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By Terry Virts
The promise of the International Space Station was so exciting in the 1990s. After a decades-long rivalry that nearly went nuclear, America and Russia were launching one of the most impressive scientific projects in history for the good of all mankind. But as Russia relapsed into dictatorship, the dream of the ISS turned into a dark nightmare.
As a former commander of the space station who flew with Russian cosmonauts, seeing my one-time comrades turn into Putin loyalists and supporters of the invasion of Ukraine was revealing. It taught me a critical lesson about how seemingly normal people—men and women I’d considered friends—can be willing tools for evil.
From Partner to Pariah
When work on the ISS began in earnest, the Soviet Union had just collapsed. The Cold War was over and friendship and cooperation were the vibe. By the time modules actually began flying in 1998, both sides were deep into the daunting task of assembling the ISS in orbit while flying at 17,500 miles per hour.
Throughout the 2000s, a stream of Space Shuttles, Soyuz capsules, and cargo ships launched from Earth to build the massive space station, which eventually grew larger than a football field. The ISS partnership was a 15-nation coalition, including Europe, Japan, and Canada, alongside the US and Russia. Life was busy for the astronauts, cosmonauts, engineers, and scientists as we worked hard to build and operate the ISS. The hazards of space united us while the US-Russia rivalry belonged to the history books.
Yet disturbing developments down on Earth threatened to upend our utopia up in space.
Vladimir Putin decided to remain in power after his constitutionally mandated presidential terms ended in 2008, rotating into the Russian prime ministership while clinging to the real levers of influence. That same year, Moscow began a brutal invasion of Georgia, a young democracy located just to Russia’s south. Putin’s troops killed thousands there, repeating a playbook developed in Chechnya and Moldova in the 1990s and early aughts when the West was enticed by the prospect of cooperating with the new Russia. Facing little serious resistance, Russia would soon continue its pattern of death and destruction in Syria, and, of course, Ukraine. All while Vladimir Putin continued to rule Russia with an iron fist, hiding behind the facade of fake elections and suppressing the last vestiges of freedom.
At first, I thought that this was just a phase and that Russia would eventually gravitate back to the democratic world. I had lived and worked and even flown into space with Russian cosmonauts on Soyuz capsules launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was difficult to grasp that people whom we counted as friends and trusted colleagues were working for an evil regime. But as Russia’s slide towards authoritarianism continued, it became clear that Moscow was no longer a partner, but a dictatorship and an adversary.
Choosing Comfort Over Conscience
In January 2015, I found myself in orbit aboard the Russian segment of the space station with my cosmonaut colleague Aleksander “Sasha” Samokutayev. One night, Sasha and I watched the European city lights quietly drift by through the hatch window. As we flew over eastern Ukraine, we saw red flashes down below. Seeing bombs exploding on Earth from the ISS shocked me, and the two of us stared on in stunned silence. It was an incredibly sobering moment.
Growing up in the US with the privileges of freedom, I understand that my peers in Russia can’t criticize their leaders as we Americans can without risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones. So I didn’t pass judgment on Sasha when he failed to resist the Russian war machine responsible for those deadly red flashes we’d watched together from space.
But Sasha didn’t simply stay silent on Putin’s oppression and the invasion of Ukraine. He enthusiastically enabled both.
Today, Sasha Samokutayev—my old friend—is a member of the Russian parliament, the Duma. He entered as a member of Putin’s United Russia party. Two other cosmonauts with whom I flew—Max Suraev and Yelena Serova—also joined the Duma with United Russia. As loyal pro-Putin politicians, they’ve supported aggression against Ukraine and the Russian dictator’s oppressive agenda at home.
These are men and women who know better. They have lived in the West, trained with American and European astronauts, speak English, and have been sufficiently exposed to foreigners and non-Russian media to know that Putin’s lies are just that: lies. And yet they decided that fancy SUVs, bougie apartments in Moscow, plum jobs for their kids, and the promise of more spaceflights are worthwhile tradeoffs for supporting an evil regime and an evil war.
Seeing my former friends and crewmates sell their souls to Putin has been one of the saddest and most maddening experiences of my life. Watching Sasha, Max, and Yelena (as well as other cosmonauts) turn to the dark side is not representative of something that only happens in Russia but a troubling lesson about how normal, intelligent people can support a tyrant in exchange for some creature comforts. It can happen anywhere, and we need to recognize that.
Cutting Russia Loose
It has become tragically clear that there are serious limitations to the political benefits of our ISS partnership with Russia. It has not made Russia more free and it has not prevented their illegal invasion and barbaric destruction of Ukraine. It’s important to be clear-eyed about how cooperation in space relates to life down here on Earth.
Yet US-Russia cooperation in space continues, even as Russia savages Ukraine while threatening America and her allies, and Kyiv fights back with US-made weapons. It’s bizarre, the equivalent of doing a joint German-American arctic expedition in 1940. Most of all, it’s out of step with reality.
Therefore I believe there are a few steps we should take to fundamentally change the ISS partnership.
First, American astronauts should stop flying on Russian capsules, while Russian personnel should not be welcome aboard American spacecraft.
Next, we should dramatically limit the amount of travel NASA employees do to Russia, which presents serious risks to their personal safety and US national security. Though a basic level of cooperation is necessary to keep the ISS in orbit, we should limit it to the bare minimum while halting joint scientific projects.
Finally, future space exploration should be pursued without Russia or any other blatantly authoritarian countries.
I am tremendously proud of the work that I did as an astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station. And I am proud of the thousands of my colleagues who joined me. This disengagement would be a small loss compared with the tremendous human loss in Ukraine—though I do feel the loss of those friendships with my Russian colleagues. But we all need to adjust to reality.
Ten years ago, there were many Russian cosmonauts among my close circle of friends and colleagues. Now, I work closely with many Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland. It is time for NASA and the US government to follow that same course.
Our cosmic collaboration with Russia has proven a poor investment, and the relationship is past its best-by date. Even some of our closest Russian partners—cosmonauts whom I and many other Americans trusted with their lives—have shown us their true colors.
We should believe them.
Colonel Terry Virts is a retired US Air Force fighter pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut who has spent over 213 days in space, including serving as commander of the International Space Station (ISS).
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