US and Russian Astronauts Lift Off Together on ISS Mission
Is U.S.-Russia space cooperation indefensible during the Ukraine war or a vital diplomatic lifeline the world needs?
Above: The Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft achieves liftoff at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 14. Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The Spin
Anti-Russia narrative
The U.S.'s continued space partnership with Russia, while it continues to wage an aggressive war on Ukraine, is utterly indefensible. Given that the instigator of this bloody conflict uses its ISS presence as a propaganda tool, the U.S. must begin disengaging Russia from the space station and build its own control module to eliminate dependence on Russian thrusters.
Pro-Russia narrative
The success of this joint Russia-U.S. rocket launch proves that space cooperation between the two powers can hold even when politics on the ground gets ugly. Shared missions of this nature create the kind of diplomacy no summit or sanctions package can replicate. Ensuring this model of cooperation continues, therefore, is exactly what the world needs at this moment.
