Space Station Crew Can Access Gun

[davepc]

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.

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.

...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. unless an evil alien is attacking,

who in their right mind would shoot a gun off in orbit, with thin walls protecting them from sure death?

[zanne]

3. It's just in case they crash to the earth.

When the capsule miraculously crashes to earth in one piece and everybody has their seat belts on, they can shoot whoever doesn't like astronauts.

[davepc]

5. The Russian capsules are designed to land on...er...land

And if something goes amiss, and you land off target you could be on a steppe in the middle of central asia for a day or two before they figured out where you were and how to get to you.

FWIW, the gun doubles as a flare launcher, and the stock pulls double duty as a shovel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82

[Kolesar]

18. "An astronaut tried to steal my husband!"

BANG!

[benEzra]

22. The Russians added the gun when two of their cosmonauts had a close encounter with hungry wolves...

in March 1965, after Voskhod 2 landed off-course due to an engine failure on descent, leaving the astronauts stranded in remote wilderness in the Ural Mountains for a day or two. The crew were trapped in the capsule by wolves until rescue crews were able to find them.

That Russian spacecraft have a gun in the survival kit has been known for decades; it's hardly a secret.

FWIW, the Russians have far more experience in long-term spaceflight than we do (Google Salyut and Mir).

[Boomer 50]

36. The Russians aren't the only country to arm astronauts......

It's been standard practice to have a pistol on all US space flights. Up until the mid-ninties, it was a 1911A1. Then they put a Beretta M9 in the package.

The reasons are several but the first one is mutiny. Due to the often secret nature of the payloads and experiments that have occured, mutiny can't be tolorated. This is highly unlikely to ever occur but hey, they don't take chances.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. I think they'll have thought of that already

The gun would be for a crash landing in hostile country, not for shooting each other.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. Ah, Belgium. Of course, I understand completely.

[davepc]

8. No its not.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23131359/

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. the swiss army knife of guns?

"For decades, the standard Soyuz survival pack has included a gun. And not just any gun, but a deluxe all-in-one weapon with three barrels and a folding stock that doubles as a shovel and contains a swing-out machete. Three types of ammunition — rifle bullets, shotgun shells and flares — come in a belt attached to the gun."


a shovel for outer space.

[davepc]

15. no......for when you land in Siberia and the rescue crew has a 100+ mile search area

and you have a day or two to make yourself comfortable waiting for pickup.

[winter999]

19. Just one word.. "Klingons"!

[Kolesar]

21. Charlton Heston could have used one of those on the Planet of the Apes

Kind of ironic, is it not?

We could mix a metaphor:

"you can have my gun when you peel it out of my cold dead hands with your dirty ape hands"

or something like that.

[zanne]

2. The RUSSIAN Cosmonauts. nt

[Gman]

6. I wonder how far

the bullet would go if it were fired on a space walk?

[lurky]

9. It could stay in orbit for a while.

depending on the path it took. If you were far enough from Earth's gravity, it could go on forever. :)

Sounds like fun, actually.

[Kolesar]

17. And the spaceman would start spinning around backwards from the recoil

Get wrapped up in the tether and airhose.

[Dimensio0]

10. Such a question is purely academic.

The firearm is not intended to be used while in space. It is an emergency tool to be used only if needed following a crash landing on Earth.

[Gman]

16. Yeah but, the fun

in using things in ways they weren't intended to be used is just to see what happens!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. there is sufficient oxygen and powder to have some explosive force

however, the full explosion would not happen in a vacuum, because the powder would not ignite completely. still give you a hell of a kick, though. May rip through those pesky space suits from the kick.

[benEzra]

24. No, it would function perfectly normally in a vacuum.

Firearm propellants carry all the oxidizer needed for combustion in the propellant itself. A gun would actually work better in a vacuum, because the bullet have to deal with air resistance (on Earth, a projectile loses velocity very, very quickly, on the order of half its velocity in half a second).

[ChairmanAgnostic]

28. gunpowder uses the atmosphere's Oxygen to finish oxydizing.

and, the seal of each bullet is not perfect, allowing O to escape over time. They have run experiments with bullets stored in a vacuum, and they do not perform anywhere near as well as in atmosphere. Yes, there are oxidizers in the powder itself, especially in the flashless, modern gunpowder (I make black powder for my muzzle loader) but they still rely on good old air.

[benEzra]

29. The oxygen for gunpowder combustion is provided by KNO3, not air.

The reaction for black powder combustion is approximately as follows:

10 KNO3 + 3 S + 8 C → 2 K2CO3 + 3 K2SO4 + 6 CO2 + 5 N2
black powder (typical)


KNO3 is potassium nitrate, S is sulfur, C is carbon. The combustion products are potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, and lots of very hot carbon dioxide and nitrogen gases, which propel the bullet. Note that there is no atmospheric oxygen involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder

The reaction for smokeless powder will vary somewhat depending on the mix. Single-base powders are nitrocellulose, whereas double-base are a mixture of nitrocellulose with nitroglycerin and sometimes nitroguanidine.

