Can some body tell me

Hi All
Can some body tell me what are the cannon on the interceptor for
And how do they work in the vacuum of space.?????

Hi

There's no reason at all why an air pistol (gas powered ala paint ball), hand
gun, rifle, cannon would not work in space, but remembering Newton's Law about
every action having an equal and opposite reaction, the effect would be very
interesting to say the least!!! However, quite a but of work has been done on
completely recoilless weapons. I suppose it is possible that SHADO might know
about such research and applied in some way.

In 'Survival' when Paul Foster looks to fire what looks like a Browning
Automatic (and remembering that gravity on the Moon is one sixth that of the
Earth) unless the charge had been adjusted in some way, he would have been
knocked back about 30 feet if he had fired it!

I'm not aware of the 'cannons' - if that is what they are - on the interceptors
being used in any UFO episode. Maybe that are part of the anti-recoil system
that would be needed to launch the Interceptor Missile without having an adverse
effect on the flight path of the Interceptor.

Best, Griff

-----Original Message-----
From: Mr Doppelganger [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 3:40 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Can some body tell me


Hi All
Can some body tell me what are the cannon on the interceptor for
And how do they work in the vacuum of space.?????  





 
Yahoo! Groups Links



 

They're never actually used in the series, if I remember correctly. That one
missile seems to do the trick.

Brian


>Hi All
>Can some body tell me what are the cannon on the interceptor for
>And how do they work in the vacuum of space.?????

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

Brian wrote

> They're never actually used in the series, if I remember correctly. That
one
> missile seems to do the trick.

The "trick" being that half the time they miss and let the blighters
through..! I always thought it daft that the interceptors only had the one
missile each (and quite crude when compared with the UFO's ray guns) but of
course if they didn't there probably wouldn't have been a show!

Nick

Hahahaha!

I think that Robert Miall came up with the idea in the novelizations that
the missiles were "smart bombs," guaranteed to home in on the target (or at
least damage it by exploding nearby).

Thus, you only need the one. At least that's the theory.

And hey, speaking of the Ufo's weapons, how come they seem to have energy
weapons and yet in the first episode, they're using what seems to be a
machine gun?

Brian

>The "trick" being that half the time they miss and let the blighters
>through..! I always thought it daft that the interceptors only had the one
>missile each (and quite crude when compared with the UFO's ray guns) but of
>course if they didn't there probably wouldn't have been a show!
>
>Nick

_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement

Okay, here we go again of the explaination why the Alien have smallarms that
fires projectile when their spacecraft has a engery type weapon.

It takes a lot of power to make a laser work. You may or may not remember
that one of the ideas to make the so called "Star Wars" defense system work was
to fire lasers into space from Earth by setting off nuclear weapons to
provide the power for the beam. Now that is a lot of engery. The new laser they
have been testing that is taken up in a Boeing(hey Marc a plug<g>) 727 type
aircraft uses a more conventional power supply, batteries. But they take up most
of the plane. Now while the aliens have got the power suppy right for the UFO
to use a laser type weapon getting the power supply small enough and long
lasting enough to make a hand weapon is long jump in technology. And why do the
aliens have to have beam type hand weapons just because they travel in space
and have one on their ship? In Enterprise the crew have only a few
fuctioning Phasers. This is a newly created weapon to them although they have been
traveling in space for quite some time. In UFO the aliens supposedly come from a
planet that is dying perhaps they see no reason to waste resources on making
a laser type weapon when a old fashion bullet will get the job done cheaper.

Oh, Griff, the recoil would not knock Foster back 30 feet. You said
it yourself. the Moon only has one sixth our gravity. If it would knock him
back 30 feet on the moon it would knock him back 5 on Earth. Recoil is figured
by the weight of the projectile times the velocity of the projectile times
4000, then you have to find the weigh of the weapon times the mass of gravity
acceleration which is always 32 feet per second even on the moon then divide
the two . And in the case of the moon you have to reduce the weight of the
bullet, and the gun by 6. Just do it regular and then divide the result by 6.
In other words a gun that like the .460 Weatherby Magnum which produces 100
foot pounds of recoil on Earth would not produce 600 on the moon but only 16.7
foot pounds of recoil. But as the person firing it would now only weigh one
sixth of their Earth weight the effect would be the same.

