By now, most folks have heard about the recent experiences of the American astronauts who finally returned to Earth a couple of days ago. They had been stranded on the International Space Station after the Columbia disaster, and hitched a ride home on a Russian Soyuz space vehicle. Their craft landed a couple of hundred miles off-target, which may serve to illustrate the wisdom behind the following bit of crew provisioning :
Eleven years before that, two cosmonauts overshot their touchdown site by 2,000 miles and found themselves deep in a forest with hungry wolves. That’s when Russian space officials decided to pack a sawed-off shotgun aboard every spacecraft.
Plus, they are well protected against hijackers and as a bonus will have half a chance if they should ever land on the planet of the apes.
There are no known cases of wolves killing
or eating adult humans. :o)
Still, that’s no reason not to supply a
spaceship with firearms.