CubeRootOfTrueWe can do this (this is only a prototype, we can weld two of these together)
#hillbillyinspace https://www.instagram.com/dollarcountry/reel/CuQB983AA1u/
The Von Braun Wheel: A Space Station Dream and the Legacy It Inspired
I forget; you can weld in space, right?
DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)@CubeRootOfTrue
There are several kinds of welding. Acetylene gas welding reacts with atmospheric oxygen to produce a flame, so not that one. But arc welding is purely electrical, so it should; not sure if it's been tried.
There's also vacuum welding, where two pieces of metal in a vacuum can sometimes weld themselves together upon mere contact. That one NASA has to design around.
Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов> arc welding is purely electrical, so it should; not sure if it's been tried
As I recall, the Soviets experimented with it in the 1970s, or at least claimed so.
I don't know what the conclusions were.
The first experiment in space, with electron beam welding, was on 1969-10-16, Soyuz-6, Shonin and Kubasov, with a device called Vulkan (Russian for volcano).
It seems that experiment showed that welding in space is possible, but it wasn't successful itself.
("Compressed low-pressure arc and a melting electrode".)
Later Djanibekov and Savitskaya did welding during a space walk in 1984, and Kizim and Solovyev in 1986.
From ru.wikipedia.org; haven't looked further.
@vnikolov @CubeRootOfTrue
I should have mentioned that welding undersea is a long-solved problem. The issues with space welding overlap (lack of atmospheric oxygen) without, of course, being identical.
Along those lines, I shouldn't have said that acetylene welding is necessarily impossible in space due to lack of oxygen -- since that could be supplied -- but flames behave differently in zero-g, so it's still questionable.
If it is possible to fire engines in vacuum and zero gravity, maybe the problems with flames for welding are not unsurmountable.
It seems to me that getting oxygen to space is _significantly_ harder than getting oxygen undersea.
Then again, a good analysis must take into account how much is needed, which I don't know.
Fire safety might be significantly different, too.
@dougmerritt TIG welding uses Argon to insulate the weld from the atmosphere. I imagine vacuum welding would not have that problem. But there would undoubtedly be others. Containing the sparks, for example, which are hot metal droplets which will coat everything nearby
This is an advertisement for a shipping company.
@vnikolov I tried to get it to add more Evergreen ... I see a lot of shipping containers
Would love to hear more about arc welding in space