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The relationship between the US and Russia is becoming increasingly strained as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues.

The precariousness is as far-reaching as space, with the future of the International Space Station (ISS) proving to be rather uncertain.

The US and many other countries have already imposed economic sanctions on Russia, which have spurred Russian space officials to pull out of a few responsibilities, like stopping the launches of Russian-built Soyuz rockets which carry astronauts to and from the ISS.

To make things worse, the head of Russia’s space agency and one of NASA’s famed former astronauts are in an all-out Twitter battle with name-calling and idle threats.

In one corner is the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, and in the other former astronaut Scott Kelly.

The ISS, which has been a beacon of international cooperation for more than two decades, is supposed to remain outside of geopolitical chaos, but alas.

According to Space, this is the moment it all got out of hand:

For example, last week, Rogozin tweeted out a video of technicians taping over the flags of the United States, Japan and other nations on the Soyuz rocket that was supposed to launch 36 internet satellites for the United Kingdom-based company OneWeb from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

That launch, scheduled for March 4, did not happen, because OneWeb and the U.K. government, which owns part of the company, declined to meet new demands imposed by Roscosmos.

“The launchers at Baikonur decided that without the flags of some countries, our rocket would look more beautiful,” Rogozin wrote in Russian. (Translation provided by Google; the below quotes are also Google translations of Russian-language tweets, unless otherwise indicated.)

At this point, Kelly jumped down Rogozin’s throat, referring to him with a casual name instead of his real name:

“Dimon, without those flags and the foreign exchange they bring in, your space program won’t be worth a damn. Maybe you can find a job at McDonald’s if McDonald’s still exists in Russia.”

It went on:

Rogozin fired back with a tweet that read, “Get off, you moron! Otherwise the death of the ISS will be on your conscience!”

That tweet was soon deleted, and Kelly asked for an explanation. “Dimon, why did you delete this tweet? Don’t want everyone to see what kind of child you are?” the former astronaut tweeted Monday (March 7).

Rogozin then condemned Kelly’s colloquial use of his name, this time in English, saying that he is being “defiant and destructive”.

He later added:

“Perhaps the dementia and aggression that you have developed is a consequence of the overload and stress of four flights into space. I invite you to undergo an examination at the Brain Institute of our Federal Medical and Biological Agency,”

Kelly spent about a year in space, visiting the ISS on three of his four spaceflights, which is why he is able to speak Rogozin’s mother tongue.

Per CNN, there was also a video of Russian cosmonauts floating inside the space station waving goodbye to NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who will need to make use of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30 to return to Earth:

“If he’s going to act like a child, then I’m going to treat him like one,” Kelly said.

“It’s just unimaginable that the Russian space program would leave a person behind in space that they were responsible for bringing home. I don’t see that happening.”

Kelly describes this situation as “the first Twitter argument I’ve ever had”.

He said that it was actually possible that Russia would leave an astronaut behind, in which case he hopes Vande Hei can find another way home.

Meanwhile, Rogozin’s responses are typical of his usual rhetoric:

In 2014, for example, when he was Russia’s deputy prime minister, Rogozin suggested that NASA use a trampoline to send its astronauts to the space station.

This was an expression of displeasure with sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Crimea; at the time, Soyuz spacecraft were the only vehicles capable of carrying astronauts to and from the orbiting lab.

He has also more recently suggested that the ISS could fall out of orbit and crash into the US or Europe as a response to the sanctions put on Russia, pointing out that the station’s orbit and location in space are controlled by Russian-made engines.

Anyway, this particular Twitter battle appears to be over as Kelly was blocked by Rogozin.

[sources:cnn&space]