Do any of you guys know if the crew of space flights carry weapons of any sort.
and if they do, why would they have them.

why would the space shuttle be armed?....i'd say no they dont carry weapons.

maybe not a gun, because it would not fire in vacuum. probably a knife, but i doubt they would need it for self-defence

They carry these in space, due to the vacuum of space and zero gravity. Chiefly used to repel boarders.


Then, a 15 kw laser is placed in the nose cone.


A very effective anti-satelite weapon platform.

boarders?...yikes they think of everything....

LOL, yeah, you never know when you'll have to defend against a Grey, Repililian or Nordic boarding party...

Well i was thinking more of a crazy diaper wearing female astronaught freaking out cos the captain is being friendly with another member of staff, and she freaks out and they would have to restrain the woman with a few friendly b**** slaps.

Why would they need weapons for scientific research? Besides self defence, but it is very, very unlikely that one of the astronauts is a psycopath that got through training without them realizing it.

Ahem. did u not read the story about the female astronaut who drove 3000 miles wearing a diaper to murder the girlfriend of her astronaut captain botfriend in the usa, last month.

No, they do not.
There is absolutely no reason to do so.

I guess space weaponization efforts during the last 50 years must be a fairy tale then.

Because you never know when they might come upon an Xenomorph-infested base on a nearby planet.

yep

I thought it would be logical to have some sort of weapon on the station. Not for ET, but for other stuff.

Yes they are armed to the teeth with.................. very sharp pencils and hefty clipboards and paper in case they have to inflict paper cuts on alien foes.

The common enemy on the ISS has always been vibration. It has hindered many experiment designs, and resulted in cost overruns.

In case of illness, it is a safe bet there is a medicine cabinet. However, I would imagine that a micro-gravity environment has the effect of releasing endorphins, thus creating a generally pleasing work environment.

The first three items look suspiciously like light sabers and the last two have nothing to do with space shutles.

That's because they are light sabers.

But the laser is a viable concept and there are plans to install them (10 kw solid state laser) on the Joint Strike Fighter J-35.

They make good counter measures, fwiw.

so we agree the space shuttle has zero weapons?......

Probably a spud gun.

And that has something to do with weapons aboard a Space Shuttle in what way?

Again, there are none. There is no need for any.


Well, of course there's those Fischer pens aboard....and they could certainly be used as a weapon!

The only nearby planet is this one....

God I certainly hope so!

They need machine guns while trying to blow up comets (Armageddon)

Perhaps you watch to many silly movies?

Ultimately no one knows except Nasa if they have weapons or not. I dont think they do. I wonder what the world would be like now if the star wars defence project go the go ahead during the Reagan administration. The reaction of aliens attacking astronaughts would be spectacular news though especially if the astronaughts won the battle.

Really, how fast would a bullet travel in space?

I mean, would it travel at the same speed, but in slow motion? And there would be thousands of copies of the same event?

You know MID, I tried not to make a wisecrack about the Shuttle. I like your remark, though.

I always thought pens depended on gravity to work.... I'm sure there is an obvious answer. I just never considerd it, before.

Seppuku?



It would not travel because the gun would not fire. No oxygen, no combustion, no projectile.

of course, there is oxygen in the shuttle, but is it really a good idea to fire a gun in the shuttle if it is in space?

Can't say I have. But to me it sounds like a mix of science fiction and a teen drama, lol.

There is in fatc a 'no weapons in space treaty'. hough some people believe bush's plan to send people to mars was an excuse to send weapons into space. (i heard this a few years back)

Actualy Moe the story is lagit, it did happen more or less the way discibed.

Actually it was true she was suffering from space depression I think.

Well, magnetar, most pens do indeed use gravity to work, of course. The Fishers which have been used on manned space flights for decades have a nitrogen pressurized cartridge which forces ink against the ball constantly. They also have a special formulation of ink to avoid clumping and such, so they write smoothly under all conditions. I have several of them floating around here (pun intended). They're great for writing when you don't have the ball pointed down.




And, they're all metal so they're great weapons!
But that's about all the weapons you'll find on a Shuttle flight.

Well actually, typical firearm ammunition today has oxygen content in the propellant, so it should certainly be possible to fire a weapon in a vacuum.
...but no...it would certainly not be a very good idea to fire a gun inside the Shuttle...not a good day on orbit.

Cool! Thanks!

Interesting question.

The bullet would travel in space as fast as it would on Earth...but, it would not slow down from atmospheric friction for quite some time (depending on what altitude above the Earth it was fired from, and the precise direction it was fired in).
If fired along the orbital path, it would likely attain a lower stable orbit around the Earth, depending on its initial trajectory. It might also attain a more eccentric eliptical orbit. The results of a retrograde firing would also depend on the geometry. A higher orbit, or an eccentric ellipse, or a rapid re-entry into the atmosphere are all possible dependent on a number of factors.


