Mystery: Why is NASA training astronauts in Medieval Weaponry

Originally posted by kalunom
Time travel to past periods where such skills may be necessary?

Or maybe they are just bored out of their wits?

I've said this before, and I shall repeat it again. Check out Andrew Basiago's testimony on YouTube. Here's a link. His father put him in Project Looking Glass & Project Pegasus at the age of 6. The adults were going crazy from the time travel that was perfected in the 1960s. It did not seem to bother the children.

www.youtube.com...

I find him to be VERY truthful and credible.

This may have been stated before, as I haven't taken the time to read all of the comments, but a return to the stone age seems likely. I'm thinking they may have knowledge of a massive solar EMP shock wave sometime in the future.

Originally posted by Tearman
reply to post by Wayfarer

 

Presuming your friend actually was contacted by a representative of NASA, I think your theory is plausible. But under what circumstances would they expect to engage in hand-to-hand combat aboard any space craft anyway? Maybe it had nothing at all to do with official business, maybe it was purely a recreational inquiry.

Hey, that kind of combat trainign came in useful for James Kirk when he had to fight Spock to the death.

Don't knock it till you try it, who knows what kind of perilous Space Vikings are out there just waiting for a chance to fight? After all, I'll bet they're pretty pissed when they found out the Viking craft we sent out wasn't an actual longboat full of beardy marauders.

I've given this a great deal of thought in the past.

1. Martial combat in a zero gravity environment would require some very specific training. Nothing inside the confines of a gravitational body would be a suitable training location for combat outside of a gravity well or in a weightless environment. The only purpose would be to weapon-train for combat inside gravity wells. Medieval weaponry tended to be heavy and cumbersome. A long-sword or broadsword would not be an effective weapon against a rapier, but if the rapier weighed the same as a long-sword, then medieval weapons training would be effective. Say, trying to wield a rapier in 10x gravity or during a craft acceleration that required a great deal of time to complete. So either it's to train them for a higher gravity or so that they can perform combat maneuvers during a massive acceleration phase of... let's say... an interstellar acceleration that requires lengthy accel time to reach a specific speed using conventional propulsion.

2. If you are going to use a weapon in space, a bladed weapon should take preference over a ballistic weapon for craft security. Bullet holes through the hull wouldn't be a good thing. Also, depending on the environmental variables, there's no guarantee a charge would detonate inside the chamber. A sword doesn't have to be fired so the atmosphere isn't much of an issue beyond weight.

3. It is quite possible that the training will lead to sparring tests aboard the ISS. The use of a bladed weapon is fairly refined into the catagories of cutting or jabbing. Whatever the intended target is, it has to be made of material conducive to cutting or jabbing or it wouldn't be sensible to use such a weapon.

reply to post by Wayfarer


This sounds like the plot to TIMELINE. I love that book.

reply to post by Wayfarer


Medieval sword fighters are huge nerds, NASA people are HUGE nerds... Its not really so far fetched that the huge nerds at NASA wanted to get into the HUGE NERD SWORD FIGHTING scene in their spare time. He was probly like, "Do you guys offer a corporate discount?"

Medieavel weapons would be rather pointless if you can make a modern close combat weapon like a baton or other instrument made of advanced alloys IMO.

Team building is a possibility and time travel? who knows, would be absolutely bizarre especially IMO time travel is extremely unlikely.

As for firearms, ammunition is easilly created, brass can be reloaded, bullets can be cast with dies and gun powder can be created, even though it may be black powder at first.

As long as we have books and knowledge on how to make ammunition, firearms will always be viable.

Are you sure the person is really from nasa?

because their budget is $12.

Will guns fire on the moon? which supposedly has no air or atmosphere? Just a thought i read the link about the russians trying to set up a colony on the moon, and since these seem to be the last days according to many different theories. NASA may need these space marines to be able to fight with melee weapons only to take out the base or bases which may and probably are already up there. Very interesting!

Originally posted by Wayfarer
I am a member of a very large organization founded upon the study and practical recreation of the lost arts of Medieval and Rennaisance combat. However, as mentioned in the title, the head of our organization was recently contacted by NASA to ascertain the viability of utilizing him to personally train their astronauts in Medieval weaponry and fighting. Unfortunatley, NASA didn't give him an explanation of the relevance or need for such training, so I now pose the question to my intrepid conspiracy theorists, since the majority of my organizations musings have been just that (consipiracy theories).

My own thoughts (while trying my best to maintain some sort of realistic relevancy) have hovered around the potential for military actions in space. If that is the case, it stands to reason that projectile weapons would be perhaps prohibitive in a fragile spacecraft, whereas melee weapons tend to cause a lot less collateral damage.

How about the rest of ATS, what say you?

Is that group that you are referencing, a LARP (live action role playing) group? Even if it isn't LARP, do you have any links to a website showing this group/organization that you are apart of/referencing to show that it is real?

