# Guns! on Mars! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 24, 2015, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710 "2015-08-24T12:32:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/21 "2015-08-24T18:50:26Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Well, they had [guns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82) on Soyuz craft, until 2007 apparently. Granted, it’s not for aliens, it’s for survival in the event of landing in the wrong part of Siberia. But it’s not far-fetched for a spacecraft of the time to have a gun. Well, you’d have guns on your orbiter, maybe, but probably not on your Mars landing craft. Every ounce you land is one more ounce of rocks and samples you couldn’t bring back. Of course, most of these movies probably pre-date the concept of the separate lander. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/22 "2015-08-24T19:24:57Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Well, you’d have guns on your orbiter, maybe, but probably not on your Mars landing craft. Every ounce you land is one more ounce of rocks and samples you couldn’t bring back. Of course, most of these movies probably pre-date the concept of the separate lander. Well, they’re usually depending on some fanciful drive system that we haven’t worked out yet, anyway. So they often handwave away all kinds of things, like walking space, or walking in a spaceship. And even if the local fauna isn’t interested in eating you, you might be interested in eating it. The best middle ground I’ve heard against having a firearm for emergencies on a spacecraft is: stow the damn thing outside. That’s at least going to minimize problems that arise from accidents, and you can get it to it easily if you’re alive when you land. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/23 "2015-08-24T19:26:46Z")
Or you could fashion a rudimentary lathe. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/24 "2015-08-24T19:30:40Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > That’s the excuse Heinlein gave for having guns aboard _Rocket Ship Galileo_, but it always seemed a little too pat. Interesting to know that the Russians actually used the same reasoning. > > I wonder if they read Heinlein. Even more to the point, _Red Planet_ - the first Mars juvenile - had gun-carry as a front-and-center issue. It was toned down slightly in first publication (and restored around 1990), but a major sub-plot of the book was basically 2nd Amendment rights and how they are used to fight evil dictatorships. Then, of course, there was the irreplaceable _Gun Without A Bang_ ([del]Silverberg?[/del] Sheckley.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/25 "2015-08-24T19:45:26Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Even more to the point, _Red Planet_ - the first Mars juvenile - had gun-carry as a front-and-center issue. It was toned down slightly in first publication (and restored around 1990), but a major sub-plot of the book was basically 2nd Amendment rights and how they are used to fight evil dictatorships. > > Then, of course, there was the irreplaceable _Gun Without A Bang_ ([del]Silverberg?[/del] Sheckley.) Sheckley. And it’s a ray gun in his case. It has a good point, but it’s not obvious that animals would necessarily associate the bang with the deadliness of the gun. Still, it explains why you’d want to have your probably quiet ray gun make a noise\* \*The folks at Pandemonium Games think the same way. The laser guns in their _Rifts_ games can be equipped with an audible noise to give them the visceral impact. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/26 "2015-08-24T20:34:11Z")
You bring a gun because you need some way to take out the guy who goes mad with space paranoia and threatens the safety of the rest of the crew/mission. Of course, if the guy who goes mad with space paranoia is the one who gets to the gun first, all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/27 "2015-08-24T20:37:21Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Sheckley. And it’s a ray gun in his case. It has a good point, but it’s not obvious that animals would necessarily associate the bang with the deadliness of the gun. Still, it explains why you’d want to have your probably quiet ray gun make a noise\* > > \*The folks at Pandemonium Games think the same way. The laser guns in their _Rifts_ games can be equipped with an audible noise to give them the visceral impact. The HEL MD (High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator) engineers at Boeing [concur](http://www.nature.com/news/military-technology-laser-weapons-get-real-1.17613). The reasoning in this case is that without sound effects, you might well not notice that the autonomous weapon platform has engaged targets, because its output is both silent and invisible. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/28 "2015-08-24T20:58:51Z")
When we were planning the Apollo missions, we knew that there was nothing on Luna larger than a microbe. In the context of the 1950s movies, those mission planners were expecting to find life. So it was reasonable to plan for the possibility that such life might include large predators. (Or even large herbivores. The deadliest animal in Africa is an herbivore.) The Bambi-is-good, guns-are-evil view of nature is a quite recent phenomenon, and was not widespread in the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/29 "2015-08-24T21:04:53Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > You bring a gun because you need some way to take out the guy who goes mad with space paranoia and threatens the safety of the rest of the crew/mission. > > Of course, if the guy who goes mad with space paranoia is the one who gets to the gun first, all bets are off. Yeah, with the ever present specter of Space Madness, I say leave the guns locked in the safe, with only one key, which only the ship’s doctor has access to. There is absolutely no chance that you will find the ship’s doctor inexplicably murdered halfway through the voyage. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/30 "2015-08-24T21:24:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Having a gun to deal with Moon Nazis is just common sense. Mars Nazis would be ridiculous though. [Elwood]I hate Moon Nazis.