Thursday, April 28, 2011

Russia’s TP-82 Space Gun

Russia’s TP-82 Space Gun WTF?
“   The three-barreled Toz TP-82 was carried into space by Soviet and Russian cosmonauts until 2006 when the ammunition expired and it was replaced with a regular semi-automatic pistol. The top two barrels chambered 12.5x70mm (about 40 gauge) shotshells and the lower barrel chambered 5.45x39mm. A canvas covered machete was designed to be used as the stock. ”

TP-82-Space-Gun

I would love to have been at the meeting when Comrade space flight contingency planner suggested this equipment, and explained the threat that made it necessary.  Really.  In the USA "Hey!  Guns in Space!  How cool would that be?" would suffice; but in Russia? Any ideas?

4/28/2011 01:17:00 PM 4 Comments

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4 comments:

toadold said...

Well it wasn't actually intended for use in space but was more in line as a survival weapon if the crew made it to the ground in a wilderness area, like Philadelphia, PA.

4/28/11, 1:24 PM
Kristophr said...

It's a survival rifle. Think Siberia.

Gagarin landed so far off course, that he needed to borrow a phone in a village to get recovered.

40 gauge is correct. But very strange. I suppose they used a weird caliber to make the ammo useless for any other purpose.

4/28/11, 11:46 PM
Fred Z said...

At no time did the Russians ever consider not taking weapons.

4/29/11, 1:30 PM
TimO said...

More interesting: Salyut3 was armed with an exterior 23mm aircraft cannon. It was tested and worked in space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3

The Salyut 3 station was equipped with a "self-defence" gun, which had been designed for use aboard the station, and whose design is attributed to Nudelman.[1] Some accounts claim the station was equipped with a Nudelman-Rikhter "Vulkan" gun, which was a variant of the 23 mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon, or possibly a Nudelmann NR-30 30 mm gun.[11] These claims have reportedly been verified by Pavel Popovich, who had visited the station in orbit, as Commander of Soyuz 14.[11] Due to potential shaking of the station, in-orbit tests of the weapon with cosmonauts in the station were ruled out.[1] The gun was fixed to the station in such a way that the only way to aim would have been to change the orientation of the entire station.[11][1] Following the last manned mission to the station, the gun was commanded by the ground to be fired; some sources say it was fired to depletion,[11] while other sources say three test firings took place during the Salyut 3 mission.[1]

4/29/11, 10:12 PM

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