The objective was a device to produce oxygen photochemically from water.
Among other things, it's easy to produce oxygen and hydrogen fuel from water (thus the interplanetary dreamers' interest in it).
One such effort is to explore means of producing hydrogen fuel from water.
Because you can produce hydrogen from water, the United States could increasingly rely on domestic sources for energy production.
The easiest method of producing hydrogen from water is by means of electrolysis.
However, at present, the economics of using solar-produced electricity to produce hydrogen from water by electrolysis are poor.
Hydrogen has already been produced from water using this approach.
Fish was OK to eat because they believed fishes were not alive but just things that were sometimes produced from dirt and water.
Without the oxygen produced from water by green plants, life as we know it on this planet would be impossible.
The same amount of energy must be input to drive the reaction backwards to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water in the gaseous state.