How I Got My Laser Eye Injury

By Phil of Funranium Labs

https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2024/07/how-i-got-my-laser-eye-injury/

This is one of the dirty little secrets of a scifi battle with laser pistols.

Every innocent bystander between you and the horizon is at a risk of laser blindness

https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmenergy.php#laserblind

@nyrath

Well, innocent bystanders can be protected by the blink reflex, as described in a familiar (to me) conversation on your page.

The idea is that a trigger press initiates a safe flash before the main shine. Maybe it could be two or three safe flashes of increasing brightness before the main shine.

The military could VR goggle optics, to avoid any optical paths to damage eyes. Or if you're on a budget, the pirate eyepatch method works. Once.

@isaackuo @nyrath yeah I like the sci-fi sub-tradition where, because beams, projectiles & explosives are too risky in space boarding battles that the standard for personal combat, for either attackers or defenders, defaults to clubs, armored gloves, maybe nets, as part of hand-to-hand melee.

because if the wrong thing gets pierced or malfunctioned then *all* those folks will Have A Very Bad Day in Space

if one side wants the prize.booty at least. if its not a kamikaze

@synlogic @nyrath

I feel like swinging a club around is far more likely to damage random hardware badly than a small sword or knife.

@isaackuo @nyrath risk no matter what. blades might cut wires, or tubes needed by electrical system, life support, comm or propulsion. for clubs imagine a billyclub. at most: bruises, broken bones vs dents.

plus you dont want to spray blood (or any other toxic or tainted fluid, human tissue or granular substance) inside a micro/zero gravity vessel. blades Bad for that

@synlogic @nyrath

I just think loose wires and fluid lines are just way too much of a general hazard for spacecraft to have. Too much chance of getting snagged by people simply moving around. No, they'll be tied down.

A small sword doesn't really have much of a blade for cutting, it's a thrusting weapon.

A knife may be useful for cutting an enemy's space suit, but the short length of a knife will make it unlikely to cut something otherwise important accidentally.

1/2

@synlogic @nyrath

It depends on the type of knife, of course - specialized thrusting knives exist. But a utility cutting knife is most likely to be on hand anyway. If you have a specialized thrusting _weapon_, it may as well be a small sword.

A billyclub would indeed be less likely to smash up hardware, but it's also not very good as a weapon if the enemy is using lethal weapons and wearing any sort of armor (even just thick safety padding).

2/2

@isaackuo @synlogic @nyrath Swinging any kind of melee weapon, in zero/micro gravity has its obvious disadvantages. Same with anything ballistic, even with small muzzle velocity.

How about sonic weapons to disable?

@thisnorthernboy @isaackuo @synlogic @nyrath A modern version of the Gyrojet would work fine, as long as it's at enough range to get up to speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet

@cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

The problem we're pondering is that we do NOT want a bullet zipping around within a spacecraft. Too many important things a bullet hole could damage (according to this thought experiment).

So, gyrojet would be ruled out, but maybe a reverse gyrojet could work - a normal gun shoots a rocket bullet, with the nozzle pointed forward. The rocket both slows the bullet and reduces its mass.

The point is to limits its dangerous range.

@isaackuo @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath If you're inside a spaceship, then your first line of defense is the vacuum around it: if you let someone dangerous in, it's already too late. (Unless you and everyone you want to keep alive can grab an oxygen mask while you swap the ambient breathing gas mix for 100% nitrogen, or—even more dangerous—vent it to space.)

@cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

I think the imagined scenario is more like a SWAT team or special forces team taking on criminals or terrorists or freedom fighters or something.

In other words, it's not a military ship-to-ship space combat sort of situation, but something messier.

Remember the North Hollywood shootout was a thing. So even civilian criminals might be wearing body armor and use lethal weapons.

@isaackuo @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

This seems like a scenario where whatever you use you need it to be immediately disabling, on the grounds that however professional and competent your team is, you cannot guarantee that the oppo is and/or even cares about such things.

@isaackuo @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

I might be inclined to trust a painstakingly-educated-in-shot-placement team with slug-loaded shotguns on the grounds that even their worst screw-up is still a decent gamble against terrorists who plan on taking the civilian population with them, or amateurs who might panic and hose down the life support compartment with their black-market AK.

@cerebrate @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

Well yeah, I think the risk of hitting something important from a stray bullet is not such a big deal. I find it an interesting thought experiment, though.

But realistically, a stray bullet will almost always just poke a hole in the hull. So what? It's a minor air leak, but that isn't hard to patch later.

@isaackuo @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

I recall a while back reading about sky marshal training, and it including a great emphasis on making sure your misses _didn't hit the floor_, that being where hydraulic lines, cable runs, etc., tend to be on commercial aircraft, and thus ceiling and walls are much safer to accidentally.

One could imagine a similar protocol developing for space. "Make sure you aim out of the plane of the removable cover tiles!"

@cerebrate @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

One thing to keep in mind is that jetliners do NOT regularly get randomly hit by small bits of debris moving at 10+ km/s.

Spacecraft, in contrast, should be designed with that in mind.

There's going to be a certain amount of redundancy and/or tolerance to randomly suffering a hole somewhere.

@isaackuo @cerebrate @cstross @thisnorthernboy @synlogic @nyrath

Are we talking about doing this in zero G, or in a craft that rotates for artificial gravity? Because I started thinking about pole arms, and started wondering whether a long staff could increase the range at which one could push off of walls in zero G, thus increasing mobility.