oh no! a GUN is on the space station!
My first thought is if they get attacked by some sort of alien, they will need it.
http://www.wesh.com/news/15298911/detail.html
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun.
Russian Cosmonauts carry a gun on their Soyuz space capsule, which is attached to the space station.
Survey: Should Space Station Have Gun?
Every spacecraft carries survival gear for crash landings, and the Russian Soyuz has a kit that includes the gun.
A photo of a space tourist using one version of the weapon is posted on his Web site.
But although the gun has been there for as long as the space station has been in orbit, its existence is kept quiet. NASA and Russian officials won't talk publicly about it.
Former NASA engineer Jim Oberg, who is an author and journalist, wrote about the gun on his Web site. He said the gun has no place in an environment where people are under such high stress.
"There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out -- that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions," Oberg said.
Experts said the idea of an astronaut losing control was unthinkable until one year ago, when Lisa Nowak shattered the myth.
Her own attorney said she was insane when arrested for hunting down another woman, and prosecutors said she was heavily armed.
Nowak had flown in space just seven months earlier.
Oberg knows an astronaut bent on orbital manslaughter could simply throw any number of switches to do the job, but he said the crews would be safer if the gun was locked up or left on Earth.
The gun is located in a survival kit between some seats aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. All the crewmembers know about it, and U.S. astronauts who fly aboard the Soyuz are trained to use it.
http://www.wesh.com/news/15298911/detail.html
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun.
Russian Cosmonauts carry a gun on their Soyuz space capsule, which is attached to the space station.
Survey: Should Space Station Have Gun?
Every spacecraft carries survival gear for crash landings, and the Russian Soyuz has a kit that includes the gun.
A photo of a space tourist using one version of the weapon is posted on his Web site.
But although the gun has been there for as long as the space station has been in orbit, its existence is kept quiet. NASA and Russian officials won't talk publicly about it.
Former NASA engineer Jim Oberg, who is an author and journalist, wrote about the gun on his Web site. He said the gun has no place in an environment where people are under such high stress.
"There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out -- that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions," Oberg said.
Experts said the idea of an astronaut losing control was unthinkable until one year ago, when Lisa Nowak shattered the myth.
Her own attorney said she was insane when arrested for hunting down another woman, and prosecutors said she was heavily armed.
Nowak had flown in space just seven months earlier.
Oberg knows an astronaut bent on orbital manslaughter could simply throw any number of switches to do the job, but he said the crews would be safer if the gun was locked up or left on Earth.
The gun is located in a survival kit between some seats aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. All the crewmembers know about it, and U.S. astronauts who fly aboard the Soyuz are trained to use it.
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quote:Originally posted by dakotashooter2
I can see it now. A discussion on GB about whether a 100 km shot on space elk is ethical or not.[:0]
Hmmm.... Hope you have enough gun!!
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Don McManus
You are right ---- For a craft to leave earth orbit it has to be traveling in excess of
22, 000 mph --- aimed properly at the moon it starts to slow down until the 2/3
point to about 5,000 of 6,000 mph (don?_Tt hold me to these numbers) and starts speeding
up again as the moons gravitation pull takes over --- On the return trip the reverse is true?_"
that is why it takes 3 days to get to the moon but only 2 days to get back ?_"
A bullet fired from the space station ?_"even straight away from the earth would not
Have enough velocity to overcome the gravitational pull of the earth and would fall
Back to the earth
Lee0 -
It wouldnt fall back to the earth, not for a very long time, if at all. It is allready in orbit, depending on the direction its fired, it will end up in a higher or lower eliptical orbit. 0 -
CA
Do you think a space craft stays in orbit just by chance ---
It stays there because it is placed at a set altitude and a set speed ?_"
The Russian space station Mir came back to earth because they
Stopped maintaining that altitude and speed ---
If you shoot a bullet at random with no calculations as to where it
Is going to end up it will return to the earth at some point in time ?_"
And maybe sooner that you think ?_"
Lee0 -
You mean that gun hasn't jumped out of the survival kit, all by itself, and killed everyone on the space station yet?
Will wonders never cease? [:0]0 -
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
The gun would work fine in outer space.
If you were outside the station and fired, the bullet would go indefinitely. If you missed Mars and Jupiter the bullet would travel forever, with no loss of speed and no bullet drop.
Talk about long-range sniping! You could assassinate someone a light year away with a .22! (theoretically)0 -
You're just envious, because it wasn't AN AMERICAN who brought the gun into space !!!
Space cowboys.... [:D]0 -
Suppose someone DID go nuts and start killing people with a wrench or by pulling valves or something. Then we'd be saying, 'if only someone had had a gun...' But it seems to me you need TWO guns in case some nutjob decides to use the only one for nefarious purposes.
It would work fine in zero G.
