Should the Space Shuttle Be Armed?

Originally posted by dernailer
Do you think there is somewhere on the iss and on the shuttle a weapon,
locked in a case? A means a pistol, a rifle or a taser*?

i doubt there would be a gun on the ISS due to the fact if you shoot at somebody and you miss the projectile is going to have to hit something (eg. computer that is keeping you alive, ect...) which probably would not end well for the rest of the people up there.

[edit on 21/8/07 by evilCorgi]

Originally posted by evilCorgi

Originally posted by dernailer
Do you think there is somewhere on the iss and on the shuttle a weapon,
locked in a case? A means a pistol, a rifle or a taser*?

A little knowledge of pressure points and a good understanding of your surroundings (like where the *&*k did we put that taser) should do.

But you know, Springers final thought is always relevant...........

errrr, ok, well, soo, well, you should, no no. maybe, ha, yheah, erm, no, no, no, no, NO.. NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOooooooooo......[decompression]

edit: [decompression] sucks

[edit on 21/8/2007 by Now_Then]

Originally posted by dernailer
I have a better question, and i hope i m not off topic;

Do you think there is somewhere on the iss and on the shuttle a weapon,
locked in a case? A means a pistol, a rifle or a taser*?

Think about; if one or more astronauts going mad or crazy for some reason,
how you can stop it ?

Nah what if the go Insane like Novak?

As for an on-board weapon to destabilize a crew member from causing a danger to other crew members on board I think a good weapon would be a non lethal weapon, like a bean bag shooter or something like that. not a very powerful shotgun one though, just a de stabilizer, so the crew would have time to handcuff the lost crewmate.

any other ideas, because i'm not sure if the power of the weapon would cause some sort of harmful reaction to the shuttle itself.

Originally posted by agent violet
If so why? and what should it be armed with, guns, bombs, rockets, lasers etc... If you dont think it should armed why not?

what do you think would be the consequences of arming the shuttle?
also, what would need to happen for the shuttle to be armed?

haha star wars..
are you kiddin? space shuttle with arms. were askin to be torn from the heavens. maybe for asteroid purpose but not defense, as of yet. the space shuttle can be radio controlled out of the sky. anything out there we are going to encounter is already right here on earth.. will just make for extra weight and unnecessary space.

wont need that stuff for thousands of years, we'll prolly still be mind govern to stay within our solar system.. star wars soon time come, but not in any near generations to come..

reply to post by agent violet


for one it's IMO a stupid question but i'll play along,space has no gravity so for all intensive purposes i could rig a shuttle to fire paper clips with rubberbands and let momentum take over. there's your secret "sat killing" weapons platform.

Rather than smashing up satellites, and adding to the space junk - why not pull up next to it (I know more difficult than it sounds - possibly make a small vehicle specifically for this) and fling the thing back into the atmosphere - or off into the unknown?

Or for particularly shiny and pretty ones - just pinch it! (hope they are not booby trapped)

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Using the space shuttle to blow other things up in space would be suicide for it or at least extremely complicated for future missions.
Blow up one satelite and you get a nice big random cloud of pointy bits flying a round the earth a few thousand mile an hour.A travel Hazard to say the least.Why blow up things on the ground from the shuttle when you could just launch one of those big bee-utiful ICBMs?

Villager:I spoke to the King on the road today!
Villagers:Wow!
Village idiot:What did he say?
Villager:Get out of my way!

When the shuttle was first built, the Soviets were concerned that the Vandenburg launch facilities being built in California for military polar launch shuttles posed a mortal threat to thier existence.

The payload bay of a shuttle is 16' X 60', enough room to carry the warhead load of four Trident submarines, or close to a thousand nuclear re-entry vehicles, which would be released as soon as the shuttle entered space on it's first orbit. (In fact, in this scenario, the shuttle would only go around once and land in California, one of the reasons the military insisted on a delta wing as it afforded a greater cross-range for landing.)

It was this devestating first-strike threat that scared the Soviets into thier own shuttle program and prompted the Vladamir Posner / Phil Donahue television campaign to attack the shuttle program in it's infancy.

Hi dernailer. NASA does have plans for when an astronaut freaks out on orbit... Duct tape, tranqs (IM, IV and Oral) and bungees are the prescription. They have a full medicine cabinet. A Space.com article "NASA Has Plan for Unstable Astronauts" . I have been keeping an eye out for a real policy document from NASA...

Hmmm... Tasers... they do have some pretty-kickin' capacitors in storage some as high as 75Kv for some DC power converters... ouch. I wonder what the "Electric-Chicken" looks like in micro-gee?

Cheers,

Vic

D'Oh - too many similar threads... I got the wrong one, sorry folks and Mods please delete.

[edit on 4-10-2007 by V Kaminski]

What the hell? Is this topic really called for? No simply. A conventional gun fired in space will not operate the same as in 1g gravity and an atmosphere. Furthermore, the recoil from any gun will alter the trajectory of the shuttle. If it had to be armed (FOR NO REASON) it would have to be some type of missile, or high powered microwave laser. This is why women don't engineer weapons, no offense intended my good mam'.

Originally posted by V Kaminski
Hi dernailer. NASA does have plans for when an astronaut freaks out on orbit... Duct tape, tranqs (IM, IV and Oral) and bungees are the prescription. They have a full medicine cabinet. A Space.com article "NASA Has Plan for Unstable Astronauts" . I have been keeping an eye out for a real policy document from NASA...
[edit on 4-10-2007 by V Kaminski]

If anyone proves to be unstable in space, they should be fired from being an astronaut. PERIOD. Furthermore, they should be sent home (back to earth) immediately. Space is no place for freaking out.

[edit on 4-10-2007 by 1337cshacker]

well i would say no dont put weapons on the shuttle, mainly due to the fact that as of right now i think their having enough trouble keeping the thing spaceworthy. We don't need to add extra systems to cause more problems and complicate things even further then they already are. But i must say that a space shuttle armed to the teeth would look pretty coll and probably scare the # out of other countries. Firing cruise missiles from space. LOL