Talita TIG welds some aluminum plating here. It was replaced because the original plates were bent and preventing the radiator joint from extending. The human-scale torch is kinda hilariously tiny in her giant over-suit welding gloves.
Transcript
Bip: The lag between all those phones was like thinking in molasses. I could barely keep up with our conversations!
Talita: I hadn’t noticed.
SFX: bzzzzzzzz
Talita is hunched over and TIG welding an aluminum seam, the curved glass of her helmet completely black against the blinding light of the welding arc.
Bip: That’s because you squishy people are made of molasses.
She looks up from her work, the black fading in a hexagonal pattern to reveal an irritated expression.
Talita: Well, if I’m welding too SLOW for you…
Bip: No, you weld about the same speed as these frontloaders. You've got much better dexterity, though. And these onboard cameras are impossible to get into tight angles.
22 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 141”
Arcstone
Hey jay, would dirtball have enough atmosphere for sounds to carry?
I ask because I’ve been mind-theatering these scenes with the only vibrations, radios and maybe sometimes breath as the only sound effects and I’m curious if I got it right.
Boxthing
O.o since when do earthmoving vehicles have arms?
Vinemaple
I think we saw them in Chapter 1. Before Calcery left, it was Calcery who drove the heavy equipment, instead of the techs. I think these vehicles are designed for general salvage, and for AI operation, so they have complex mechanical arms that can do multiple things, because (a) ideally there aren’t any squishy folk out there to pick things up or hold them, and (b) when you have sapient AI that can just figure out how to use a grappling arm like that, the way you or I would use our own arm and hand, it makes a lot more sense to design and build such a thing.
Vinemaple
*temps, not “techs”
JoB
They’re actually multipurpose, thanks to exchangeable tools going on the front mount
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/666828320596475904/random-visdev-for-the-book-im-currently-writing
, operate in an environment less than welcoming to humans, *and* during times the humans are off duty in the first place (thanks to getting preprogrammed for the “night cycle”). Chances are that the arms’ main purpose is to allow them to switch their own front tool unaided, *besides* whatever work full-fledged arms are better suited for to boot.
40
Why does Talita have Seth MacFarlane eyes 😭😭😭
Duke 1337-O
I really hope centaur tendons are laid out fairly differently from ours because my hands are cramping up just looking at this ;_;
Eux
i love to see bip emoting with a frontloader. and talita’s visor is so cooooooooool!
Vinemaple
The visor, yes, what I came here to say. Not just the automatic switching, but the dot pattern like a car windshield just looks so cool!
Chrysalis
Bip is a high-powered desktop computer surrounded by squishy little mobile devices.
Also, I love the adjustable faceplate! So convenient!
Apollo235
Why are welding gloves necessary over the spacesuit gloves? Spacesuit gloves are already pretty thick, so I imagine the loss of dexterity by adding another layer or two is barely noticeable with how stiff they are by default.
JoB
Uhhh I wouldn’t want to be the guy who finds out that space suit material can *either* keep glowing material off the surface below *or* remain airtight but not *both* at the same occasion … :-3
Fallingfeather
If I had to guess, the small, intense, localized heat from welding is different from the broad-scale temperature and radiation ranges the suit is meant to withstand. It’d melt/burn. Talita even mentioned at the start of the comic that the suits are meant to keep you breathing in the (lack of) atmosphere, not act as a safety shield against debris. I suspect welding is similar.
Claire
I have to wonder how much research time Jay has devoted to specifically welding :3c
JoB
… hate to be that guy, but TIG welding is used to manufacture spacecraft parts *on Earth*:
https://blog.perfectwelding.fronius.com/en/welding-for-space-travel/
Whereas …
JoB
… the current favorite for welding *in* space/vacuum is electron-beam welding:
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Space-made_weld_scrutinised_in_ESA_lab
Adrienne
😏 DO you really hate to be that guy though? You are the most That Guy of anybody in this comment section
JoB
> DO you really hate to be that guy though?
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Let me elaborate: I *do* like to dig up background information and start discussions along the lines of “how could *this* work”, “how close could nowadays-RL we actually get to *that*”, “what’s going to happen if the plot takes the McGuffin to *those* extremes” etc. etc..
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That does not mean, however, that I’m oblivious to the fact that saying something to the effect of “uh, *this here* background info that the author researched umpteen years ago (see, for example, the date tag on
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/159666137028/thinking-about-plot-junk-for-runaway-to-the
) with Lord-knows-how-much effort, and baked it into the storyverse? It seems to have aged quite poorly …” where they can see it isn’t going to make me very popular with *them*.
Peter Jensen
Probably also the onboard cameras don’t have the range to properly process the high intensity light during the weld, so they’d need to have some equivalent of holding welding glass in front of the cameras. Or plan the weld ahead of time and hope it goes well. Automatic welding robots follow pre-programmed plans, but also have various sensors to adjust the weld as it goes. But that’s highly specialized equipment, and if you’re resorting to using a frontloader to weld with in the first place, odds are it’s not available. Also, kinda want to see a drawing of the frontloader holding a hand-held welding mask in front of the cameras …
JoB
> kinda want to see a drawing of the frontloader holding a
> hand-held welding mask in front of the cameras …
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For electrode, filler rod, *and* a “hand-held” mask, you’d need at least three hands and, thus, *two* front loaders. 😛
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(No indication where those cameras actually *are*, but Bips last sentence suggests that they cannot be removed/extended from the vehicle and I don’t see any sus protrusion on the loader that you could put a suit helmet over without it immediately falling back off … say, I note a distinct lack of any kind of “Relativistic Tape” on Dirtball …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape#Military
😉 )
Flori
This is just reinforcing my imagining of the bips fixing the ship Papa G style, because in the scene one of the clones holds another’s hair out of the way while he welds- just in this case it’s holding up a welding mask, lol
Enai
Way to smooth talk people, Bip. Did you get your social skills from the scrap heap, like your replacement parts?