Nothing ejected from a gun barrel at perhaps many hundreds, if not well over a thousand feet per second, would move in slow motion on orbit. It would move as fast as the impulse propelled it. There is nothing about 0-g which causes slow-motion to occur. Things move on orbit exactly as they move on Earth, save that there's nothing to actually stop a motion in 0-g once it starts.



You'll have to clarify what that means.

You're welcome!

And, a current Shuttle issue model will run you about $40.00.
Kind of expensive for a pen, but pretty cheap for an effective weapon!

People believe lots of erroneous and nonsensical things about President Bush...it's just a sign of the times, unfortunately.
The plan for space exploration is a plan for space exploration (which is of course about 30 years late in coming...but it has come), and has nothing to do with placing weapons into space.

I don't know what "space depression" is, but I can say that this particular lady is suffering from some fairly pronounced difficulties which stem from excessive pressures combined with other life-factors.

This woman is an intelligent lady, who has been in a profession which demands success, professionalism, and impeccability. It is still a competitive business which strives for excellence in all things and is intensive as pertains to training and performance standards. This particular lady was living this professional life and also had a broken marriage, is attempting to raise children, and at the same time be an astronaut. She got involved in a bit of a romance, which perhaps she viewed as more significant than her partner did, and in her state of mind, cracked under the spectre of that romance not panning out as she may have wished.

This is something that is human. It is unfortunate, certainly...but people can crack past a certain point. She reached hers, apparently. The U.S. Navy will tend to her now.


Astronauts, as unbelievable as it may seem, are human beings like the rest of us. They are subject to the same problems, the same stresses, and occassionally, the same imbalances as anyone else.

heh, now you tell me...

I have to correct you here. A firearm will fire in a vacuum. A cartrige carries it's own fuel, oxygen and ignition source, so it will work. Most firearms will function under water as well for the same reasons, although, this can be dangerous as water does not compress, and a very high pressure condition could occure ahead of the projectile as it is attempting to push the water out of the barrel. The result is that the barrel ruptures. However, a firearm on a spacecraft of any sort is not a good idea, an accidental misfire, malfunction, or just plain bad aim if it has to be used for some reason, could potentialy puncture the hull. That would not be good for anyone's health.
No for safety reasons the shuttle crew would not be armed with weapons like that.

Good Journey.

Kyle Rajasthan.

Not only is this correct, but it has been done.

The Soviet Salyut civilian space station programme actually hid a second, secret, space station programme, Almaz. Salyut 3 (1974-75) was such an Almaz station and it carried a Nudelman "self-defence" gun in the station's front section (and was the only know armed manned space vehicle ever launched). This gun was test fired three times.

More on Almaz: Encyclopedia Astronautica, Russian Space Web.

The russians began sending a shotgun with their crew back in the early days of the manned space flights. They had one of the re-entry pods (or whatever they are called) land in Siberia. When the rescue team finally made it, the cosmonaughts were surrounded by wolves. After that, a shotgun rode shotgun.

I probably watch just as many movies as anyone else does on this site. I said they needed guns in the movie Armageddon. They used them. Those earlier pics, like someone mentioned, look like Star Wars lightsabers. Would you call someone who watches Star Wars silly? Would you call someone who posts in an "Extraterrestrial Life & The UFO Phenomenon" forum silly? For some reason, in the movie Armageddon, they decided to bring along submachine guns (I would say antiaircraft but they had bullets in them). Remember? The one guy sat in the machine and just blasted everything away, then they tied him up so he couldn't mess anything else up?

Never heard of this before. Thanks for the info it's really interesting. Test firing a gun in space must have been really fun, or really frightening. Depends on your tastes I guess. I wouldn't mind trying it. Then again, I wouldn't mind a free ride into space either.

Good Journey.

Kyle Rajasthan.

The comment was, "Perhaps you watch too many silly movies..."

In that statement, there is no inference as pertains to people who watch Star Wars, nor to people who post on this board, as being silly.
It was a reference to silly movies, and perhaps what some people derive from watching them without the realization that they are silly fiction.

"Armageddon" is a silly movie. What happened in it has no relevance to reality.

If you wish to believe that it does, that is what I was referring to: silly movies being watched by people and filling their heads with a bunch of inferences about reality.

MID, indeed it was a silly movie. While I admittedly found it entertaining, it certainly wasn't due to the sense of reality the movie Director injected, but rather the characters

Best,
Badeskov

Watching Bruce Willis wielding a shotgun while chasing a guy for sleeping with his daughter all over the ship was absolutely priceless.