In order to place three US astronauts on board for a six-month stay, NASA’s Crew-8 spacecraft just docked with the International Space Station.
A video of their arrival captured them giving each other a group hug in microgravity.
However, Alexander Grebenkin, a Roskosmos cosmonaut, was also a passenger.
Saying that US-Russian ties are at their worst point since the height of the Cold War is not editorializing.
However, despite their differences, they have always had a long and illustrious heritage of peaceful cohabitation and cooperation in space.
In the video, NASA Crew-7 mission commander Jasmin Moghbeli and Soyuz-24 mission flight engineer Marina Vasilevskaya are seen swarming around Crew-8 mission commander Matthew Dominic,
who is clearly happy that their colleagues arrived at the International Space Station safely. They are also likely excited over the simple sight of new faces.
When Dominic realizes, just in time, that if he didn’t stop them, they would all suffer nasty bumps on their heads, the three astronauts’ group hug starts to float up toward the ceiling.
After that, Dominic approaches Soyuz-24 mission commander Oleg Kononenko, and the rest of his crew follows suit, giving hugs to everyone who is wearing red, white, and blue as well as white, blue, and red.
Entering the Crew capsule Endeavor with Grebenkin, NASA astronauts Dominick, Michael Barratt,
and Jeanette Epps spent six months there as a stand-in for the Crew-7 mission team, which had arrived in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance.
This was the Endurance’s fifth trip, making it the first SpaceX Crew Dragon to accomplish that feat.
The craft is now certified for a maximum of five flights, but according to Space News, the business
has met with NASA to discuss potentially extending that certification to up to fifteen missions, depending on performance.
Astronauts have a distinct perspective on the world, both physically and symbolically. Every day, as they look down on our world from low-Earth orbit,
they acknowledge—and they all claim to—that space is an extremely hostile place, and that all of humankind’s resources and needs are centered on this one planet, leaving no other options.
You can see in the movie what they think of the present difficulties in US-Russian relations, and maybe we could all learn from them.