Space Gun

Trust the Russians to come up with an idea like this. Does NASA arms its astronauts just in case their have to come down in hostile territory? Or their space craft are attacked by rampaging alien scum?

Russia is sending a cosmonaut into space without a fearsome triple-barrelled "space pistol" for the first time in 20 years, due to a shortage of ammunition.

No mention of the calibre, capacity or anything of the sort.

Created in 1982 and in service since 1986, the TP-82 pistol was not primarily designed to fend off hostile extra-terrestrials.

Of course not.

The unique pistol has three barrels which fire hunting rounds as well as rifle bullets and signal flares. Its butt serves as a machete and a spade.

However, the gun's original ammunition has deteriorated so much it is no longer viable and no new bullets are available.

I presume he means cartridges. But why not? Can't this reporter even give us the details that matter?

Nevertheless, the cosmonaut will not risk going into space completely unarmed. "Malenchenko will be taking with him a simple pistol," a Russian space official said.

His will not be the only weapon on board the flight. ISS crew commander and US astronaut Peggy Whitson will be wielding a "kamcha" - a traditional Kazakh horse-whip, which a Russian space official advised her to take "as a symbol of a commander's authority on board".

"I do not believe I will have to use it," she said in Russian with a smile yesterday. "Well, let's have it, just in case."

Pistols, an intrepid female astronaut and a horse-whip. Half-way to a classic sci-fi movie. And while the Telegraph does seem to think that its readers deserve technical details there are other sources-

The triple-barrelled gun can fire flares, shotgun shells, or rifle bullets, depending on how it’s loaded. The gun and about 10 rounds for each barrel are carried in a triangle-shaped survival canister stowed next to the commander’s couch. The gun’s shoulder stock opens up into a machete for chopping firewood.

This according to Wikipedia-

The upper two smoothbore barrels use 12.5 mm caliber ammunition, and the lower rifled barrel use 5.45 mm caliber ammunition.

The latter is the same calibre as the AK-74 and is easily obtained (unless the Soviets decided to go for some weird round, which doesn't seem like the sort of thing they'd do back in the early '80s)- and the 12.5mm shotshells (just a bit bigger than .410) wouldn't appear to be too hard to find either. There's also a Russian revolver chambered in that calibre for example. So the "impossible to find ammo" story doesn't quite ring true for me. Perhaps their "simple pistol" is in fact a super-dooper secret ray gun. We can always hope so. BTW, here's an image of the TP-82 in question from The Firearm Blog-