Shotguns!
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pablok-ramos-1 — 19 years ago(October 25, 2006 11:47 AM)
A shotgun is actually a very clever weapon for an enclosed space. Depending on the gunpowder charge, and the size and type of shot used, it could be discharged in a close, presurized space without risking blowing a hole in the structure that keeps the air and pressure inside.
there are in my view more obvious misses:
The SF of the time suffers from the "black screen, green DOS characters" computers effect that went away in the late 80's. also, computers, like Telex machines ot teletypes, whirr and make noise as they display characters. (Alien!) Imagine what real computers will be in, say, 2050, where this movie is apparently done.
also, the biggest problem they face: Graviti. Io is much smaller than even our Moon, yet gravity is earth-like.
..oh well -
tgemberl — 19 years ago(November 11, 2006 03:51 PM)
I agree pretty much with carter627. And actually, I don't know if it's even true that this movie is about the DISTANT future. That's the great thing about Outland, that it really depicts realistically (within some limits) what life in outer space would be like for the foreseeable future: dangerous, claustrophobic, and monotonous. It's a great corrective to the rather magical image of space travel that you see in Star Wars or Star Trek. As his son says to O'Niel before he and his mother are to leave for earth, it takes a year to get from the space station to earth. That is a pretty realistic estimate of what the travel time is likely to be for the next few centuries, whenever we do actually start to travel to other planets in this solar system.
"Intergalactic" travel is probably extremely far in the future. Who knows when we'll ever be able to do it. Even in Contact, Carl Sagan did not suggest that the benevolent extraterrestrials actually travelled to earth. Rather, they sent messages of some kind to us, allowed a sort of interstellar "telepathy." He realized that there wasn't any realistic way to conceive travel to other solar systems.
Outland is a great "environmental" film. It really makes you appreciate the earth. We're meant to live here, not out in space.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice." -
scotbpens — 16 years ago(December 05, 2009 11:42 PM)
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? -
phindar — 19 years ago(December 23, 2006 04:13 PM)
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. -
MisterBerns — 19 years ago(December 18, 2006 06:01 PM)
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." -
eidofoor — 19 years ago(March 25, 2007 05:31 PM)
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.
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firstlastaccount — 19 years ago(March 25, 2007 06:43 PM)
The Soviet had a space-based anti-satellite gun, so, yeah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz
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marsodyssey2010 — 18 years ago(November 02, 2007 12:20 PM)
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. -
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Siamois — 17 years ago(March 30, 2009 10:37 AM)
"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. -
Bart_Decaux — 18 years ago(April 24, 2007 02:43 PM)
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. -