Terry Virts, ex-NASA astronaut at ISS: We watched Russia bombing Ukraine in the winter of 2015, from space.
Russian crewmates later joined Putin’s party and backed the war. They knew the truth, but chose lies. 1/
Russian crewmates later joined Putin’s party and backed the war. They knew the truth, but chose lies. 1/
Virts: Russia’s using space to threaten nuclear war. Once on the ISS, I saw their laptop open to images of Aviano Air Base, a U.S. site.
We don’t do that. Our space work’s peaceful. Theirs felt like intel gathering. 2/
We don’t do that. Our space work’s peaceful. Theirs felt like intel gathering. 2/
Virts: Before launch, Russia had just invaded Crimea. I remember thinking Obama’s response was weak.
We should’ve hit Putin’s wallet in 2014 by building LNG infrastructure and selling gas to EU. A decade later, we’re still lagging. 3/
We should’ve hit Putin’s wallet in 2014 by building LNG infrastructure and selling gas to EU. A decade later, we’re still lagging. 3/
Virts: My Soyuz commander, Crimean, a “hero of Sevastopol”, would chant "Crimea is ours". His wife was Ukrainian. It felt like twisted imperialism. I was naive then, but even in 2014, it felt chilling. This isn’t 1939. 4/
Virts: Russia politicizes space. Trump and Elon are doing it too, turning science into politics. It's not about “Biden is terrible.” It’s F=ma. Physics. We should keep politics out of it as much as possible. 5X
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