ATLANTA – NASA Administrator Bill Nelson played down recent comments by the head of Russia´s space agency that the United States would have to use broomsticks to fly to space after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to US companies.
“That´s just Dmitry Rogozin. He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he´s worked with us,” Nelson told The Associated Press.
“The other people that work in the Russian civilian space program, they´re professional. They don´t miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission control.”
Nelson spoke with The Associated Press hours before three Russian cosmonauts launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station, the first crew launch since Russia´s military operation in Ukraine in February.
The war has resulted in canceled spacecraft launches and broken contracts, and many worry Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.
Besides threatening to pull out of the space station and drop it on the US, Europe or elsewhere, Rogozin had the flags of other countries covered on a Soyuz rocket awaiting liftoff with internet satellites.
The launch was called off after the customer, London-based OneWeb, refused his demands that the satellites not be used for military purposes and the British government halt its financial backing.
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