The Space Mutiny. No screams, official announcements, bombastic declarations. Actually only in silence. The three Russian cosmonauts who boarded the ISS aboard the Soyuz Ms21 Friday night needed a suit change. In flight they were filmed in blue uniform. But upon entering the ISS, the three presented themselves in yellow with obvious blue stripes. An overly explicit message, even to the Russia that sent them into space (and may now keep them there even beyond the months allotted for the timetable), seeks to deny that the act was premeditated. “Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” Moscow space agency Roscosmos said. And that Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov prevent all from the same university, Bauman, which has these colors in the logo. A “creaky” justification, especially when packaged a posteriori. Artemyev, for his part, accompanied the election with a cryptic sentence and a big smile: «It is our turn to choose a colour. And indeed we had accumulated a lot of yellow material that had to be used. That’s why we had to wear yellow.”
Not an overt challenge, a muted but clear sign. The three hugged their seven fellow adventurers. Compatriots Anton Kaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, German Matthias Maurer from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Americans Raya Chari, Thomas Mashburn, Kayla Barrow and Mark Vande Hei from NASA. The Russian attack on Ukraine blew up the international plan for the Mars mission, which was canceled but cooperation between space agencies to manage the ISS remained open. Also because these seven people have been in orbit and four more will arrive in April, including our Samantha Cristoforetti.
In Moscow, the trumpet call for “the first allRussian crew to arrive on the ISS in 14 years” soon gave way to an awkward silence for the image of the Kremlin’s three flagbearers greeting the world in the colors of Ukraine. A silent plea for peace in the eyes of those “space professionals” who are used to preparing missions in silence for months and observing our planet from above. From up there, the attack on the Kremlin in recent weeks must have seemed even more absurd and inexplicable. Here we wrestle with the motives and hidden ambitions of a tsar who chose to upset the balance and world peace. From space it must seem unimaginable and hallucinating.
In 1957, the Russians sent the dog Laika into orbit on Sputnik 2. He had to “experience” life in space. With no chance of survival. Today, the mutiny of the three cosmonauts is a definite “Mayday” hurled homeward. Respect Ukraine. make peace Hoping that Moscow will see a different fate for the three cosmonauts than poor Laika.