This message has been deleted.

Shotguns worked perfectly. I like the fact that they weren't running around with phasers or crap like that.

I'll bow to your knowledge on this one; I'm afraid I'm something of an amateur scientist and have to admit I don't know about the subtleties between the different forms of energy. I wasn't aware that lasers can lose focus too.
That said, lasers can and do work effectively over- at least to us- rather large distances, surely? I know that laser weapons with enough power to take out any threats militarily aren't practical yet, but let's imagine a high-tech, compact yet powerful hypothetical future one capable of blasting a hole in a person. Even if such a weapon were to exist, wouldn't it still be more dangerous to fire one of these in the relatively closed surroundings of the colony than a shotgun which loses its effective range much more quickly?

You're thinking of radiated energy. A beam would loose focus with distance and would eventually disperse to the point of nothingness. You would have a 10nm laser at the focusing lens, but by the time that it had traveled any appreciable distance it would be much wider and much weaker.
Shine a flashlight at a near wall and a far wall and you will see that the image on the far wall will be larger and darker. It's the same principle even with lasers.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

Okay, let me clarify: a beam weapon would fire forever until it encountered something sufficient to interact with which would absorb its energy.
Given that certain energy sources in the universe have been travelling for many, many millions of years without dissipating to any appreciable degree, I think we can assume that a beam weapon's output could be rattling around in the cosmos for a long enough time for it to be largely irrelevant to whatever it was we were originally aiming for and why we did so.
Scientifically, that's not quite "forever", true, but that's a bit of a nitpick in this context, surely?

Beam weapons wouldn't fire forever unless they had a infinite power source, the energy would eventually dissipate. Even in space.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

This message has been deleted.

Gunpowder is a monopropellant, which just means it's all self-contained and doesn't need anything beyond itself to burn. It isn't actually oxygenated as such, it relies on potassium nitrate to oxidize.

All the gases needed to make a gun go boom are in the smokeless powder.

This message has been deleted.

Yeah, shotguns do work in a vaccum alright. However, in zero grav there'd be a pretty pokey recoil, I should think.
I also think there'll be some sort of basic ballistic weapon around for a very long time. They already have been. Let's face it, we still sometimes use pointy bits of metal and they've been a very effective anti-personnel weapon since we first found metal; before that it was stone and before that, wood. So we know pointy works; and we sure know that firearms work even better.
In fact, to pick up on someone else's post, the relatively short range from a shotgun or rifle might be a great asset in a confined space; a concentrated beam-effect weapon would theoretically fire forever if the target was missed. That could be a problem, especially if something important happened to get in the way- you could fire at someone, miss, and the beam would go sailing on and hit some life-support equipment.

This message has been deleted.

"I've only seen parts of this movie ages ago. IIRC there is one scene in which a shotgun is used during EVA. This would not be possible as shotguns require oxygen to function."
They WOULD function.
But in reality, the knockback would be overwhelming for the user.

yeah it's possible. They aren't firing 17th century muskets they are firing modern shotguns which use smokeless powder which has all the gases it needs to explode and propel the pellets out of the gun.

This message has been deleted.

It wasn't an anti-satellite gun, it was a point defense gun designed to protect the installation in the event of war from attempts to shoot it down with missiles or to board/ram it some how.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

The Soviet had a space-based anti-satellite gun, so, yeah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz

I don't believe guns don't work in vacuum. But if this is the case, then it would be very easy to modify a bullet to fire in the vacuum of space. With a bit of remixing solid rocket propellant could be used. Or peroxide could be added provide oxygen to the burn/detonation process.

I've only seen parts of this movie ages ago. IIRC there is one scene in which a shotgun is used during EVA. This would not be possible as shotguns require oxygen to function.

One of the practical aspects of shotguns in a vaccum-based mining colony is that shotguns, while having a very powerful and lethal payload, will not penetrate as nearly as much as a pistol or a rifle. You wouldn't want a stray bullet from a hi-powered rifle to go through a wall and decompress an entire section of the space station. (As in the climactic gun battlewhich basically took place in a greenhouse/glass atrium.)
"She thinks she's a mystery to all/ but I know what's behind those eyes."

This message has been deleted.

Unfortunately, gravity at 1/6 that of earth's doesn't cause a person to float.

They mention the gravity in the opening text, and all the exterior shots show them bouncing around in moon-like conditions. In the scene early on when the drug dealer Sean Connery caught was in the floating prison cell, it says on it "No Artificial Gravity", indicating that the base had some sort of artificial gravity working.
Though I would agree that the reason the base had artificial gravity was it would have been far too costly and cumbersome to have everybody floating around on wires.

Outland is a great "environmental" film. It really makes you appreciate the earth. We're meant to live here, not out in space.
Humans are meant to live wherever our tools and technology enable us to live. That's why we have a reasoning brain, an endless curiosity about the universe around us, and a set of thumbs. Earth is the cradle of humanity, but all infants must eventually outgrow the cradle.
All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?