Why were cosmonauts issued WEAPONS for their space flights?
In March 1965, the crew of the ‘Voskhod-2’ spacecraft was preparing to land when their equipment failed, forcing them to descend to Earth manually.
Cosmonauts Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov found themselves several thousand kilometers from their planned landing site, in the middle of a snowy taiga.They spent a day in the forest, relying solely on their own strength. By sheer luck, they avoided becoming prey to the predators that were abundant there.
Leonov recounted this story 14 years later: Had the ‘Voskhod’ crew had a means of self-defense back then, they would have felt much more at ease. The idea was approved and, in 1982, the non-automatic three-barrel ‘TP 82’ pistol was added to the emergency kit on the spacecraft.
Tula gunsmiths created a sort of "Swiss Army knife" that could be used to survive in extreme conditions, defend against wild animal attacks and forage for food. The barrels (two smoothbore 12.5-caliber barrels and one rifled 5.45-mm barrel) fired shot, flares and explosive rounds. A machete was hidden in the detachable stock.
About 100 ‘TP 82’ pistols in total were produced: they were part of the mandatory equipment on spacecraft and the ISS until 2007, when the ammunition for them expired.
