[lbo-talk] brain teaser

John Thornton jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Wed Apr 9 11:57:42 PDT 2008


Matt wrote:
> where g is the gravitational acceleration on the moon, which is
> 1.62m/s^2. That makes astro-shag's maximum range from firing the gun
> 7.52 meters. If she could fire all 16 rounds consecutively she could
> go 120 meters, which would be handy for crossing a chasm or some other
> precarious terrain.
>
> Corrections welcome; I did not check my work.
>
>
> Matt

Average astronaut in a space suit weighs about 300 pounds on earth at sea level. Plus the space suit only provides atmosphere and pressure equal to ~6000 ft elevation on earth. Do astronauts do much altitude training because they'd have to in order to work efficiently in that environment.

None of which address the basic idea that when stranded staying put is the best option. Hypothetically speaking if any such "moon rescue" could be undertaken your best chance for survival would be to stay at the crash site. The temptation to get one 14er in probably wouldn't be that great so no rope and handguns would be needed. It was an exceedingly dumb list that NASA compiled and makes me think quite a bit less of them.

Besides, did astronauts really carry hand-guns when they went to the moon? Do they carry them now? If they have handguns on the Space Shuttle then the space program is even more fucked up than I thought it was and I already think it's deeply fucked up. Are they worried about alien hijackings? What if one of them snapped and starting shooting the place up? How would NASA explain that shit? The truly sad thing is I can easily imagine millions of Americans thinking how "cool" it was if the astronauts were armed with handguns. Makes the Sean Connery movie "Outland" seem all the less outlandish.

John Thornton



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