“If they were to do a near-term disentangling from the ISS, it would be to functionally give up their human spaceflight program. Given the symbolic nature in which Putin sees the space program, it seems unlikely that they would step away from that.”
For decades, Koplow says, the US Defense Department has benefited from contracts with space companies, making some satellites at least part-time military spacecraft, rather than buying their own fleets, the way the Navy has its own ships and the Air Force has its own squadrons.
While geopolitical rivalries have extended into space since the Sputnik era, now, in the aftermath of the ongoing Ukraine conflict, growing international tensions in space extend primarily from Russia, argues Scott Pace, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and executive secretary of theduring the Trump administration. “With the exception of the Russians, most countries seem to be on the same page in space.
Even during times of conflict, the International Space Station has served as a bridge between nations and cultures since the late 1990s, with astronauts working together. For now, Russia has agreed to continue crew swaps with the US to the ISS starting in September, with US astronaut Frank Rubio launching to the space station from Kazakhstan and with Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina launching from Florida along with NASA and Japanese astronauts.
Nevertheless, when the station’s lifetime comes to an end—whether that’s in 2028, 2030, or later—this kind of collaboration could end with it. “While it’s been a tremendous achievement that we’ve had humans in orbit continuously for over two decades now thanks to the ISS, and they’ve been able to do a lot of scientific experiments on it and because of it, in my opinion, its biggest legacy is the role it’s been playing as a diplomatic tool,” Samson says.
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