The situation between the United States and Russia has been deteriorating by the second. The circumstances have worsened to the point that now Russia is threatening to leave a US astronaut and abandon space station as well.
After the United States and its allies placed crushing sanctions on Russia, 20 years of space collaboration among the two countries may come to a halt. The Russian government declared on Friday that it may forsake a US astronaut who is scheduled to return to Earth.
According to Fox News, Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of the Russian Space Agency, has “threatened to leave” US astronaut Mark Vande Hei at the International Space Station (ISS), who is set to return to Earth on a Russian vehicle by the month’s end.
“Rogozin posted a threatening video on social media casting doubt over the astronaut’s safety. He also warned that without the help from Russia to move the ISS away from space junk, the station would crash into the U.S.,” reports the Express.
Space ties are deteriorating as the United States and its Western allies slam Russia’s economy with crippling sanctions in response to its special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow was so enraged by all this that they threatened to deorbit the ISS last month.
Former US astronaut Scott Kelly recently told ABC News that Russia’s warning to the welfare of Americans aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is “not really based on reality.”
“We do have the ability to control the orbit of the space station independent of the Russian space agency, so I don’t really see that happening,” Kelly said.
Potentially if the Russians desert the US crew and the ISS entirely, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has indicated that it could retain the ISS in orbit and even transport astronauts and supplies to and from Earth.
Vande Hei currently retains the record for the longest space journey (at 355 days). It needs to be seen if the Russians will permit him to board the spaceship heading for Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts in three weeks. If not, Musk may be able to deploy a rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft to the ISS.
The situation between the United States and Russia has deteriorated to the point that Rogozin has directed that flags of the United States and its allies be stripped off Russian rockets.
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This is comical! What will we ever do without Russia picking up astroNots from the greenscreen/virtual reality ISS theater!!??!! What a joke! Kelly even admits as much, and he’s a professional liar.
None Yun nails it! This just go to show how the the entire Ukraine-Russia-NATO-US-etc. etc. theater production is one big deception. I wonder if GGI will ever abandon the MSM bandwagon by quit promoting their BS narratives. One can hope…
Gosh if only we had some way to go up there and get our own damn astronaut back…oh wait we do… Russia, that is to say Putiboi is acting like a 10 year old bully. Seriously Putin, it is 2022 not 1940. The world is no longer pro war, you made a huge mistake and are trying to bury it in BS, which is also a mistake.