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Space Station Crew Can Access Gun
POSTED: 6:16 am EST February 14, 2008
UPDATED: 7:25 am EST February 14, 2008

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun.
Russian Cosmonauts carry a gun on their Soyuz space capsule, which is attached to the space station.
Every spacecraft carries survival gear for crash landings, and the Russian Soyuz has a kit that includes the gun.
A photo of a space tourist using one version of the weapon is posted on his Web site.
But although the gun has been there for as long as the space station has been in orbit, its existence is kept quiet. NASA and Russian officials won't talk publicly about it.
Former NASA engineer Jim Oberg, who is an author and journalist, wrote about the gun on his Web site. He said the gun has no place in an environment where people are under such high stress.
"There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out -- that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions," Oberg said.
Experts said the idea of an astronaut losing control was unthinkable until one year ago, when Lisa Nowak shattered the myth.
Her own attorney said she was insane when arrested for hunting down another woman, and prosecutors said she was heavily armed.
Nowak had flown in space just seven months earlier.
Oberg knows an astronaut bent on orbital manslaughter could simply throw any number of switches to do the job, but he said the crews would be safer if the gun was locked up or left on Earth.
The gun is located in a survival kit between some seats aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. All the crewmembers know about it, and U.S. astronauts who fly aboard the Soyuz are trained to use it.
http://www.wesh.com/news/15298911/detail.html

On the space station, you would hope that the body absorbing the bullets would stop them. Otherwise, everybody has a bad day.

Oberg sounds like a typical ANTI. "If only there were no guns....yada yada yada" Doesn't matter that there are hundreds of other ways to kill some one, I.E. steak knives, baseball bats, hammers, or that 3 million dollar special tool that NASA uses to whack things with.

Gimmee a break. That gun is no more of a threat than Marvin the Martian.."You have stolen my nuetron Detonator. I MUST destroy your planet".........

The Annoyed Man wrote:On the space station, you would hope that the body absorbing the bullets would stop them. Otherwise, everybody has a bad day.

That was my first thought...

tboesche wrote:Oberg sounds like a typical ANTI. "If only there were no guns....yada yada yada" Doesn't matter that there are hundreds of other ways to kill some one, I.E. steak knives, baseball bats, hammers, or that 3 million dollar special tool that NASA uses to whack things with.

Gimmee a break. That gun is no more of a threat than Marvin the Martian.."You have stolen my nuetron Detonator. I MUST destroy your planet".........

I am just surprised they have steak and baseball games on the station. I want to go now.

Also, the way I understand how NASA works, the hammer is the $3,000,000.00 tool they whack things with.

Seriously, some people just cannot get past the anti-gun social programming far enough to think rationally before they make totally ignorant statements. It is like not wanting pilots to carry guns.

QUOTE-It is like not wanting pilots to carry guns-END QUOTE.

Yeah, thats a good! .."HHHMMM, I feel the need to kill someone today, how about I take this gun and shoot 7 or 8 of my passengers!"

I guess it never dawns on the ANTI's that slamming a fully loaded 767 kills a few hundred at a time, but the bad evil gun can only kill a few.

Or to stay on topic, poppin open a pressure hatch and venting the atmosphere to space.

As others have said, it seems to me that there would be plenty of ways for someone that was unbalanced (thought as an aside, can one balance in space? Are all astronauts therefore unbalanced?) to sabotage the station. I can think of many many examples from science fiction.

Since handguns have been a constant presence on Soyuz for its entire history, isn't there already a pretty good track record?

I also recall when my childhood next door neighbor's daughter was marrying a fighter pilot (lost in 'Nam, but that's a whole 'nother story) he was trying for astronaut and he told us some stuff about the emergency survival kits they had, which included handguns and rifles.

I never questioned it, it made sense to me.

An even better track record.

WildBill wrote:Experts said the idea of an astronaut losing control was unthinkable until one year ago, when Lisa Nowak shattered the myth.
Her own attorney said she was insane when arrested for hunting down another woman, and prosecutors said she was heavily armed.

Waitaminute!! Regardless of her mental state, she had a BB gun, pepper spray, and a steel mallet. (whatever that is) That is hardly "heavily armed" by either Texas or Florida standards.

WildBill wrote:
"There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out -- that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions," Oberg said.

He sure is naive. That's one reason why the gun is there. At that point it's either one of them or all them.

ScubaSigGuy wrote:

WildBill wrote:
"There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out -- that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions," Oberg said.

He sure is naive. That's one reason why the gun is there. At that point it's either one of them or all them.

Scooby, that was my first thought too!

It was a Safety Device for the other members in the ISS Crew in the event that Vladimir decided that venting the oxygen was a good thing, after receiving a "Dear Ivan" email from home.

~Bill

Oh, come on guys. It's for the alien space-zombies.

WildBill wrote:

KD5NRH wrote:....and prosecutors said she was heavily armed.

Waitaminute!! Regardless of her mental state, she had a BB gun, pepper spray, and a steel mallet. (whatever that is) That is hardly "heavily armed" by either Texas or Florida standards.

I don't know about that. Maybe the steel mallet was really a 10lb sledge hammer?? Would that qualify as heavily armed?

Oberg is a loonie, he has been for years. Was a self proclaimed expert on Sov space program years ago.
Writes books and promotes their sales at every opportunity.
The weapon he refers to is similar to the one that OUR astronauts carried with them for years in case of
landing in the rough country and having to survive for a few days.

The 'gun' on the Soyuz is a sawed-off shotgun. It's for wild animals (ie wolves) if the Soyuz doesn’t land in its expected location.

Soyuz crews have been on their own for a few days, and it their weakened condition when returning from orbit, the Russians deemed a gun necessary.

I think the old AR-7 type would be perfect for that scenario