Date: Wed,  2 Dec 92 05:07:39    
From: Space Digest maintainer <digests@isu.isunet.edu>
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Subject: Space Digest V15 #486
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Space Digest                Wed,  2 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 486

Today's Topics:
   NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions

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Date: 2 Dec 92 06:15:45 GMT
From: Patrick Draper <draper@ais.org>
Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1992Dec1.195722.4304@memstvx1.memst.edu> kebarnes@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>
>Ordinary firearms wouldn't work in a vacuum anyhow.
>The gunpowder couldn't burn. The same might be true at high
>altitudes on the Earth's surface, as I've heard that in a
>particular South American city (I think it was La Paz, Bolivia),
>there's not enough oxygen in the air for them to really require
>a fire department.
>
>--KB
>
>-- 
>*.x,*dna**************************************************************
>*(==) Ken Barnes, LifeSci Bldg.                                      *
>* \'  KEBARNES@memstvx1.memst.edu                                    *
>*(-)**Memphis,TN********75320,711@compuserve.com**********************
>"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President;
>I'm beginning to believe it."--Clarence Darrow

Of course ordinary firearms will work in a vacuum. Gunpowder carries its own
oxidant, but even if you didn't know that, you could deduce it if you knew
just how much gas volume of oxygen that combustion requires.

An explosion makes it even more obvious, because that oxygen volume would
have to enter the gun all the more quickly to make the combustion quick
enough to produce an explosion.

Of course, the only hole in a loaded and cocked gun that is bigger that a
square millimeter has a bullet coming out, hence, no air can get in.

As another example, gunpowder has been used for thousands of years in
rocketry, and there too, the only hole of appreciable size is the *exhaust*,
therefore, the oxidant must already be in the fuel.


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| Patrick Draper           Disclaimer:  I can't control my fingers,        |
| draper@umcc.ais.org                   I can't control my toes! - Ramones |
| University of Michigan Computer Club                                     |
NO CARRIER                     We are a nation of laws, not people         |
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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 486
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