Timeline for Would a spacecraft carry arc welding supplies?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
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| Oct 15, 2019 at 15:14 | comment | added | msouth | @Jesse_b I agree that "bits of electrically conductive stuff floating around" is generally an unacceptable byproduct for any tool you use on a spaceship. So you might be able to weasel in welder saying that they only use it when absolutely necessary and are careful to use it properly to minimize free floating byproduct. By contrast, creating freefloating byproduct is what a recip saw is made to do. The character in the story could even have some difficulty mentally overcoming the conditioning against bad welding or have to alter the welder to override a protection against it. | |
| Oct 15, 2019 at 12:06 | vote | accept | cal | ||
| Oct 14, 2019 at 12:59 | comment | added | jesse_b | @msouth: That is a fair point I hadn't considered. This isn't really a productive counter "argument" but I can't imagine the particles from sawing would be any more significant than the particles from welding. Stick welding is especially dirty as it will leave a lot of dust from the unburnt flux. However any form of bad welding will throw off a ton of small metal "bb's" some stick to your work piece but some are just thrown off. Trying to cut metal with a welder is essentially bad welding so it will throw off a ton of metal pieces of various sizes. | |
| Oct 14, 2019 at 12:44 | comment | added | jesse_b | @RobinBennett: You can cut with a TIG torch but since the tip is very thin you wont be able to cut anything with significant thickness. You'll also do damage to the tip although in this scenario that seems not very significant. | |
| Oct 14, 2019 at 12:38 | comment | added | Robin Bennett | Could you improvise a plasma cutter from a TIG welder and a source of compressed air? | |
| Oct 13, 2019 at 21:32 | comment | added | msouth | I think a saw would generate particles that would be really bad in zero gravity, seems an unlikely piece of equipment to me. | |
| Oct 13, 2019 at 20:45 | comment | added | Hearth | Bear in mind that modern spacecraft still use a lot of minimally-modified 70s parts because engineering spacecraft is capital-H Hard and if you know a soyuz capsule works, and you're able to use one, why would you use anything else? They are starting to move away from that though. All that said, though, I don't know how much steel was on early spacecraft anyway. They definitely have to be mostly aluminum just for the weight. | |
| Oct 13, 2019 at 15:51 | history | edited | jesse_b | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 13, 2019 at 12:20 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 13, 2019 at 12:43 | |||||
| Oct 13, 2019 at 12:18 | history | answered | jesse_b | CC BY-SA 4.0 |