Space Habs

Thanks for teaching me a new term (vacuum welding). Just looked it up.

>From back in time, someone had mentioned a friction problem for moving parts in space and I took it as gospel. Don't know the magnitude of effect for very large objects vs. small particles. May be not so great as I imagined as NASA has had some equipment in space for years, granted with few moving parts.

--- On Thu, 7/23/09, Combs, Mike wrote:
"When a metal surface is perfectly clean in a vacuum . the friction is much higher than the normal accepted value and seizure can easily occur. "

Ah, so I guess this relates to vacuum welding (probably the kind of "seizure" they refer to).

Regards,

Mike Combs