TROUBLE below may not mean trouble above. While Russia鈥檚 relationship with the rest of the world has been rocky since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in the spring, experts say the International Space Station, at least, may be untouched.
Space is hardly the most pressing consequence of Russia鈥檚 actions in Crimea, which most recently saw Ukraine grant self-rule to regions controlled by pro-Russian rebels.
In the US, however, the dispute raises spectres of the Cold War. Some fear that the rift is bad news for shared space projects, particularly the ISS as the US relies on the Russian Soyuz vehicle to get its astronauts there.
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Last week saw rumours that Russia was raising the stakes: a press official from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, mentioned that a vital training facility, where astronauts learn splashdown survival skills, might be relocated to Sevastopol in Crimea. The move would put NASA in a tight spot: if it allows its astronauts to travel to the city, it might imply US acceptance that the region belongs to Russia. If not, they couldn鈥檛 go to space.
But astronauts have little to fear from such conjectures, says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. When it comes to shared space projects, the US and Russia are too codependent to use them as bargaining chips. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e as mutually dependent on us as we are on them,鈥� says Pace.
Each country supplies vital services to the space station: Russia provides the propulsion system and owns the vehicles that ferry astronauts to and fro, but NASA is responsible for powering the station and manages many of the daily activities and experiments. Neither is capable of running the ISS on its own.
Even in a worst-case scenario where the two nations鈥� relationship completely fell apart, Russia probably wouldn鈥檛 strand US astronauts in orbit, says Pace. Meanwhile, NASA is now in the final stages of a long-term project to help commercial companies provide crewed launches to the ISS.
鈥淭he partnership is going to endure as long as we have diplomatic relations,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he fact that people continue to talk about potential ways the ISS might be put under pressure or taken hostage is a sign of the symbolic power that the station has.鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚SS is safe from US-Russia squabbles鈥