The combustion of nitrocellulose is approximately as follows:

C24H30(NO2)10O20 → 12C02+ 12C0 +4H20 + 11H2 + 5N2
nitrocellulose
(approximation)

Note that again, atmospheric oxygen is not involved at all; all of the oxygen involved comes from the nitrocellulose molecule itself. The same is true of the nitroglycerin in double-base powders. The combustion conditions are typically 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and 30,000 to 50,000 psi; the powder does not explode, but burns VERY rapidly due to the high temperatures and pressures. It doesn't matter if the cartridge case started with traces of air or with hard vacuum, as the oxygen comes from the powder and not from air.

FWIW, muzzle flash from a gun using nitrocellulose/nitroglycerin powder results from the very hot hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas slamming into atmospheric oxygen as they exit the muzzle and flash-burning, after the bullet has left the barrel. Hence, in a vacuum, you wouldn't have visible muzzle flash, but the gun would work properly.

[gorfle]

25. No oxidizer?

however, the full explosion would not happen in a vacuum, because the powder would not ignite completely. still give you a hell of a kick, though. May rip through those pesky space suits from the kick.

I would have thought that gunpowder contained its own oxidizer as part of the propellant. You can fire a gun underwater, provided water has not leaked into the bullet casing.

[benEzra]

30. Nitrocellulose is its own oxidizer (from the nitrate groups).

Atmospheric oxygen is absolutely irrelevant to the combustion process under the conditions in a gun's chamber, and ammunition will function even if vented to hard vacuum prior to firing. Nitrocellulose doesn't need external oxygen to deflagrate at 1000 degrees and 30,000 psi.

[benEzra]

32. It would stay in orbit, unless the perigee dipped into the atmosphere.

Firing one on the moon would be interesting, though. A handgun bullet would travel hundreds of miles, and a bullet from a high-velocity deer rifle might travel halfway around the moon if fired at a suitable elevation (a good deer or prairie dog rifle can throw a bullet at about 2/3 of the velocity required to put it in lunar orbit from the surface). Meaning you'll get a fractional orbit rather than a simple physics-class parabola.

[lurky]

11. I would be a bit worried about having a gun in the mix

when you have a bunch of people trapped in a tiny space for months-on-end.

What if somebody gets homicidal/suicidal?

[davepc]

12. then they open the hatch and let the air out

or stick a screwdriver in the CO2 scrubbers...or one of 1000 other things that will kill everybody.

[krispos42]

13. I doubt it

When either homicidal or suicidal, there is too much risk to the integrity of the space station. There's a lot of critical equipment that can be damaged by a stray bullet, and perhaps (although unlikely) the skin of the station could be pierced. Unless somebody wanted to kill everybody, including himself, a gun is not the way to do it.

[benEzra]

23. The Russians have a lot more experience with long-term spaceflight than we do.

Google Salyut and Mir.

[SteveM]

27. That bowl has been mixed for nearly half a century. Why worry?

[virginia mountainman]

26. I find it fascinating.

That so many people, piss themselves when ever they even HEAR about a gun, to the point of trying to debate, what to do about it, even if it does not effect them in anyway.

And they call us, paranoid...

[benEzra]

31. Here's the gun, FWIW...

Two very-small-gauge shotgun barrels over a 5.45x39mm (low-powered .22 centerfire) rifle barrel. The stock looks like it contains a small machete. This is very much a wilderness survival gun. Note that it's not even magazine-fed.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

33. I wouldn't call 5.45x39 "low-powered"

The AK74 did some long-range mayhem in Afghanistan. Somewhat comparable to the 5.56 NATO round.

Nice pictures.

[Recursion]

34. They're "low-powered" in an historical context

The 5.45 and 5.56 were developed to create a lower-powered weapon than the earlier battle rifles.

[benEzra]

35. OK, name three common centerfire rifle calibers LESS powerful than 5.45x39mm.

I can think of a few obscure calibers less powerful, but none that are common. Muzzle energy is only 971 ft-lb. It was designed for light weight and for light recoil in fully automatic fire, and is pretty anemic in terms of ballistics.

5.45x39mm is at the extreme low end of the centerfire rifle power spectrum, as is 5.56 NATO. The bullet has a decent ballistic coefficient, but very little mass.

[spoony]

37. I'm a little disappointed.

I guess I was anticipating gleaming chrome or something similarly space-aged. Oh well.

[virginia mountainman]

38. It is TOTALLY "utilitaran" anit it