So far as oxygen goes it would work fine outside the ship as well, in the vacuum of space as the ammo has it's own interior oxygen. However the cold might be an issue. Space is just a few degrees above absolute zero. I doubt primers or powder would burn at that temp; but if said gun had a heated chamber it would work fine otherwise. For that matter an electically fired charge vs. a conventional primer with a specialty powder could work as well- none of which is an issue on the ISS.0 -
OK I can see that if the gun were fired from the orbiter it would be stuck in earth orbit.
But, if you were in deep space, out of our solar system so that you were free from the sun's gravity, the bullet fired there would go a long, long way.
Also, if the astronaut had his head and chest out of the hatch, and was leaning back against the hatch door and he fired a rifle, the recoil would be absorbed by the space station.
But, if the astronaut were on an untethered space walk, and he fired a rifle from his shoulder, the recoil would send the astronaut into a slow backwards somersault.
Check out the muzzle climb if the spacewalking astronaut cut loose with a Tommy gun on full auto.0 -
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
OK I can see that if the gun were fired from the orbiter it would be stuck in earth orbit.
But, if you were in deep space, out of our solar system so that you were free from the sun's gravity, the bullet fired there would go a long, long way.
Also, if the astronaut had his head and chest out of the hatch, and was leaning back against the hatch door and he fired a rifle, the recoil would be absorbed by the space station.
But, if the astronaut were on an untethered space walk, and he fired a rifle from his shoulder, the recoil would send the astronaut into a slow backwards somersault.
Check out the muzzle climb if the spacewalking astronaut cut loose with a Tommy gun on full auto.
I wonder how far you would go in the opposite direction!!!0 -
The Russians are f***ing smart!
if you have to use the Soyuz "lifeboat" to abandon the station for whatever reason, you may just need that gun if you touch down in a remote location and it takes a while for the SAR team to get there.
Too bad they are not specific about the type of gun, I would guess that its some kind of collapsible survival carbine rather than a pistol. Although the average handgun would at least drop a hungry wolf that intends to make you puppy chow...0 -
quote:Originally posted by spanielsells
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
The gun would work fine in outer space.
If you were outside the station and fired, the bullet would go indefinitely. If you missed Mars and Jupiter the bullet would travel forever, with no loss of speed and no bullet drop.
Really?
So is the purpose of rockets in space to simply change direction? Otherwise, they'd be shut off and you'd travel without fuel consumption?
once you get enough velocity to break free of Earth's gravity, yes...they basically coasted to the moon, then fired the rockets to break free of teh moon and coasted back [:D]0 -
Well I don't care about the gun.... I accept the fact that even the Russians should have the right to carry!!! Anyfreakingwhere!!!! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by bobski
how would the primer fire without oxygen? i dont see a gun working in space folks.
Same reason a bang stick works under water. You know those things that have a cartridge in them that fires when you pop it in a fish, like a shark, 12 guage, .45, even seen one in 5.56. Guranteeded to give you a headache and and ear ache, usually tears up the fish pretty bad.
The cartridge (primer and powder) contain everything needed to operate, fuel and the oxidizer.
I'm guess that as Newtons Laws apply up there too, you'd go sailing backwards, an equal and opposite reaction, or something like that. Guess I'd rather fire a .22 up there than a 458 WinMag.0 -
as stevemm said, I don't think it is intended for use in space. It's part of an Earth survival kit.
If it did get fired in space, wouldn't it act like lighting off a small rocket. Equal but opposite reaction and all that? [:D]0 -
in space even near the earth, no there isn't any air out there. between the earth and the moon is about as void as deep space. there are particles but like 1 per cubic meter. might as well be a perfect vacuum.
the earth does not spray out air like a giant aerosol can. if it did, it would be all gone already.
after those deep space probes we sent went fast enough to get out of the solar system, yes they're going to go on practically forever because there's practically no resistance. except for gravitational fields they may come across from other solar systems.
in the vacuum of space the explosion from the gunpowder would still launch a bullet, because here on earth we have about 14 PSI air pressure, and the chamber pressure of a pistol gets about what, 50,000 PSI? take 14 off of that and 49,986 PSI still shoots a bullet.
however, yes it's so cold the primer might not ignite. also consider this, even here on earth it gets so cold in antarctica that if you hit a hammer on an anvil, it will break. I don't think sparks ignite gasoline there either. it's 10 times colder in space, -273 celsuis (-459 F). so a gun barrel would probably shatter. or even the hammer and firing pin.
but if you could get it to fire, yes you could shoot someone else in outer space from a billion light years away if you could get it on target, if there were no gravitational fields, asteroids and crap and they were there when the bullet got there.0 -
Yeah the cold would be a factor. Materials science could make a workable gun for sure, but our every day ones- if they ignited- would probably shatter in the cold. 0
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