Students at University of Missouri-Rolla research weightless welding

Given the unforeseen repairs that had to be performed on the latest space shuttle mission, the ability to weld in zero-gravity environments is one that has seen its time come. That is why I thought this was a nifty little piece about weightless welding...

From Rolla Daily News Online...

As NASA spent the better part of two years grappling with the foam problem that resulted in the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, a team of engineering students from the University of Missouri-Rolla was solving problems of its own.

While NASA focused on returning the shuttle to flight, the UMR Miners in Space team put its efforts toward building and designing a welding machine that would work in zero gravity.

For its experiment the Miners in Space designed a machine to test the strength of welds made in a zero gravity environment. The team chose this experiment because welding in a weightless environment will become increasingly important for tasks and repairs needed to be performed in space.