Re: Digest Number 1522

Subject: RE: Can some body tell me
>
>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.

Your paint ball gun would probably work fine but your paint balls
themselves might explode as soon as they are exposed to vacuum. Regular
guns would work fine too because gunpowders contain an oxidizer.

>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!

Actually you could fire a gun on the moon just fine, remember that while
the gravity and thus your weight is less on the moon, the masses and
energies involved do not change. So when you fire a normal caliber handgun
you would still have your hand fly up and mostly your wrist and muscles
would be absorbing the recoil just like on earth. Gravity doesn't play a
tremendously important part in recoil of small arms and the force isn't
really enough to even knock you back. Now if you are firing a large heavy
gun where the weight of the barrel is intended to offset the rotating-up
motion during recoil, then you'll be missing your full G on the moon and
the gun will rotate up terribly and you'll have to stagger back when it
recoils. If you were to fire a 12ga shotgun however, that often makes a
smaller person take a step back in 1 G. If the same person were to fire it
in low gravity they would probably take a few steps back because when
firing such a large weapon you are counting on your full weight to keep you
in place while the mass of your body absorbs the larger recoil. At 1/6 G
your mass would still help you with the shock but you would totter back to
keep your balance because your feet wouldn't be so tightly planted. You'd
probably end up falling back about a meter and onto your rump.

The biggest problem I see firing a gun on the moon is getting your finger
into the trigger guard while wearing a big thick moon suit glove.

>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.

If the missile had a thruster on the back of it there would be little
recoil on the interceptor but if an explosive or cold-gas burst were the
propulsive force for the missile then the recoil would have to be countered
by something. It should be a fairly simple matter to fire up the
rear-facing engine at the instant of launch but considering the speed at
which we see the missile leave the interceptor, the pilot would definitely
be bounced forward and back in the cabin.

S

I actually considered for a while till I got color TV and could see the red
flame coming out of the alien rifle that it might be some sort of air gun.
Note the air hose type line on it in Identified. There have been many deadly
air weapons. Lewis and Clark carried one on their trip to the Pacific. The
Austrian Army had one during the Napoleanic Wars and Napolean was so afraid of
then he ordered any one found carrying one shot on the spot. More rencently
there was a company that made a modified paintball gun that fired a .50 caliber
solid plastic ball that would splinter a half inch of plywood. I think that
is why it is no longer on the market. There are also several makers of
powerful air rifles and pistols that are powerful enough to kill animals as large as
deer which would put then in the power range to kill a human or alien.

James K.


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