Can You Shoot a Gun in Space?

blank space is full of likely dangers — rogue comets , Martians , bags full of astronaut poop , you name it . But if it really get along down to it , and you did have to defend yourself against an interstellar attacker , would a traditional shooter in reality be able to do the magic trick ?

As it turns out , the vacancy of outer space would not be a trouble in price of firing a bullet . After all , guns do n’t technically need oxygen to solve . The gunpowder ( or whichever explosive is in the cartridge holding the bullet train ) is completely ego - contained and does not count on the surrounding atmosphere . It has an oxidizer mixed with the fuel and is perfectly capable of fire in a vacuum . Even the fuze , which is strike by the PIN number of the firearm , is completely ego - contain and will work in a vacuum .

In fact , the gun will work even work ever - so - somewhat better in verboten space , because the bullet wo n’t have to push and constrict the air in the bbl as it exits the gunslinger . Since there ’s no air to slacken down the bullet as it travel , the ambit of the gun would essentially be infinite . Of course , the the trajectory would curve eventually , since it would probably still be in ambit , but it would have a notably dissimilar ambit than the gun itself or the person that fire it .

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For exemplar , the International Space Station ( ISS ) has an orbital speed of roughly 17,000 nautical mile per hour which is 7,600 metre per second . Muzzle velocities range from about 120 meters per second to about 1,200 meteres per secondly , depending on the gunman . Therefore , the compass of the bullet will take issue from the orbit of the astronaut that sack it . In ecumenical , firing anywhere in the advancing centering of the orbit will result in a more freaky orbit that will always outride at or above the ISS ’s orbit . If it ’s enkindle against the direction of the orbit , the bullet may terminate up dipping into the atmosphere and therefore de - revolve .

There is no need to “ advertise ” against anything for a gun to act . The remainder between the mass of the bullet and the mass of the gun — plus the person hold in the gun — will ensure that the bullet gets almost all the kinetic vigor of the explosive ( even though they both get the same momentum due to preservation of momentum ) .

However , assuming the cosmonaut is floating freely in space , if the line of the barrel does not point through the essence of mass of the gun / astronaut , the firing of the gun will impart some small angular momentum to the cosmonaut .

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To do some concrete computation , theM4 carbine(above ) has a muzzle velocity of 910 m / s. the gun weighs 3.4 kilogram and the bullet weighs 4 g. The ISS extravehicular infinite suit of clothes count about 124 kilogram and let ’s assume the astronaut press 70 kilo . Then the weight of the hit man , astronaut and space causa is about 197 kilo . Given the muzzle speed of 910 m / s , the hummer will have a impulse of 3.6 Ns ( see4 g * 910 m / s ) . For the astronaut+gun to have the same momentum , it will move at 18 mm / s ( see4 g * 910 m / s /197 kg ) , so the astronaut will have a very low speed . The energising energy of the hummer will be 1656 J ( see4 g * ( 910 m / s)^2/2 ) whereas the astronaut+gun will have a kinetic energy of 0.02 J ( see122 kg * ( 18 mm / s)^2/2 ) , so as foretell almost all the energizing vigour is in the fastball .

In the unfit case scenario , if the gun was fired from near the spaceman ’s straits , the astronaut might end up rotating about once every 3 transactions which could be easily correct by the pusher the spaceman use to move about .

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