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To: DUMBGRUNT
"Muzzle velocity, trajectory, recoil... ?"

Muzzle velocity would be generally unaffected, but after it left the muzzle it would not suffer from aerodynamic drag. The recoil impulse would be unafeccted (every action has an equal and opposite reaction...) but felt recoil would be increased substantially as the weight of the weapon is one of the primary means of taming recoil. he trajectory would remain a generally straight line until and unless the gravity of another body acted upon it.

27 posted on 02/23/2007 1:59:02 PM PST by Joe 6-pack
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To: Joe 6-pack
[In space], felt recoil would be increased substantially as the weight of the weapon is one of the primary means of taming recoil.

Woops! You confused weight with mass. The weight of the weapon in zero-gee would indeed be zero, more or less, since "weight" is a measure of the force created by the acceleration induced upon a body by the mass of the Earth. The mass (amount of matter) in the weapon, however, would remain unchanged, and, since the recoil force experienced by the shooter is a function of the weapon's mass (F=MA), the recoil force experienced by a shooter in zero-gee would be identical to the force he or she would have experienced while firing the weapon on the Earth's surface.

Incidentally, if a space shootist were to position his/her weapon so that the vector of the fired bullet lay along a line passing through his/her own center of mass (though in the opposite direction, of course!), the impulse of the bullet could be used as a means of propulsion.

The trajectory would remain a generally straight line until and unless the gravity of another body acted upon it.

Actually, all bodies in motion in free space travel along a curved (geodesic) line unless acted upon by other forces. In the case of a bullet fired in Earth orbit, the velocity of the bullet would be added (or subtracted, depending upon the velocity vector of the bullet when fired) to the velocity of the person pulling the trigger. Since the velocoty of a rifle bullet (1000 fps, more or less) is far less than the velocity needed to escape the full of Earth's gravity, a bullet fired from a weapon in Earth orbit would travel away from Earth, then fall back, eventually assuming an elliptical orbit around the planet. The apogee (furthest point from Earth on the orbital ellipse) would reach the altitide the bullet reached at its highest point; the perigee (lowest point on the ellipse) would be at the altitude at which the bullet was fired. Thus it becomes quite possible for a gun-wielding astronaut to shoot himself/herself in the ass with their own bullet while in space.

59 posted on 03/05/2007 11:37:29 AM PST by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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