Russia threatens criminal charges against NASA astronaut

Russia is threatening criminal charges against NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor for allegedly drilling a hole in the Soyuz module back in 2018 while it was docked to ISS. Months ago they violated her privacy by disclosing that she suffered from deep vein thrombosis during her mission and postulated that this caused her to have a mental breakdown and drill a hole in the capsule to force her crew to come back to earth early. Now the conspiracy theory is that she had an unsuccessful attempt at a romantic relationship with another crewmember and this drove her to drill the hole. NASA says they know their astronauts were all on the US side of the station when the leak started and that none of them could even be responsible.

This seems like more baseless retaliation in an attempt to deflect blame after a series of events where Russia has endangered ISS. Russia also seems desperate to pull out of the ISS program after the success of SpaceX's crew Dragon capsule, which has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of Soyuz seats that NASA needs to buy to keep at least one NASA astronaut on ISS at all times. NASA has also been bargaining to do ride sharing where one cosmonaut will occasionally ride on the crew Dragon paid for by NASA in exchange for one NASA astronaut riding on Soyuz paid for by Russia. This means even less direct money transfers to the Russian space program, and frankly they became dependent on it during and after the end of the shuttle program. Now they seem to be doing everything they can to sabotage the relationship that built the ISS in an attempt to free themselves of their obligations to fly Soyuz and Progress capsules on a routine basis.
[link to arstechnica.com (secure)]

Last Edited by Astromut on 11/30/2021 11:18 AM