Why astronauts carry guns into space
By: Joshua Potts
Tags: Guns, Spacex, Space, Space Exploration, Aerospace

On a typical mission, an astronaut will take many kilograms of gear into space. A spacesuit alone weighs about 100kg, then you must add on all the supplies stowed away in the spacecraft, plus any tools and miscellaneous equipment the space goer needs. All in all, an astronaut is taking tons of stuff up into the cosmos during a space launch, but there’s one item you might not have expected to be present on a rocket. It’s a firearm.

A gun isn’t the kind of item you’d expect to see in a space launch. A sci-fi movie, sure, but it seems a little irresponsible in real life. There’s actually a couple really good reasons why guns have — and are — being given to astronauts. In the sixties and seventies, when the Soviet Union was developing their flagship Soyuz capsule, they were having trouble getting their space capsules back down to the ground properly. Unlike the USA, they couldn’t easily land in the sea and send out an aircraft carrier to rescue the cosmonauts.

Instead, they had to depend on landing their capsules directly down on the hard ground, by opening up parachutes and hoping the capsule would land somewhere safe. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t always happen. It was Russia, and Russia is of course covered in remote forests; prime environments for bears, wolves and other possibly aggressive animals.

The reasoning behind stowing away a gun on a Soyuz capsule was that if the craft landed in a remote region, it would attract the unnecessary attention of wild animals — not the best faces to meet after landing from outer space. If the cosmonauts came into a confrontation with a bear for instance, they’d be able to shoot it and hopefully get to safety.

This has actually happened before! On the Voskhod 2 mission in 1965, the one where Alexei Leonev made the first ever spacewalk in human history, the craft was blown off course and landed some 1000 km away from its target. Luckily it came down safely, but touched down in a remote region of mountainous terrain and deep forests. After opening the capsule’s hatch, Alexei Leonev and Pavel Belyayev reportedly were approached by a pack of wild wolves. They had a single pistol, a Makarov, inside the spacecraft with enough ammunition to shoot every wolf if needed. Fortunately for both parties, this never had to happen, and the two cosmonauts were rescued from the site. And on that point, guns are also very handy distress signals. If the cosmonauts need to get attention in these wild regions, a gun can come in very handy.

Since the sixties, the Russians have always carried guns on their Soyuz spacecraft. It’s usually a Makarov semi-automatic pistol, a fairly standard sidearm that has been around since the 1950s. There have of course been cases of astronauts carrying different kinds of firearms into space. For example, on several missions Soviet cosmonauts carried TP-82 survival pistols, a specially designed firearm with three barrels and a shooting distance of about two hundred metres. These weapons were mostly used in the nineties, as rescue teams still needed distress signals to find the cosmonauts in the Siberian forests. In 2007, Russia transitioned back to a typical semi-automatic pistol. It may also interest you to know that many aeroplanes also have specially designed survival guns.

Every astronaut aboard the International Space Station has access to a firearm during their full six month period in space. The gun is kept tucked away in the storage of the station’s Soyuz capsule, the craft that brings astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the base. Of course there is also a decent amount of ammunition stored with it too. Currently there is no information regarding whether NASA’s Orion spacecraft or SpaceX’s Starship will carry firearms.

Even though carrying guns is a useful idea in space travel for self-defense purposes, the safety and ethics of bringing weapons into such a high-stress environment have been heavily debated in the past and still continue to be argued over. Many experts think that firearms and space are a catastrophic combination. Astronauts are often forced to work in very tense and dangerous environments, and having to stay on top of all the anxiety, anticipation, stress, anger and exhaustion can be very challenging. Not every Space Race astronaut in the twentieth century held up in these conditions. There have been various cases of astronauts getting panicked and even turning suicidal. With even more challenging missions and job roles to appear in the next few decades, maybe it’s time to reconsider the importance of carrying guns into space.