4 ms·
The difficulty is making it light and strong. If you're doing an emergency patch repair on a small area you could sacrifice some cargo and use much thicker mate
by grey-area 6y ago
The difficulty is making it light and strong. If you're doing an emergency patch repair on a small area you could sacrifice some cargo and use much thicker material and more welds to be sure it will hold. It wouldn't be easy but is much easier than the initial build.
- AstralStorm 6y agoMost importantly, you mostly need it light to escape Earth's atmosphere. (And somewhat to have enough fuel.) On Mars, Moon or in space this constraint is reduced.
- daniel_reetz 6y agoThe difficulty is making a weld that doesn't weaken or anneal the parent metal through heat induced material changes. Welding thick to thin is nontrivial because of the different heat input required in each substrate. You tend to burn through the thin part. Patching may be possible but thick patches don't make things any easier.