# Weapons on Mars?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weapons-on-mars/384879>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 20, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weapons-on-mars/384879 "2006-12-20T03:49:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2006, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weapons-on-mars/384879/41 "2006-12-23T08:44:02Z")

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[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]  
Manifest weights were calulated down to the kilogram. Nobody was lugging on any extra firearms along. (Stamps, however, were another issue, as Jack Swiggart discovered.) It was not possible that the LEM would survive significantly longer than the mission capability planned in the batteries, a fact that any “space geek” should know. Should the Apollo XXI landing have failed in some way, Armstrong and Aldrin would be dead, a fact that was reality to the people at Mission Control–read Gene Kranz’s autobiography on the subject.

There were no firearms on the LEM, to be certain. Please check your errant suppositions against reputable sources before spouting urban legands and other nonsense.

Stranger  
[/QUOTE]  
Chill, man. I _never_ said that it was an absolute certainty that they _had_ firearms onboard. Nor, given the aptly demonstrated uselessness of same on the _Moon_ can I see any justification for them putting any on the LEM. The capsule is a _ **possibility** _, but _ **not** _ a certainty. (The astronauts were allowed a small amount of weight for personal items. Buzz used his for a communion kit, Irwin, IIRC, brought a tape recorder, whazzis name on 14 brought stuff to test ESP.)

Nor did I state that it _would_ be possible for them to tap into the LOX tanks of the ascent stage to survive. It _is_, however, most certainly a _fact_ that had something gone wrong on any of the Apollo missions with two men being stranded on the Moon that Mission Control would have done everything possible to get them home again. Witness Apollo 13, where they worked by the seat of their pants to keep the crew alive. The conditions on the stack were **nothing** that they had simulated, since everyone thought that such an accident would be immediately fatal.

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