Second alien spacecraft photographed by NASA

[AustinBoston]

Actually, AB, I would disagree and expect the fight to be slower after all.  In lighter gravity, the parabola of the flight of the rock, etc. would be of a greater height than that in higher gravity to hit the same target at the same distance.  Given a constant "muzzle velocity" the time to travel that greater parabolic trajectory would take longer to hit the same target resulting in a slower fight.  Now if we were dealing with grenades, or some other kind of explosive device, the effect of missing with a "knuckleball" or "curveball" would be greatly reduced.  First one to figure out the trajectory wins.  Fight on!

Since we're talking ourselves around in circles, I'll disagree with that.

The reason is that the "firing rate" or "throwing rate" would not be reduced.  One would simply have three rocks (or hand grenades) in the air at the same time, instead of just one.  That would also mean there would be three incoming rocks in the air at the same time; what works for one side works for the other.

Your turn.

Austin

[wavery]

I think that the flight would actually be faster.

Although the distance to travel may be slightly farther due to the greater parabolic trajectory, the flight would have very little atmospheric interference (wind resistance, if you will). The atmosphere on Mars is .01 of that on Earth. Your "muzzle velocity" would be maintained, nearly through the entire flight.

BTW, I would rather get hit with that rock on Earth. On Mars, it will make a very hard landing.

[dthurk]

This is getting good.  I'll have DD present this argument to NASA as a possible experiment to be performed by the first person (woman) to walk on Mars.  This should really give her an edge on the competition!  We've got arguments for slower, same and faster here.  Guess nobody really knows at this point what would happen.  I wonder if any of my engineering friends would be willing to hazard a guess.  Then again, they don't guess, but they can still make mistakes.  The footage of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is awesome.