“All three of them happened to be related to the same university and I think they were a bit blind to it,” he told a news conference. Vande Hei said he did not hesitate to discuss the war with his ISS colleagues. “It was not a big discussion, but I asked them how they felt and sometimes I asked them sharp questions, but our focus was on our mission together.” Vande Hei landed in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft on March 30 after a 355-day record in space. He traveled behind the space station with cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.
Geopolitical tensions
His return from the ISS was highly anticipated and caught unprecedented attention due to growing geopolitical tensions fueled by Russian Space Agency chief Dmitry Rogozin, who made several fiery postings on social media targeting the United States. That included Rogozin retweeting a partially animated video that appeared to threaten that Russian astronauts would abandon Vande Haye in space. Rogozin also took part in a Twitter brawl with retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who held the record for the longest time by an American astronaut until Wade Haye overtook him. Vande Hei said he heard about the tweets from his wife. “I never took these tweets as something I should take seriously,” he said, adding that he saw the tweets being addressed to a “different audience” than him. “I just did not spend a lot of emotional energy paying attention to it. I heard it. I laughed a bit and moved on,” he said. On Saturday, Rogozin suggested in a series of tweets that Russia could end cooperation with the ISS due to international sanctions in Moscow, and said that Russia would prepare “concrete proposals to our country’s leadership” on the possibility of ending it. cooperation in the ISS with space services. the United States, Canada, the European Union and Japan. NASA said, “The business relationship between our international partners, astronauts and cosmonauts continues for the safety and mission of all passengers on the ISS.” Other parts of Russia’s space program have been affected by the war in Ukraine. The country’s Mars rover project with the European Space Agency is on hold.
Russian crew colleagues “dear friends”
Vande Hei refused to reveal how the Russians felt on the ship about the invasion of Ukraine. “These are things I would rather share directly than share how they feel about it,” he said. She said the invasion itself was “heartbreaking, very sad” and she felt “powerless” to learn it while living in space. Vande Hei said he did not change his feelings for his Russian colleagues. “They were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine. We supported each other in everything. And I never had any worries about my ability to continue working with them.” On landing after his record-breaking mission, Vande Hei said he was able to walk after about eight hours, although he said he was swaying. He also said he was happy to eat some guacamole for the first time in a year and was shocked at how normal it felt to return to Earth after so long in space. “It’s a little disappointing how normal you feel.” CNN’s Rachel Crane and Ross Levitt contributed to this report.
