In case it ever comes up
12 Responses to “In case it ever comes up”
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August 6th, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Seems like an ideal environment for long range riflery – everything shoots flat.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Aim lower.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Use a laser sight, bore sight it without a range correction, and hold the pistol near your center of mass.
Human bodies are fairly massive, you won’t travel fast or far.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:43 pm
And, courtesy of a link someone posted in a comment there, I’ve learned two things I did not know before:
1) The Soviets had manned spy satellites up during the 70’s, and
2) One of those satellites was equipped with a 23mm cannon, which was successfully test fired while in orbit (after the first crew had left, due to concerns about excessive vibration).
August 7th, 2012 at 2:01 am
Well, heck! Isn’t that what NASA is for, to determine answers via experiment? I propose a national contest! We need to pick 2 volunteers to go up and fight it out. Naturally, to make this a “real” scientific experiment, we’ll need several pairs, one for each caliber of handgun, a pair for each caliber rifle, shotgun, etc. This could really kick the economy out of the recession, a la the way the moonshot did way back when. Reactivation and further development of the space station to provide a big enough lab . . . .
August 7th, 2012 at 8:32 am
In a zero-gravity fight in space (no walls to grab) things get hairy. The recoil against one shoulder would put you into a spin that would require some kind of propulsion to correct. A pistol would do the same thing unless fired from your center with both hands.
In some sci-fi story I read and forgot everything else, Space Marines dealt with this by mounting their rifles onto the center of the chest of their spacesuits.
August 7th, 2012 at 8:52 am
It wouldn’t be smart to use a gun in most zero-g settings. You’d probably be in a pressure vessel, and the first missed shot would cause an air leak.
August 7th, 2012 at 11:55 am
Air leak?
Try “explosive decompression”
August 7th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
In one of Larry Niven’s scifi novels, a single rifle shot was used by the solo operator of a spaceship in a solar orbit to take out a pursuing spaceship. He shot from outside his ship, in a space suit, magnetically attached to his ship, IIRC. Remington 700 with a good scope, I think.
The target was something like one quarter solar orbit away. The neat part was that the shooter did the orbital calculations necessary to intersect his bullet’s trajectory and the orbit of the target ship in his head.
August 7th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
“Try ‘explosive decompression'”
No, Mythbusters totally de-bunked that one. Shoot a hole in a light air tank with 15 or fewer psi and it will go “ffffffffffff” with very little other consequences. They did it with a jet fuselage, but a spacecraft wouldn’t be much different except for a few pounds more pressure difference. Your main concern would be loss of air supply over the long haul, so stick some chewing gum in the hole or something.
Anyway; that was a refreshiung write-up. Correct and not stupid or ignorant. That’s pretty rare.
August 7th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Actually most spacecraft operate at a reduced pressure just for the reason of possible micro debris penetration, and the fact that lower pressure means gas supplies last longer for the same weight.
August 7th, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Attila the Hun: Stop! Don’t shoot fire stick in space canoe! Cause explosive decompression!
Zapp Brannigan: Spare me your space age technobabble, Attila the Hun!