SPOILERS FOR PORTAL 2!! How did the portal gun hit the moon with “limited range”

[ajfrey2031]

A dialogue in this game says the portal gun has a max range of a few kilometers, so how did it hit the moon? I have an answer! In portal 1, GLaDOS listed the rules of the portal gun. One was to never submerge it in water, however, at the end of portal 2, it was raining. The gun wasn’t submerged in water but it got wet, and that could have overloaded the safety systems and let it hit the moon. You are welcome to support my idea or disprove it as much as you like :D

[Sebastian Nielsen]

I guess the portal gun in Portal 2 has a longer range as they figured out how to overcome this limitation in a safe way. The intention of the limitation was to prevent a portal from being placed on sun.

Remember how GlaDOS was revived in Portal 2, and Wheatley was thrown out in space? So Portal: Revolution happens between Portal 1 and Portal 2.
This is also confirmed by the fact that the main character in Revolution had been in stasis for about 36 years (with a latest stasis period of 72 days), while the main character in Portal 2 have been in stasis for at least 9999999.... (nine nine nine nine nine nine ni-) days (= 27 397 years)

Also note how the gels were exhausted in Portal: Revolution, and that gels, especially Conversion gel, was made by moon dust.

So Aperture employees needed to have a good way to travel to the moon and back again, to gather moon dust and construct conversion gel.

So my tought is that about 30-40 years from portal 1, they extended the portal gun so it could shoot to moon, but NOT to the sun, so they could gather moon dust and create new gels, and refill the tanks.

[C.bullet]

it could also be that the portal gun we receive in portal 2 is an earlier model that did not have that limitation, probably the model that sparked the whole limitation technology

[Dragon21]

Two things to add here. One. You are using a different portal gun model (the red gun with blue and red portals) when this dialogue is said. Two. During a Schrodinger cube level, you can see the moon through some broken panels

[ajfrey2031]

Originally posted by Sebastian Nielsen:

Also note how the gels were exhausted in Portal: Revolution, and that gels, especially Conversion gel, was made by moon dust.

So Aperture employees needed to have a good way to travel to the moon and back again, to gather moon dust and construct conversion gel.

So my tought is that about 30-40 years from portal 1, they extended the portal gun so it could shoot to moon, but NOT to the sun, so they could gather moon dust and create new gels, and refill the tanks.

Wouldn't that be very dangerous? Shooting a portal to the moon sucked out lots of the facility as you saw. Continuously doing that routine would be very dangerous, and the air being sucked out is at about 990 mph making it almost impossible to get back in without the help of glados like at the end of portal 2.

[Stefan H.]

Mind the "this iteration" bit in that dialogue. Stirling explains that "...this iteration of YOUR handheld portal device..." has been limited. Doesn't ever say that all of them have this limitation. In the end that bit of dialogue was just added so players wouldn't be disappointed that they couldn't shoot the sun or moon in this mod

[voidmaster2077]

Originally posted by ajfrey2031:

A dialogue in this game says the portal gun has a max range of a few kilometers, so how did it hit the moon? I have an answer! In portal 1, GLaDOS listed the rules of the portal gun. One was to never submerge it in water, however, at the end of portal 2, it was raining. The gun wasn’t submerged in water but it got wet, and that could have overloaded the safety systems and let it hit the moon. You are welcome to support my idea or disprove it as much as you like :D

I actually had the same question when I heard that dialogue.

[H'Sishi]

Where did you all get the idea "shoot a portal onto the sun" from?

The portals can be placed on surfaces which were painted with liquid moon dust, but that doesn't exist on the sun's surface.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by H'Sishi:

Where did you all get the idea "shoot a portal onto the sun" from?

The portals can be placed on surfaces which were painted with liquid moon dust, but that doesn't exist on the sun's surface.

Big round thing in sky? Sun. Big round thing in sky at night? Sun with the lights off.