James K.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

CONTENTS DELETED

--- In [hidden email], SumitonJD@a... wrote:
> It takes a lot of power to make a laser work. ...

and only a few % of it goes into the beam; the rest of the energy
used merely makes the gun hot. That is with real-world technology. In
fictional time-lines there may be a much more energy-efficient
compact way to make a laser beam or other sort of ray gun. Perhaps
Gerry Anderson wanted to get away from the habit of automatically
thinking of ray guns whenever space travel arises. But in some of the
UFO series comic stories in "Countdown" and "TV Action", UFO series
alien rifles are called rayguns and shown firing a ray. In the UFO
series fictional world, there may be a lower limit to the size of a
raygun, same as in the real world there is a lower limit to the size
of a fission bomb.

To go off the point: in Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct series, the
aliens called Tarns have a third eye in their foreheads. Normally
this is closed; when it is open, it gives them special power. I get a
definite suspicion that that characteristic was plagiarized from the
Hindu god Shiva.

I always thought that the light beam from a hand gun might be more expensive. It was the pilot episode, so money may have been a consideration. bslBrian Lindstrand <[hidden email]> wrote:Hahahaha!

I think that Robert Miall came up with the idea in the novelizations that
the missiles were "smart bombs," guaranteed to home in on the target (or at
least damage it by exploding nearby).

Thus, you only need the one. At least that's the theory.

And hey, speaking of the Ufo's weapons, how come they seem to have energy
weapons and yet in the first episode, they're using what seems to be a
machine gun?

Brian

>The "trick" being that half the time they miss and let the blighters
>through..! I always thought it daft that the interceptors only had the one
>missile each (and quite crude when compared with the UFO's ray guns) but of
>course if they didn't there probably wouldn't have been a show!
>
>Nick

_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement




Yahoo! Groups Links








---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is all very well but surely it would have been in the interest of the
aliens to develop a stun gun given their purpose for coming to earth? Even
if it was only a dart gun it would make a whole lot more sense than filling
humans full of lead (or whatever).

The argument from realism opens a whole can of worms. After all, the
"rationale" for the aliens' interest in earth wasn't rational, it was
lunatic. But then sci-fi invasions are peculiarly prone to being senseless,
witness THE INVADERS or V. Then again, neither of these came close to true
SF anyway: the first was really "Cousin of The Fugitive", the second a
childish "What if?" revolving around Naziism. At least the Mysterons were
motivated by something one could believe in: they were mad as hell and
weren't going to take it any more.

The great thing about UFO was the fact that the writers realised pretty
quickly how limiting the concept was and thought outside the box, creating
some adult drama in the process, sensibly relegating the "rationale" to a
McGuffin.

Then of course only 19 years on from the time of UFO even *we* had developed
blast guns...

Nick

----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:17 AM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Can some body tell me


> Okay, here we go again of the explaination why the Alien have smallarms
that
> fires projectile when their spacecraft has a engery type weapon.
>
> It takes a lot of power to make a laser work. You may or may not remember
> that one of the ideas to make the so called "Star Wars" defense system
work was
> to fire lasers into space from Earth by setting off nuclear weapons to
> provide the power for the beam. Now that is a lot of engery. The new
laser they
> have been testing that is taken up in a Boeing(hey Marc a plug<g>) 727
type
> aircraft uses a more conventional power supply, batteries. But they take
up most
> of the plane. Now while the aliens have got the power suppy right for the
UFO
> to use a laser type weapon getting the power supply small enough and long
> lasting enough to make a hand weapon is long jump in technology. And why
do the
> aliens have to have beam type hand weapons just because they travel in
space
> and have one on their ship? In Enterprise the crew have only a few
> fuctioning Phasers. This is a newly created weapon to them although they
have been
> traveling in space for quite some time. In UFO the aliens supposedly come
from a
> planet that is dying perhaps they see no reason to waste resources on
making
> a laser type weapon when a old fashion bullet will get the job done
cheaper.
>
> Oh, Griff, the recoil would not knock Foster back 30 feet. You
said
> it yourself. the Moon only has one sixth our gravity. If it would knock
him
> back 30 feet on the moon it would knock him back 5 on Earth. Recoil is
figured
> by the weight of the projectile times the velocity of the projectile times
> 4000, then you have to find the weigh of the weapon times the mass of
gravity
> acceleration which is always 32 feet per second even on the moon then
divide
> the two . And in the case of the moon you have to reduce the weight of
the
> bullet, and the gun by 6. Just do it regular and then divide the result
by 6.
> In other words a gun that like the .460 Weatherby Magnum which produces
100
> foot pounds of recoil on Earth would not produce 600 on the moon but only
16.7
> foot pounds of recoil. But as the person firing it would now only weigh
one