Cannon space back to the Cold War?

After a quarter-century after the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and finally about the weapon that Russia sent into space revealed!

Popular Mechanics site interested in space technology, claimed to have been installed cannon R-23M Kartech the Almaz space station in 1970, as derived from the idea of ​​the gun A powerful weapons used in military aircraft.

The original 23-caliber gun originally designed for air launcher Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder, before they can be modified to fit with the new uses of the space.

And at the disposal site, the story of the gun has been kept secret all these years, until the Russian Zvezda TV channel width clip him, so he in turn Popular Mechanics model for the gun industry R-23M.

According to the site, the Soviet Union has long lived under America's obsession with eavesdropping on industrial and targeting of its moons, what he paid for the development of counter-weapons.

The "Diamond" cosmodrome first candidate to embrace the space weapons, because of the nature of its functions, which centered on the survey, in addition to the possession of a number of cameras and radars.

Was assigned to the Office of the KB Tochmash designs in Moscow, headed by Alexander Nudelman the task of developing the weapon, known as the Office for his achievements in the development of aviation weapons since World War II, and in order to achieve this task, a team Nudelman developed a 14.5-caliber machine gun can goals after injury 2 mi.

But because of space physics, the cannon had problems reduced its capabilities, although the astronauts they could fire from Mqsourathm using endoscopes, it they had to guide the cannon's weight 20 tons toward the goal.

Popular Mechanics claimed that the Kremlin made in the "Diamond" project, but he wanted disguised behind the guise of a civilian, for the integration of the project within 7 satellite stations civilian named "Salyut", but in fact three of the seven projects was a spy stations satellite, but soon What I discovered intelligence Western countries that fact, even though the "Diamond" under the program officially runs until the end of the Cold War.

It has been experimenting with the shooting of the cannon on January 24, 1975, so she launched the vehicle 20 shell of the cannon and burnt all after its launch.

Was later detected the possession of "Diamond" for interceptor missiles next to the cannon, but they were not used because the project was canceled in 1978