Alright, I’ve prepared my bizarre question for the week. And for some reason, I’ve got a sinking feeling that it’ll either get locked, or transfered to IMHO. That’s an omen, I’m sure. And probably not a good one.
Anyway, my question is…if, for some reason, you ended up in a hand-to-hand fight with someone in a Space Suit, what would be the best tactics/techniques to ensure your survival, at the expense of your opponent’s? This is assuming, of course, that “you” were also in a pressure suit yourself, and that the fight is happening in or around a spacecraft (say, the open cargo bay of an orbiter, or an open airlock of a space station) in Earth orbit. I mean, any other scenario would just be too silly to even discuss.
And this is UNARMED combat, remember. Or, at the very least, unanticipated combat with no purpose-built weapons. So no Gyrojet pistols, explosive shark-prods ortiger’s claws. Any tool or instrument that would be found in a shuttle cargo bay anyway (e.g. A zero-g torque wrench) might be acceptible, though.
Assuming the suit is untethered & has no rockets or propulsion devices, I can see wrestling/judo/martial arts techniques being successful - redirect your opponent’s momentum away from the ship, sending them careening off into space.
Or, if you can find something (long and) sharp, puncture their suit.
There are two major vulnerabilities to protect and exploit: air and maneuverability (or lack thereof). Poke a hole in the opponent’s suit and he/she loses all the air. If you lose the tether and you let go of the spacecraft, you won’t be able to get back and you’re good as dead. (I don’t think Shuttle spacesuits have maneuvering jets, do they?)
My first instinct would be to start swatting or unlatching anything that connected the gloves (or otherwise opened up the suit for that matter). Maybe unplug some hoses from the life support pack, untie a boot, or twist a helmet just enough. . .
Nothing says “oh shit!” in my mind than being exposed to a near-perfect vaccuum and -400 F space weather.
Tripler
But that’s why I carry a plasma rifle when I go up into orbit.
War in 2080 by David Langford has a chapter discussing this. I don’t have time to summerize it, but it covers everything from hand-to-hand, edged weapons to firearms.
Just a little nitpick; pushing your opponent away will certainly separate him from the vessel, but it won’t send him flying away into space; he will remain in orbit. Not that this makes much difference to his survival.
If you are going to use anything normally found in a shuttle cargo bay, the answer would be to make sure that you are attached to the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) and your opponent is not.
If that cannot be arranged, certainly make sure that you are tethered in some way, and simply keep kicking or shoving your opponent until they are out of reach of any handhold… if you are tethered and they are not, they will eventually find themselves out of reach of the vehicle, although, as Mangetout points out, the opponent will be in a relatively close orbit, and it may not be too difficult to retrieve them.
If you want to.
I will also note that depending on his suit’s design, he’s not going to care whether you untie his gloves. So long as there is a seal further up the arm, his arm isn’t going to be bothered by the vaccuum. Well, blood will eventually accumulate there, but not that fast. The cold isn’t a problem because there’s nothing to suck heat away.
Go for the helmet latches or any exposed hoses. I suspect judo, with its emphasis on redirecting your opponent’s momentum, would be the martial art of choice.
I suspect fighting without good anchorage to the vessel will be very dangerous for both fighters, and the most useful technique in such circumstances would be to kick or push the opponent away from the vessel whilst due to conservation of momentum pushing yourself back towards the vessel. Judo throws would not work without the presence of gravity unless you were tethered and your opponent was not, and even then they would be considerably different techniques without gravity. If both of you are tethered, then ensnaring the opponent in their tether would be useful, as would arm and leg locking techniques. If you braced yourself against the vessels superstructure, you should be able to kick the opponent away in such a way that they fly off to the extent of their tether’s range and then snap back again (or break the tether) this could lead to a comical yo-yo ing effect on the opponent if you keep kicking them away in the same fashion.
If tethering to the vessel is done by magnetic boots, then judo style foot sweeps could become a truly lethal technique when combined with a gentle push on the opponent when their connection to the vessel’s superstructure is broken.
I like the idea of a yo-yo effect. You could even get the guy going pretty fast so he’d bounce off the hull of the ship without you having to kick him for a while. Might want to replace his tether with a really strong elastic band though, that would make it easier.
My personal suggestion: Get in the ship, close the door, and floor it! Survive that!
The air pressure in the suit and the padding inside should give pretty good potection against blows and the suit restricts movement too much to really punch hard or twist and turn so its a bit like a sumo match tactics-wise. There are other designs in the works for replacements for the current sits that would give better protection and be easier to move in.
The absence of gravity would make this like ground work all the time.
Therefore my first impulse would be to go for a juji-gatame, the cross armlock. It uses the leverage of your legs and back against the elbow joint, so it doesn’t need gravity, and it would be lots easier to get into position without needing to do a takedown first.
Then break the arm. Do the same to the other arm. I assume the space suit has no rigid support for the arms, so it would not be significantly harder than on earth. Depending on what kind of boots you are wearing, it might be hard to get close enough, but that is my first choice.
Once both arms are disabled, try to open the helmet, or tear holes in the neck of the suit. If your gloves are sturdy enough, I might try a “ground and pound” strategy to smash the face plate.
If both space suits are inflated, there is relatively little you can do to each other without a weapon. Add to that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, and you are going to be knocked backward just as much as he is by any blow you can land.
It is going to look damn funny, flailing around in zero gravity and not getting much done. Escape and find a weapon somewhere is probably going to be a better option than hand-to-hand.
Just when you think they have asked every bizzaro question imaginable on the SDMB…
The way spacesuits restrict joint flexibility and movement I’m not sure any kind of arm lock is even possible. If I can dig up a suit diagram I’ll post a link to it.
Getting behind your opponent is probably a good bet; his suit will make it almost impossible for him to reach back at you and there’s loads of stuff you can tinker with back there.
I dont believe that hand 2 hand combat in suited conditions in orbit , is a worth while pursuit. If it happens it would probably come down to what ever improvised weapons can be found in the general local of the fight , plus the suits loiter time due to increased air breathing for an excited/scared pugilist
