate an on-air mistake.  But the 1950's TV engineers were using it to refer to minor technical problems.  However, outside those industries the word did not have wide circulation.

How Did a Yiddish Expression Make it Into the NASA Lexicon?

Blame it on John Glenn and...

The apocryphal story goes, one of those engineers later joined NASA and began using that word in front of one of those first Mercury Seven astronauts, John Glenn.  In the 1962 book, Into Orbit Glenn spoke of using a new word he'd never used before to describe some of their troublesome but, in the big picture, minor problems.  That is a glitch.

...South Windsor's Fuel Cells

Well, the word began to gain more currency around NASA and early on in the Apollo flights, South Windsor's Fuel Cell developed a glitch.  The term was now more common within NASA if not the outside world.

What Happened?

Well the hydrogen exiting the condenser was controlled to operate between 155 and 165 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was anticipated to vary between those two temperatures over a long, slow period depending on things like coolant return temperatures being affected by the spacecrafts's orientation to the sun.

Other than that the Apollo power plants were pretty much glitch free.
(The catastrophic Apollo13 problem was related to cyro. tanks exterior to the fuel cells).

Visit www.WoodMemorialLibrary.org for more details about

the exhibit, reception and panel discussion.

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested.

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