Who Knew Welding Could Be So Exciting

 If I say welding, it probably doesn’t stir excitement in you.  But to engineers at NASA, a first and only welding machine it’s first milestone product.  A welding process was shown off at the Marshall Space Flight Center on Tuesday.  The world’s largest automated welder produced its first product today, an 18′ dome made for NASA’s ARES 1 program.  This milestone device was developed and built at the Marshall Space Flight Center for the ARES and Constellation programs.  But that’s not all, according to Robert Carter, a Welding Engineer on the project. “People often miss that we’re not just developing technology, we’re also training a work force that is ready to make the transition from this development at this facility to the production floor at MAF.” MAF is the Michoud Assembly Facility, the world’s largest manufacturing plant in New Orleans.  The friction stir welding device was used to complete the top of the fuel tank for the ARES 1 rocket, a contact lens looking gore dome.

“Gored meaning that the dome is constructed of multiple panels that are welded together.  So this is the first friction stir welded gore dome,” In the world… er.. EVER, according to Carter.

The first in the WORLD… EVER.  And along the way, these engineers at Marshall have literally pioneered a new process.  One necessary to return Americans to the Moon and take them beyond.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Brad, weather conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.