Can you shoot a bullet from a gun in Space & how far would it go? if so, Would you be able to see or hear it?

Answer 1

Can you fire a gun in space? Yes. A bullet contains an explosive mixture, e.g. gunpowder, that has it's own oxidizer. The carbon, sulfur, and potassium nitrate do not need oxygen to explode. The postassium nitrate provides the oxidation portion of the chemical reaction.

How far would it go? Without any air resistance, the bullet would travel quite far. The distance would be limited only by the effects of gravity if you fired in orbit or on the moon.

Would you be able to see it? The muzzle flash would certainly be visible.

Would you be able to hear it? Yes. Assuming that you are wearing a space suit, the gun would vibrate your glove which would vibrate the air in your suit and the sound would travel to your ear. It probably wouldn't be the sharp crack that if you fired it on Earth, but you would hear something.

Answer 2

The bullet will travel at the speed the gun was going, plus or minus the muzzle velocity (actually, the vector sum of the gun velocity plus the muzzle velocity. Depending on the velocity, the bullet can continue in orbit for a very long time. Suppose you are in a space suit outside the ISS -- so you are travelling at about 18000 miles an hour. Add 2000 feet per second (or about 1360 additional miles an hour. This will mean the bullet will have a higher apogee than the the ISS had. If you point the other way, you will have a slower bullet and a lower apogee. It could stay in orbit a long time. The gun and the astronaut holding it will experience Newton's law about opposite reactions. If the bullet weighs a ounce, at 2000 feet per second, the astronaut including his space suit weighs 250 pounds or 4000 ounces. So if the bullet leaves at 2000 feet per second, the astronaut will move backward at 0.5 feet per second. That is a negligible change in velocity for the astronaut.

Answer 3

I think it would work. The explosives are encased in the round. the only external influence would be the firing pin striking the round.

The only problem I can see would be the gas parts for re-cocking semi auto and automatic weapons. The gas, that propels the round forward is used to re-c.ock the weapon (can't believe they blanked that out!). The structure of the weapon would probably have to be remade simply to stop it exploding in the huge pressure differences of a vacuum and the high pressure gas.

Other than that, it could work. you'd not see the muzzle flash, but you may see the hot gas escaping. You wouldn't see the bullet, as it will be travelling far too fast. As you are holding the weapon, the sound waves would travel through your body, so in a way, you would hear it/detect it's sound. If your friend fired a rifle and you were not in physical contact with him/her then you wouldn't hear it.

Answer 4

The gun would fire because the oxygen for the composition is not supplied by the air but by the materials within the cartridge. You would not hear the gun go off because you are in a vacuum although you might "hear" something by conduction through you body. You would see the flash, but a bullet is small and it will be moving too fast to see.

As for when it will stop. That will happen when it hits something, has enough collisions to slow it's forward velocity to zero or comes under the gravitational influence of another body

Answer 5

You probably could. The combustion for firing a gun doesn't require oxygen, so it could be done. If it was done far enough away from the Earth that it wouldn't be affected by gravity, it would keep on going until it encountered another force, like the gravity of another planet or star. I don't think that's been tried yet.

Grace? What are you thinking. Why would gravity be necessary? Perhaps you should study spelling and grammar before getting into astronomy and physics.

Answer 6

Yes you can shoot in space. The bullet would go until it hit something or it got caught up in somethings gravity. Yes you could hear it and see it.

Answer 7

as they said if a tree falls in space no one will hear it but if you managed to fit the finger of your space suit into the gun to pull the trigger it will fire as for seeing it it's a bullet if you can't see it on earth you definitely won't see it in space the bullet however would be traveling alot faster then a conventional bullet because there is no drag in space and the bullet would travel until it was acted upon by an outside force

Answer 8

Yes a conventional fire arm would work in space as the bullet is sealed and so the propellant mix needed is in the ammo casing! I think it would still be too fast to see as it would still shoot out as normal but there would be no flash as you need oxygen to mix with the discharge from the bullet to cause that. i don' think you would hear it though. I don' think it would ever stop, probably just slow down and tumble on and on until it hit something.

Answer 9

Yes you could shoot a gun in space, and it would just keep going till it hit something, you wouldn't hear the gun go off as space is a Vacuum and sound waves can't travel though a vacuum.

Answer 10

It could potentially travel for billions of miles, depending on where you fired it from. If you fired it in the solar system it would probably eventually get slowed down by the sun's gravity and get pulled back, unless it reached the escape velocity of the solar system. However, in order to fire a bullet you need oxygen for the cartridge to explode. Therefore you'd either need to release a puff of oxygen when you pulled the trigger - in which case you wouldn't hear it because space is (almost) a vacuum, and sound doesn't travel in a vacuum. If you fired it in a space station or something then you would hear it, because there's air all around you.