“There are currently many side effects” from the war in Ukraine on space conquest and the situation aboard the International Space Station, said Stefan Barenski, editor-in-chief of Aerospatium magazine, on Friday afternoon, March 4, at franceinfo.
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franceinfo: What is the impact of the war in Ukraine on the conquest of space? Russia’s space agency has already stopped launching rockets from the French base Kourou in Guyana …
Stefan Barenski: There are many side effects at the moment. Russia’s space agency is threatening to withdraw from the International Space Station, but that cannot happen overnight. There is a very strong interdependence between the Russian part and the American-Japanese-European part of the station, which means that one part cannot function without the other. There was a lot of cooperation in the 1990s, mainly to save Russia and to avoid a brain drain to Iran or North Korea. It is interesting to see that the Russian space industry will find it difficult to survive without all the subsidies, all the currencies that it recovers through these cooperatives. In fact, when he retires from his programs, he shoots himself in the leg.
How is he on board the ISS?
This is a question I have been asking myself for several days. I have no information, because obviously no one is communicating on the issue. Everyone on Earth looks at their plan B, their capabilities. There are certainly different nationalities on board the station, but these are primarily crews, people who know each other, who have worked together for years and generally even friends. I think everyone on board is doing their job because the schedule is quite busy with all the experiments that need to be done. I guess there is some horror.
They do not consider the topic in your opinion?
They are still in contact with the earth, you can imagine that at this time there are things you do not say when you are in contact with employees of the Russian Space Agency on Earth. And there the situation becomes interesting, because in a few weeks a “Union” has to return to Kazakhstan with two Russians and an American on board. The question is, will the American be on this return flight, or are we considering another way to get him back to Earth?