Next on our list of cool places to fire a gun, the vacuum of space!
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[QUOTE=notrabies;45992988]Next on our list of cool places to fire a gun, the vacuum of space!
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Are there any for a semi-auto?
Nope just a revolver, It was on a Mythbusters episode where they tested if you could fire a gun in space or a place without oxygen and I guess it worked
[QUOTE=Ermac20;45996068]Nope just a revolver, It was on a Mythbusters episode where they tested if you could fire a gun in space or a place without oxygen and I guess it worked[/QUOTE]
Many of theses kinds of "No oxygen" myths have the same answer, as many flammable materials have their own oxidizer.
[QUOTE=download;45993099]Are there any for a semi-auto?[/QUOTE]
i wish the russians would one day release their footage of the salyut 3's autocannon but since that whole thing is top secret they proably will never show it
they fired it a few times with people there and a bunch remotely so they've got to have footage of it
[QUOTE=Tinter;45996086]Many of theses kinds of "No oxygen" myths have the same answer, as many flammable materials have their own oxidizer.[/QUOTE]
yep
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;45997439]
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something[/QUOTE]
Shooting an Alien is one way to get their attention
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;45997439]yep
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something[/QUOTE]
The fact that recoil could put you into an uncontrolled spin, metals don't like extreme temperature changes and that most lubricants evaporate in a vacuum are more of a concern than little bits of space junk.
Temperature changes won't be a problem. If anything the bullet gets hotter than normal, since it doesn't cool down.
[QUOTE=joost1120;45997833]Temperature changes won't be a problem. If anything the bullet gets hotter than normal, since it doesn't cool down.[/QUOTE]
its less the bullets and more the gun
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;45997439]yep
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something[/QUOTE]
Eh, not really. There's tons of shit in Earth orbit. You'd have to be lucky to fire a gun in a gravity well at just the right angle that it permanently enters orbit (instead of re-entering and burning up), and then it would join the hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris already up there. And it almost certainly doesn't have the muzzle velocity to escape Earth, let alone the Sun, so it's not going anywhere- with such a low velocity, relatively speaking, you could fire a handgun randomly in every direction and still be able to plot a very narrow orbital band containing every single projectile. 300-400m/s is not a lot of displacement so anything you shoot should stay on roughly the same course as your vessel.
That line from Mass Effect regarding railguns is really overused. The 'it'll keep going forever until it hits something' principle is only true outside of a gravity well, which is pretty much irrelevant to any practical speculation.
Regarding temperature, if very hot and cold metals touch they'll spot-weld. With no atmosphere to provide convective cooling, and no lubricant in the weapon (immediately boils off in vacuum), keeping a firearm working after a few magazines pretty much requires some sort of heatsink. It's complicated, but it's doable.
Recoil's not really a problem. Computer assistance, or at the very least a laser sight, makes firing from the hip to avoid rotation reasonably practical. Active counter-recoil thrust or just stabilizing yourself on an object would do it too.
Guns might not be as practical in space as they are on Earth, but they'll almost certainly be used in space for the simple reason that the idea of electrical energy storage density even approaching that of firearms within the next hundred years is a pipe dream. Until we can store 4-6kJ in a capacitor the size of a battery, directed energy weapons and electrically-powered kinetic weapons won't hold a candle to conventional slugthrowers.
Yeah, the biggest issue would be the gun cold welding to itself in the vacuum of space. Metals that touch in a vacuum have a tendency to permanently stick together. Since there isn't any oxygen in space (or enough to oxidize surfaces), the atoms of one metal don't "know" they are part of one thing as opposed to another, so if two surfaces touch, the atoms sort of meld together into one since there is no oxygen coating preventing the surfaces from melding together like there is on earth.
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;45997439]yep
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something[/QUOTE][QUOTE=Rents;45997730]The fact that recoil could put you into an uncontrolled spin, metals don't like extreme temperature changes and that most lubricants evaporate in a vacuum are more of a concern than little bits of space junk.[/QUOTE]
Meteoroids and orbiting wayward space junk pose as much, if not more so, of a hazard than fired bullets. Guns could also be used a propellent in no/low gravity environments.
[QUOTE=notrabies;45992988]Next on our list of cool places to fire a gun, the vacuum of space!
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Can anyone identify this revolver
[QUOTE=joost1120;45997833]Temperature changes won't be a problem. If anything the bullet gets hotter than normal, since it doesn't cool down.[/QUOTE]
I was thinking more along the lines of parts of a gun expanding or contracting and either making it jam or fracturing.
Since we're talking guns in space, allow me to repost the greatest.
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Soviet beam pistol. No, that's not a joke, it's really what it is. Bolt action. Fires 'bullets' that consist of a high-powered camera-flash reflected as a directional beam somehow, it could set thin sheets of paper on fire from moderate distances. Pew pew pew.
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;45997439]yep
the true problem with using projectile weapons in space is that if you miss, the bullet's gonna royally fuck up /someone's/ day since it'll just keep goin' forever until it hits something[/QUOTE]
some sci-fi story i read once essentially was about that, one time a bunch of ships pumped out shitloads of rail gun slugs at each other in a battle then like 1000 years later a ship flying by got royally fucked by them
[editline]16th September 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=urbanmonkey;45998038]Yeah, the biggest issue would be the gun cold welding to itself in the vacuum of space. Metals that touch in a vacuum have a tendency to permanently stick together. Since there isn't any oxygen in space (or enough to oxidize surfaces), the atoms of one metal don't "know" they are part of one thing as opposed to another, so if two surfaces touch, the atoms sort of meld together into one since there is no oxygen coating preventing the surfaces from melding together like there is on earth.[/QUOTE]
that only works on metals that are sanded clean, most metals and all metals used in guns are plated and of different alloys ect ect, basically vacume welding isn't as much of a problem as it would seem since no two metal surfaces will have the same composition, also metals don't get cold in the vacume, in fact the exact opposite happens, since they are essentially insulated in the vacume of space they only absorb solar radiation and emit infared radiation
[QUOTE=Sableye;45998766]some sci-fi story i read once essentially was about that, one time a bunch of ships pumped out shitloads of rail gun slugs at each other in a battle then like 1000 years later a ship flying by got royally fucked by them[/QUOTE]
That would be a hilarious accidental declaration of war against an alien species
[QUOTE=Sableye;45998766]
that only works on metals that are sanded clean, most metals and all metals used in guns are plated and of different alloys ect ect, basically vacume welding isn't as much of a problem as it would seem since no two metal surfaces will have the same composition, also metals don't get cold in the vacume, in fact the exact opposite happens, since they are essentially insulated in the vacume of space they only absorb solar radiation and emit infared radiation[/QUOTE]
Cold welding doesn't actually mean cold, it just means non-molten
[QUOTE=Mr. Jelly;45998618]Can anyone identify this revolver[/QUOTE]
Looks like a Ruger
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