NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has learned from his wife that Dmitry Rogozin used Twitter to launch all sorts of bombing rhetoric about the future of long-term cooperation between the United States and Russia on the space station amid the Russian invasion. in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions. In his first public comments since returning to Earth last week after a 355-day space record, Vande Hei said Tuesday that he was never worried about his safety at the station or Russian spacecraft that flew him and two cosmonauts home. . “I never take these tweets as something I should take seriously,” he said. “I just had too much confidence in our collaboration so far to receive these tweets as anything other than something intended for a different audience than me.” As for the Russian crew members who recently joined the space station wearing yellow-blue suits, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, he said that the clothes were not intended as political comments. Instead, all three members went to the same university and yellow and blue are the colors of the school. He said the cosmonauts “had no idea that people would realize that it had to do with Ukraine. “I think they were a bit blind to it.” As for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said: “It was not an issue I avoided with my colleagues. They were not very big discussions. But I asked them how they felt and sometimes I asked them apt questions. But our focus was really on our common mission. “ After spending almost a year at the station, he said, he became attached to his colleagues from the United States and Russia. “They were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine. We support each other in everything. “And I never had any worries about my ability to continue working with them – very good professionals and technically capable and wonderful people.” The feeling seems to be mutual. At a reshuffle last week before going home, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said that while “humans have problems on Earth… in orbit, we are a crew”. Speaking in English, the Russian called the space station “a symbol of friendship and cooperation and a symbol of the future of space exploration.” He thanked “my space brothers and sisters” and praised NASA astronaut Thomas Marsburn, saying he would be a “professional ISS pilot.” Vande Hei now holds the record for the longest solo space flight by an American, a mark previously held by former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. As he did for Kelly and other astronauts, Vande Hei said, NASA will continue to monitor his health for the coming months and years to see what effect the space flight had on his body. After so much time in the weightless environment of space, he said returning to gravity was a challenge. “I was able to walk alone in eight hours,” he said, although he was “swaying.” He said it was “still uncomfortable”. As NASA prepares to send humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years, he said he wanted his flight to be “remembered as the record that was broken.” “I’m really looking forward to the next person doing something more and getting further and further away and exploring more, but I want to remember that as a stepping stone.”
