It was purportedly (and probably in actuality) intended as a survival aid to be used after landings and before recovery in the Siberian wilderness, although allegedly was intended as a defensive weapon against in-space attacks by the US space program.
Would this actually work effectively in space?
Why wouldn’t it?
Ed: the only thing that might not work is gunpowder in vacuum due to lack of oxygen, but gunpowder has oxidiser included, so yes it would.
I had to look up whether gunpowder requires oxygen to burn (it doesn’t)
if it needed oxygen from the air it would have to breathe, the explosion happens inside the barrel before it mixes with the atmosphere
Ah! This is true and more precise
Heat dissipation is an issue since there’s no air around to cool the barrel, although for this three shot weapon (two shotgun one rifle) it wouldn’t be a problem. This gun is mostly to fend off bears when you land in Siberia.
Recoil would be a removed though lol
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Yes, I guess? But firing a gun inside a spacecraft would be a bad idea… and also firing it while spacewalking would be a bad idea unless you were very sure that you were very well braced & tethered.
Or the gun is just an emergency propulsion system in case you lose your tether…
Crazy enough plan to be Russian.
You could load it with very small, light, or soft pellets, they don’t need to be very damaging to make a hole in a suit which would be near certainly fatal.
Well, considering that many early spacecraft and space stations were running oxygen rich atmospheres, it would probably mean the end of anyone involved in a rather spectacular fireball.
I’d kind of hope everyone would know better than that after the disastrous Apollo I fire.