NASA
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SPACE – A symbol of peace. The International Space Station has been home to astronauts from 19 different countries working side by side in space for more than 20 years. A fragile coalition that could break apart as tensions between Russia and the United States, the station’s two main partners, reach levels not seen in years. The United States imposed sanctions on Russia on Tuesday February 22 in response to threats from Vladimir Putin in the crisis in Ukraine.
“We want to send an unequivocal message: the United States and our allies will defend every bit of NATO territory,” hammered US President Joe Biden. But what about the space field? The space station “could be a high point in relations between the United States and Russia,” said Scott Pace, director of the Institute for Space Policy at George Washington University quoted by the Washington Post.
The ISS collateral victim of an armed conflict
The question of space has already recently taken a warlike turn. Russia destroyed on November 15, 2021 the Cosmos-1408 satellite. A huge cloud of 1,500 pieces of debris then threatened the space station, and NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts had to huddle in the craft. The United States immediately implicated Russia, dismissing the hypothesis of an accidental explosion. Moscow quickly recognized a voluntary act.
“If an armed war were to arise, I think it would be difficult for the ISS to survive,” former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman told CNN in late January. However, through this international partnership, the old space station must survive for at least another ten years. NASA wants to extend its operations until 2030 before handing over to commercial companies that will develop their own ships.
NASA has already awarded three contracts; including one to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to begin development of these commercial stations. But we don’t know yet when they will be ready. And Russia has still not accepted the six-year extension of the international space station proposed by the Biden administration.
“Survival transcends politics”
While current tensions are expected to complicate plans to extend the station’s existence, daily life on the ISS is expected to remain unchanged. American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts depend on each other: “The Russian segment cannot function without the electricity on the American side, and the American side cannot function without the propulsion systems which are on the Russian side,” Garrett recalled. Reisman.
“Survival transcends politics,” said astronaut Steve Swanson. He says that this interdependence even extends to the water supply of astronauts: “We recycle the urine of cosmonauts to obtain more water to drink for ours (American astronauts Editor’s note)”. An unbreakable bond unites men in space, which makes Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA, say that the ISS is like a “beacon of peaceful international scientific collaboration”.
A pacifism that persisted even when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a decision opposed by the United States. “It simply came to our notice then. It was like nothing was going on, Steve Swanson told CNN. Another astronaut, Rick Mastracchio, admits to approaching the subject with cosmonauts but without “pointing fingers or accusation.”
See also on The HuffPost: In Ukraine, This Multilingual Reporter Will Impress You
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