Given the invasion of Ukraine and how both the US and Russia regard the ISS with deep pride our abandoning it would send a strong message to Russia.  There is no moral or ethical way to continue the ISS program as if nothing has fundamentally changed in the world.

To hardcore space nerds human space flight is imperative to the future of humanity long term and to abandon ISS without replacement would be a crime against history.  Iss is to our time what the great Pyramid of Giza was to its time.  ISS is a wonder of the world and of history. We will all be considered lucky to have lived when it was built and to have even had as a physical possibility being able to see it in the sky much less one of the chosen few who worked on it.  However, the time for it has passed.

As a hard-core space nerd, myself, was an ISS astronaut right now I would do two things.  First, I would not hold this against anyone I work with directly.  They don’t control the madman.  Second, I would discretely suggest, in writing, in private, that all non-Russian astronauts be evacuated.   That would be the professional way to do it.


It is time for NASA to be brave and be assured we can do it without Russia as NASA did for so long before ISS.

Dimitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, has said that if the full sanctions are applied that ISS could crash somewhere in Europe or the United States.  He is not wrong on the physics eventually it would fall if not reboosted.  However, that would take a very long time to happen in an uncontrolled manner.    Russia could just have the freaking thing for a while.  If they then decide to let it deorbit in an uncontrolled way, it will be their fault. 


NASA leadership types tend to be really nice people.  So, they would never be ruthless enough to do this.  In 2014 NASA halted contact with Russia, except for International Space Station due to the seizure  of the Crimea.  Now there is nothing else left.

Someone needs to have the nerve to state the plain fact. Dimitry Rogozin is a jackass whose comments do not help the situation. Calling out someone being a jackass can help the situation.  Personnel on the ISS are literally untouchable where they are at least for months until things cool down a bit.  Meanwhile that jackass Dimitry can stew in it.

Some ISS astronauts or even Cosmonaut needs to be brave and tell Dimitry Rogozin to CAN IT if there is an expectation that cooperation will continue.  Meanwhile NASA needs to really seriously at least think about abandoning it first.  Just get in Crew Dragon hell even Soyuz and leave.  Let them have the damn thing, let them try to touch any American Astronaut who has to leave via their damn spacecraft.  In a world where France has taken a Russian cargo ship in the English Channel and Turkey is at least thinking about closing the straights to the Black sea to Russian military vessels. 

Indeed, Dimitry is one of those people who only sees kindness as weakness. Much like Putin appears to be at least when it comes to international relations. Kind people need to know when they are dealing with such a person or people and know how to tell them they are a SOB to their face or else get real aggression latter.  

 That was the lesson of the cold war.  Russia’s people are like most people’s having every kind of person.  On the whole the Russians I have known have been some of the most friendly, open, boisterous in their joy and their sorrow.  Of all the non-American peoples they are the most like Americans.  That was also a lesson of this period of peace and cooperation.

We need to let Russia know NOW that they have just started a new cold war with US.  We did not start it with them.  NASA needs to be brave and walk fully away from Roscosmos while Ukrainian men, women, and children, even volunteers from other countries hit the front and do what we Americans can’t lest we destroy the world.

The world has been divided once again in to an anti authoritarian sphere and an authoritarian sphere. The only way for long term, that is on the order of the rest of the century, peace and cooperation in space is for us to not cooperate at this point in time. 

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