US Astronaut Returns To Earth With Russian Cosmonauts After Record-Breaking Mission

A Nasa astronaut caught a Russian ride back to Earth on Wednesday after a US record 355 days at the International Space Station, returning with two cosmonauts to a world torn apart by war. From a report: Mark Vande Hei landed in a Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan alongside the Russian Space Agency's Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, who also spent the past year in space. Despite escalating tensions between the US and Russia over Vladimir Putin's war with Ukraine, Vande Hei's return followed customary procedures. A small Nasa team of doctors and other staff was on hand for the touchdown and planned to return immediately to Houston with the 55-year-old astronaut.

Even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Vande Hei said he was avoiding the subject with his two Russian crewmates. Despite getting along "fantastically ... I'm not sure we really want to go there," he said. It was the first taste of gravity for Vande Hei and Dubrov since their Soyuz launch on 9 April last year. Shkaplerov joined them at the orbiting lab in October, escorting a Russian film crew up for a brief stay. To accommodate that visit, Vande Hei and Dubrov doubled the length of their stay. Before departing the space station, Shkaplerov embraced his fellow astronauts as "my space brothers and space sister."

Now the challenging part

[MrNJ]

With direct air travel severed flying back to the US will be difficult.

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[NateFromMich]

With direct air travel severed flying back to the US will be difficult.

Yeah, if only this guy knew someone from an official aeronautics agency.

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[quenda]

With direct air travel severed flying back to the US will be difficult.

Yeah, if only this guy knew someone from an official aeronautics agency.

Yeah, if only that guy knew something about geography. Kazakhstan is not Russia. You can even book an American Airlines ticket out of there. (operated by Qatar air).
I doubt Kazakhstan ever had direct flights to the US. There were plans to launch a direct service this year, but that might have been delayed.

https://www.expedia.com/Flight... [expedia.com]

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[kot-begemot-uk]

Transfer in Turkey. No issues.

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[lumenistan]

Nah, should be fine. NASA has their own options here. The US would be escalating tensions by having them fly home with Spirit airlines...

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[istartedi]

Just for the heck of it, I put "flights from kazakhstan" in to DuckDuck.go. One of the links was to kayak.com and when I hit it, they showed a flight from "Tucson (TUS) to United States". LOL, is there a city in Kazakhstan that sounds like Tucson? What are they trying to tell us about Arizona?

Re: Now the challenging part

[JHutto]

No not really. They landed in Kazakhstan and not Russia, so unless I have missed something in the news he should be able to catch a flight back home with little to no issue

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[Deal In One]

Do they even take commercial flights back or a private NASA jet, so that any monitoring, etc can be done while in the air as well?

What happened to cancelling all things Russian?

[Arethan]

NASA must be capable of looking beyond the political virtue signaling nonsense.

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[lumenistan]

They didn't have a choice either way, as I understand it. It was either take the ride with the Russians, or leave the dude up there and take more time to maybe arrange for SpaceX to get it done later. Did you know of other practical options?

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[blahabl]

They didn't have a choice either way, as I understand it. It was either take the ride with the Russians, or leave the dude up there and take more time to maybe arrange for SpaceX to get it done later. Did you know of other practical options?

Yeah, the SpaceX option. What exactly is wrong with that? Oh, wait, it would mean throwing some extra money at the hated company which has embarassed any government-run or -contracted space program so hard the burn is felt in space. Better to give money to even Putin than to Musk. Forget I asked.

And speaking of which, why aren't we having SpaceX have a crew Dragon and Falcon 9 on standby, ready to fly a rescue mission within days/hours in case "sh*t happens"? Oh, same reason I guess.

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[JoshuaZ]

That would require having as you note, another Dragon on standby which we don't have. And the ISS has a limited number of places to dock/berth which would complicate that even further. Every single mission up to the ISS requires careful discussion between the various international partners about who will be using which ports when. As for your idea about motivation, NASA at this point definitely doesn't mind giving SpaceX money (look at how much they've given SpaceX for Artemis for example). But keeping a Dr

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[Baconsmoke]

The guy was already up there for the longest time in space at 355 days. Dude is 55 years old. He was ready to come home. But f-ck him so we can stick it to the russkies? Get over it dude.

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[Arethan]

Did you know of other practical options?

Golden parachute? But maybe that's reserved for C-level financial services executives...

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[JoshuaZ]

NASA must be capable of looking beyond the political virtue signaling nonsense.

There are official sanctions and they aren't "political virtue signaling nonsense" but deliberate attempts to actually damage the Russian economy and thus make it harder to continue its war on Ukraine. It seems like you are using "virtue signaling" in the common way to mean "actions I don't like or don't agree with." In this particular context, continued cooperation for the ISS was decided to be important enough and far enough from direct military use that it has continued, albeit with some stress. This is

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[JoshuaZ]

Valid point. Since it was talking about the actions of a government agency, I read it as implicitly about sanctions. But your reading may be more reasonable.

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[AmiMoJo]

It's hard to say how effective these sanctions are. The Rouble has almost recovered to where it was prior to them being introduced, but the long term effects may be worse than the initial short term shock.

Part of the problem is that Putin still has friends, e.g. the UK and India.

In Soviet Russia...

[CompMD]

Kazakhstan lands on YOU.

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[Aighearach]

In the west we have astronauts returning after record-breaking missions.

In Soviet Russia, returning mission record breaks cosmonauts.

Russian cosmonauts are now back

[Mazzella!]

Russian cosmonauts are now back after a long time in space, the commander updates them on the latest events:

Commander -As per President Putin we are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine. In fact, it's a conflict between Russia and NATO to determine who will dominate the world for the next hundred years.

Cosmonaut-What's the situation now?

Commander-We have lost more than 15,000 soldiers, 6 generals, 500 tanks, 3 ships, 100 planes and 1,000 trucks and armoured personnel carriers.

The shaken Cosmon

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[tlhIngan]

I had expected more along the lines of "Here's a gun, get out of the capsule and start fighting".

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[blahabl]

I had expected more along the lines of "Here's a gun, get out of the capsule and start fighting".

Actually they already have guns onboard Soyuz. In case they land somewhere in Siberia, the rescue teams take a day or two to find/get to them, and in the meantime, wolves, bears...

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[sysrammer]

I had expected more along the lines of "Here's a gun, get out of the capsule and start fighting".

Actually they already have guns onboard Soyuz. In case they land somewhere in Siberia, the rescue teams take a day or two to find/get to them, and in the meantime, wolves, bears...

That's interesting. I wonder if NASA capsules are equipped with spearguns?

Feeble joke aside, I decided to look it up. The Smithsonian has a rucksack "carried aboard Apollo 15 in July/August 1971.This rucksack #1 contained a survival radio, a survival light assembly, desalter kits, a machete, sunglasses, water cans, sun lotion, a blanket, a pocket knife, netting and foam pads."

Pretty much what I expected, except for the foam pads. And I couldn't find any details on what a "survival light assembly" is, unless

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[Aighearach]

They have to finish getting their assess kicked in Ukraine before they can get their asses kicked in Kazakhstan. Give them time.

Meh

[Anonymous Crowded]

A world torn apart by war. Drama

More accurate headline: Astronauts return from space mission, unsurprised that those in power are morons

Film at 11