[/Elwood] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/31 "2015-08-24T21:32:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You sure about that? I remember the scene in _Rocket Ship Galileo_ as using a gas canister, and him switching to a gun for _Destination Moon_ (which was to be made into a movie) because he thought that it would be more familiar to audiences (reinforced by the Daffy Duck short shown in the movie). Woody Woodpecker, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/32 "2015-08-24T22:03:05Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I picked up a copy of **The Wizard of Mars** over the weekend. I’;d heard of this 1965 film, but never seen it. It has wonderfully bad dialogue (“Other people go to the Moon. _WE_ had to go to Mars!”) and awful special effects. But I was particularly struck by an odd detail. It’s another case of Guns on Mars. > … > > If you’re going to be on the First Expedition to Mars, one of the things you probably wouldn’t want to bring would be a gun. It has no conceivable use, and it might go off Guns don’t just ‘go off’. They are inanimate objects. If you’re worried about an accident, you might want to ponder being surrounded by hypergolic explosives that are just a button-press away. As for ‘no conceivable use’… > [@CalMeacham](#): > > **The Wizard of Mars** features a gun, **which they use against the Giant Martian Canal Maggots** That sounds pretty useful to me. Or were these Canal Maggots just peaceful creatures that were misunderstood and posed no threat? The one thing you missed mentioning about all these stories is that they pre-date our modern understanding of Mars as having no life. In most of the ‘Mars has Guns!’ books, Mars has local threats and perhaps unknown threats. These people were explorers of a planet that harbored life of unknown types and hostility. I think I’d take a gun. > [@](#): > > I’ll betcha any money the new film of _The Martian_ won’t feature any guns. Right. Because when that book was written, we knew Mars was a barren, lifeless place. I fail to see the point you’re making. ---
**Author:** ![garnettpark2001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f07891/32.png) [@garnettpark2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garnettpark2001)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/33 "2015-08-24T22:04:32Z")
Matt Damon…psssh. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/34 "2015-08-24T22:08:02Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Even more to the point, _Red Planet_ - the first Mars juvenile - had gun-carry as a front-and-center issue. It was toned down slightly in first publication (and restored around 1990), but a major sub-plot of the book was basically 2nd Amendment rights and how they are used to fight evil dictatorships. Actually, people on Mars had guns because Mars in that book had incredibly dangerous fauna that can and would kill an unarmed person. That’s why even young people were trained to carry and shoot. ‘Water Seekers’ in particular sound like fast-moving reptiles that will hunt and kill people on sight. The 2nd amendment arguments were there as well, and the people may have found their extensive gun ownership valuable when the authorities tried to subjugate them, but that wasn’t why they had the guns in the first place. Guns were very necessary to their survival. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/35 "2015-08-24T23:52:00Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The one thing you missed mentioning about all these stories is that they pre-date our modern understanding of Mars as having no life. In most of the ‘Mars has Guns!’ books, Mars has local threats and perhaps unknown threats. These people were explorers of a planet that harbored life of unknown types and hostility. I think I’d take a gun. Yeah. I’m not ordinarily the most gun-happy of people, but if some yellow-eyed native’s shooting bees at me, I want to be able to return fire. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/36 "2015-08-25T01:31:00Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Actually, people on Mars had guns because Mars in that book had incredibly dangerous fauna that can and would kill an unarmed person. That’s why even young people were trained to carry and shoot. ‘Water Seekers’ in particular sound like fast-moving reptiles that will hunt and kill people on sight. > > The 2nd amendment arguments were there as well, and the people may have found their extensive gun ownership valuable when the authorities tried to subjugate them, but that wasn’t why they had the guns in the first place. Guns were very necessary to their survival. I wouldn’t argue, but people in Westerns carried guns because of grizzly bears, too. It’s not like the “armed revolutionaries” part of the story just wandered in from nowhere… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/37 "2015-08-25T01:40:58Z")
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Edgar Rice Burroughs [radium pistols](http://img08.deviantart.net/c4d3/i/2015/113/b/3/martian_radium_guns__john_carter_by_scaleyscribe-d5shfk2.jpg) of Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/38 "2015-08-25T02:44:47Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I wouldn’t argue, but people in Westerns carried guns because of grizzly bears, too. > > It’s not like the “armed revolutionaries” part of the story just wandered in from nowhere… No, Heinlein clearly was working a 2nd amendment article into the story. You could even surmise that the existence of the dangerous fauna was a plot device he needed to be able to make sure to put guns into the story. In any event, the point is that the presence of guns in that story makes total sense given the environment he is describing, whereas in ‘The Martian’ there is no need for guns because the astronauts do not face any threats that a gun would protect them from. Still not understanding the point of the OP. Old stories about Mars had guns in them, and new stories don’t? Or taking guns to Mars is an old-fashioned idea? Or guns are bad, and the fact that even Mars stories had guns back in the day shows how ubiquitous they were? Or what? > [@CalMeacham](#): > > The fact that they sometimes end up with a plausible reason to use them is no excuse – they couldn’t have known that when they were packing for the trip. So if you’re going to a new planet that’s totally unknown, it makes no sense to bring along something to defend yourself if it turns out bad things are waiting for you? It seems to me that if I were heading to Mars, and our best scientists said, “There is life there, but we have no idea if it will be cuddly or murderous”, my first question would be, “okay, so how do I protect myself if it turns out they like to kill things like me?” Ignorance of the threat is no excuse to leave yourself utterly incapable of dealing with one if it arises. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/39 "2015-08-25T03:14:10Z")
Maybe some kind of tazer would be useful, in case one of the members of the crew goes mad. Like the General in _Conquest of Space_, since we are referencing 1950s scifi. You probably don’t want to fire a projectile weapon inside a pressurised spaceship or hab. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710/40 "2015-08-25T10:13:47Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > That’s just silly. What if you get to Mars and you run into [Devil Girls From Mars\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Girl_from_Mars)? How do you plan to defeat them? Hmmmm? Tell me that, Mister Meacham. > > \*Nyah was only one. There had to be more. Your link didn’t work, until I fixed it. It doesn’t lead to anything NSFW, so I’m leaving it fixed, because now that I’ve read that article I want EVERYONE to be able to see it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-on-mars/728710.md?page=3)