Did You Know Soviet Cosmonauts Carried a Bear-Killing Shotgun into Space?

universetoday.com ^ | Nancy Atkinson

[BenLurkin]

“Having a gun inside a thin-walled spacecraft filled with oxygen sounds crazy,” writes Simpson, “but the Soviets had their reasons. Much of Russia is desolate wilderness. A single mishap during descent could strand cosmonauts in the middle of nowhere.”

[TigersEye]

Some days you shoot the bear. Some days the bear shoves that little baby shotgun up your ягодицы.

[oblomov]

It’s a pen, not a pencil, but still...

http://youtu.be/iELKMNjZx9o

[MV=PY]

Hold my vodka. I want to try something...

[Joe Boucher]

gundog,
few years ago we visited the Log Resort at Priest Lake.
Talked to an employee there about hunting and he was a grizzley bear hunter up their and hunted only using a bow and arrow.
And during Bow season while hunting you can only have a Bow, no gun as a back up?????

[djf]

That’s what I was thinkin.
If it kills a bear, it would make kibbles outa an alien!

[chimera]

There was one Soyuz capsule that landed way off the Mark, by hundreds of miles. The cosmonauts had to fend off wolves until the recovery team arrived.

That was Voskhod 2. It was that one where Leonov did the first EVA. They had trouble getting back into their seats after the EVA to properly set the center of mass of the spacecraft, and that delayed the retrofire by about 46 seconds. That caused an overshoot of about 386 km, which took them into Siberia. They heard wolves howling in the distance but the main problem was cold, since the spacecraft had no heat after landing. A helicopter dropped supplies and warmer clothes but the ground rescue didn't occur until the next day. They built a shelter to stay another night in the forest with the rescue team until they came out on skis the next day a a helicopter took them back.

[gundog]

What State? Used to be the law in Oregon, but someone figured out that only the legislature could make those rules, not the fur and feathers boys. I suppose that if you got a shot off quietly with a bow, a grizzly could run in a direction conducive to your survival. That’d be one dicey bloodtrailing job, though. Pure adrenaline.

[Joe Boucher]

Priest Lake Idaho.
Waaaay up north nearly to the Canadian border.