Has NASA ever armed their astronauts with weapons of any kind while in space?

star_gazer

Lazer guns in case they encounter aliens. Mar 19 07, 4:44 PM

Arpeggionist

There was a great concern about the return of Apollo 13, since the LEM had a small nuclear reactor on board, and there was no way to control where the LEM was going to be released. (Had it fallen into Soviet territory, it might have been interpreted as an act of war.) All lunar modules were equipped with nuclear reactors, they were used as a power supply, but only Aquarius (the Apollo 13 LEM) was released in an uncertain place in Earth orbit. (The jetison of Spider, the Apollo 9 LEM, was controled. And all the other LEMs were left to crash onto the moon, where they'd be harmless to humans.) Mar 20 07, 3:10 AM