Do you know of anything that can be substantiated, and not just by word of mouth, that would make the head of your organization stand out in a way that would make NASA chose him over a government trained soldier? I'm thinking of someone from the show "Deadliest Warrior" on the Spike network (cable tv). This link will bring you to IMDB.com, it is safe for work.

I'm asking these questions to first see if the base which you are coming from has a solid foundation. If not, then your friend might just have been pulling your leg, or like one poster said, it might have been a prank.

reply to post by Wayfarer


I personally think that NASA may have encountered an extraterrestrial society that is still in a stage of developement comparable to our medieval times. I think these astronauts are being trained in medieval-style combat because they plan on studying this group. I personally think that NASA has found a lot more out in space than they have told people; citing a Brookings Institute study on why NASA wouldn't disclose the discovery of a populated alien world. and a planet populated by a medievalesque people might be a reason why they are being trained in medieval fighting arts... What a better way to study an alien society than by mingling in with them (without them knowing you're an alient on a reconnaisance mission, of course.) If they are following some sort of Star Trekish "Prime Directive" so as not to pollute that society's own natural progression, these NASA scientists would have to learn how to defend themselves in that society's fashion, should things get a little rough. Coming out with rifles or partical beam weapons could damage that society worse than anything else... It would turn it into a cargo cult or worse. Brookings Institute's worse nightmare, in other words.

That's just my thoughts on the matter. It's purely speculative and hypothetical, so please don't attack me, or ridicule me or beg me for Harvard-grade "proof". This is just an opinion, not a University debate.

i am in love with this thread s&f

Hmmm... I wonder how much involvement the ESA (European Space Agency) has with the new Large Hadron Collider owned by CERN. If any scientists conducting research and experiments accidentally discovered a wormhole to another world or another time, they might contact NASA, and in so doing, want to send travelers (like in Stargate). But, why not modern weaponry like the Stargate SG1 guys and gals tote? If they were going to a medieval period in history, they might have to fit in. Also, imagine toting a machine gun into that time period and getting killed --and having the artisans of that time reproducing firearms at a much earlier age than expected. It opens up a chain of fun thoughts.

Oh my God !

Now we are fighting aliens in space with swords and shields.

Someone in ATS has finally gone over the edge

reply to post by Wayfarer


Time travel would be my guess ... however it won`t matter much, as they would be beheaded within seconds by a medieval knight ! Very interesting why NASA requested this, but NASA is full of "interesting" things just like the end of manned space flights which I simply refuse to believe.

Originally posted by Lusitaniax
reply to post by Wayfarer

 

Time travel would be my guess ... however it won`t matter much, as they would be beheaded within seconds by a medieval knight ! Very interesting why NASA requested this, but NASA is full of "interesting" things just like the end of manned space flights which I simply refuse to believe.

Unless those Medieval knights were actually the same NASA scientists being trained and sent back in time. That does sound like the book and movie Timeline, that someone else referenced earlier.

But how do we know today that we are getting closer to the end of time? If time is not linear as we think it is, suppose the time now is backwards, and going toward what we perceive as the past?

The reason I ask this is because of the many artifacts of spacemen and astronauts found in "ancient" cultures. Either we went there or they came here. What if "ancient" man were here now?

Cleanup is a significant issue on spacecraft. If you slash somebody's throat with a knife, stab them, etc inside of the ISS or a shuttle or something, it's going to make a huge huge mess.

If you decapitate somebody with a clean strike, a column of blood shoots up into the air. In a spacecraft that'd be an even worse mess, and the body would be propelled by the jet of blood.

Hmm tasers can make people evacuate their bowels, and so can choking...

On a spacewalk, the mess would be less of an issue because they are in space suits and there's no need to clean up the larger enviornment. You could use a sword to cut air hoses or just puncture the suit.

A small chainsaw/circular saw/etc on a pole arm would probably work better than a sword though. Actually...don't they already have tools like that for working on satellites and the ISS?

Originally posted by 11andrew34
Cleanup is a significant issue on spacecraft. If you slash somebody's throat with a knife, stab them, etc inside of the ISS or a shuttle or something, it's going to make a huge huge mess.

If you decapitate somebody with a clean strike, a column of blood shoots up into the air. In a spacecraft that'd be an even worse mess, and the body would be propelled by the jet of blood.

Hmm tasers can make people evacuate their bowels, and so can choking...

On a spacewalk, the mess would be less of an issue because they are in space suits and there's no need to clean up the larger enviornment. You could use a sword to cut air hoses or just puncture the suit.

A small chainsaw/circular saw/etc on a pole arm would probably work better than a sword though. Actually...don't they already have tools like that for working on satellites and the ISS?

How about just pushing them to the small bay room, closing the inner door and then opening the outer bay doors so they get sucked out in space? That seems to be the most effective. But I think the reason is because they are preparing them to go back to the Medieval age. This seems like a "just-in-case" scenario.