Feels a bit excessive. Wolves and brown bears generally avoid humans. Polar bears see us as food but brown bears do not.

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tliltocatl 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

26 fatalities due to bear attacks this year: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/28211259 https://eia.media/ru/article/society/6aa937759a7947f75201876... https://www.rbc.ru/society/15/09/2026/6aa937759a7947f7520187... This year bear encounters made headlines in Russia, but the number of fatalities isn't unusual. Records is 80/year in 1985, 1986 and 1996. Brown bears don't see us as food as long as there is some other food available. If food is scarce this year (some random dude on the internet says that there were an early thaw followed by freeze in 2024 that cause pine cone yield in 2026 to fail) they might attack. Either out of desperation or when encountered over a food source (i. e. garbage dump) and mistakes a human for a competitor.

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wongarsu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You might be underestimating how remote some Soviet capsules landed. If they overshot their landing site they might be alone in the wilderness for days until rescue teams arrived

"Kosmonaut survives space mission, gets mauled by bear protecting her cub" is not a great headline. Bringing gun was relatively cheap insurance

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Geezus_42 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Might need something to eat if you have to wait a few days for the rescue team to reach you.

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Someone 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Want, not need. A few days without food is quite survivable for a healthy human. And if you get selected for a space flight, you are healthy.

	▲	TeMPOraL 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That works if you have absolute trust the rescue team will reach you on schedule. If you are unsure whether few days won't turn into few weeks, or whether there will be a rescue team at all, it's best to secure food and shelter while you still have the energy to do it.

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mattmaroon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Gun and bear solves that problem too.

	▲	cucumber3732842 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		"So the bad news is we're responsible for our next meal, but the good news is Ivan's space food farts will lead the meal right to us"

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TeMPOraL 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A gun helps with that, too.

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dimview 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Brown bears attack people in Russia quite frequently [1].

[1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/09/11/russia-has-a-bear-pr...

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SapporoChris 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it's important not to overgeneralize with something that might potentially kill you. The brown bears in Japan can be deadly. A 380 kg and 2.7-m-tall brown bear, which twice attacked the village of Tomamae, killing 7 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussuri_brown_bear#Interactions...

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themaninthedark 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What about lunar bears or Saturn bears? Those seem to be heavily armed.

https://youtu.be/pvjgIxuVdo4?is=7sF64RM0qTNqJguw

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grosswait 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you’re a pilot or cosmonaut in Siberia, you might not have come down as planned and might be there for a while. An injured, possibly bleeding human could be easy prey. They also have tigers…

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Hnrobert42 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Generally" implies there are exceptions. Would hate to be unprepared.

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jeltz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course there are exceptions but ticks kill more people than bears and wasps kill way more people.

	▲	SAI_Peregrinus 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ticks and wasps are much, much more common than bears.

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matkoniecz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Landing in remote part of Siberia is not a typical situation and many typical assumptions do not apply.

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cykros 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's never excessive to carry a gun.

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Ylpertnodi 35 minutes ago | parent [-]

TSA says no.

	▲	thephyber 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Sky marshals have weapons and the TSA allows them. Being an astronaut means you are trusted with extreme responsibilities and it also means extreme oversight. That's part of why the selection process is so thorough and stress response is so well evaluated before NASA will put a person in space. Reading the parent's comment pedantically is useless and against this site's guidelines. Reading it more charitably + less literally makes more sense.