In space, Russians and Americans remain ‘dear friends’

US:After nearly a week back on Earth, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei said Tuesday the relationship between US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts remained positive while on board the International Space Station, despite their countries’ animosity over Moscow’s February invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Vande Hei landed in Kazakhstan last Wednesday in a Russian capsule, along with cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

“About my relationship with my Russian crewmates, they were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine,” the American Vande Hei said during a press conference in Texas Tuesday.

“We supported each other throughout everything,” he said. “And I never had any concerns about my ability to continue working with them.”

Vande Hei said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was discussed on board the ISS, but “it was largely how they felt about things and those are things that I would prefer that they get to share directly.”

Moscow and Washington jointly manage the ISS, and NASA has said cooperation between the two countries’ space programmes has so far remained unaffected by their governments’ friction.

But Russian space authority head Dmitry Rogozin has been ramping up incendiary rhetoric on Twitter for weeks.

“If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling on US or European territory?” Rogozin wrote in a February tweet — noting that the station does not fly over much of Russia. – THE BANGKOK POST