Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cosmonauts-arrive-at-iss-in-colours-of-ukraine-flag-6rwcltmjt

by leephillips • 4 years ago

76 34 4 years ago

thetimes.co.uk

app4soft3• 4 years ago

Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag

TL;DR: This is sorta of Russia's kidding like “Russian inside «Ukraine» suit with a Russian Federation flag on top of it” — deep meaning: “Russia want to occupy Ukraine in whole.”

JFTR, I'm Ukrainian living in Ukraine. Here is my statement for HN:[0]

+ Verified Ways to Help Ukraine - https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/27/verified-ways-to-help...

+ My Patreon - https://patreon.com/app4soft

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

OJFord3• 4 years ago

What leads you to that interpretation?

I don't know if you hit the paywall perhaps, but the article says:

[...] in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war.

[my emphasis]

The colour scheme and its dramatic divergence from usual dress codes drew gasps from Nasa officials and members of Nasa’s astronaut corps. “Wow. Just wow,” said Terry Virts, a former US commander of the ISS.
Artemyev, the commander, joked in Russian that there was “a lot of yellow material accumulated at the warehouse” when the flight suits were made.

app4soft3• 4 years ago

What leads you to that interpretation?

Man, huh, I'm Ukrainian living in Ukraine & I know how Russian propaganda works.

N.B. Just now is a morning of Day25[0] of full scale Russo-Ukrainian war.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War

earleybird2• 4 years ago

Something seems odd with this. You don't just walk into TSUM a week or two before launch and pick up a new jump suit.

debrice• 4 years ago

Interesting perspective, could you elaborate?

iancmceachern• 4 years ago

It's taken decades for NASA to refine and release their new space suit. This is a flight suit, so it may be a bit different, but it's not as if one walks into any old tailor and asks for a new flight suit. There has to be lead time, approvals, etc. involved

earleybird2• 4 years ago

ISS missions are planned months if not years in advance so a last minute wardrobe change doesn't seem to add up.

In my day job we plan development and infrastructure work and we take some pride in being thorough. I expect ISS mission planning is orders of magnitude more involved.

That said, in a related comment I came across Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield commenting on this[0]. It seems the suits are available though Chris seems to be of the opinion that those choices would have been made quite some time ago.

[0] https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/1505150427335176195

MaceOutWindu• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/1505150427335176195

Seems like just a coincidence. Though with how Russia likes to control the media I am surprised that they didn't change the colors to stop exactly what is happening now.

estaseuropano• 4 years ago

Actually this thread is even better, suggesting that this was a planned propaganda move for a moment when Russia expected to have 'won'

https://mobile.twitter.com/theACentauri/status/1504956221463...

abernard12• 4 years ago

They've had these same uniforms since 2015 [1].

I know that despite this obviously true, verifiable statement, it will not matter to a certain cohort of the professional managerial class. Any criticism of lies will be met with emotes of insincere feeling and being on the "wrong side," irrespective if the lies have actually helped Ukraine.

[1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1505236642088558594

SubiculumCode• 4 years ago

Glenn Greenwald? He's a hack.

netsharc4• 4 years ago

Sigh, he used to be a must-read for me, but his series of tweets linked in grandparent post seem to be just on-brand for his last few years: so bitter and angry. If he compared the pictures he posted, it seems the suits from the current mission has patches of blue whereas the suits from 2015 are just plain yellow with the giant Russian flag across the chest. Sure the question can be asked whether the blue patches came just recently as a protest move, but like many other people, his anger makes him blind.

OJFord3• 4 years ago

Not going to engage in something like that on Twitter, but have they worn them to the ISS before? My impression from the article was not that they got them custom-made, but that they did something non-standard for this particular assignment.

As in, instead of 'the standard-issue [for all ISS crew, regardless of nationality] blue uniform' (this? https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14383852/boeing-blue-spac...) they chose their Russian 'Ukrainian colours' uniform that, yes, has been around years.

I don't have any prior knowledge of any of this though, just playing devil's advocate.

abernard12• 4 years ago

From one of the astronauts [1]

"We personally choose our flightsuit colours months in advance, so they can be made and packed in time for launch. Thus I suspect the blue and yellow wasn’t intended as a political statement, but I like that it is."

Which confirms that two major newspapers did not do basic journalistic practice of talking to any source. This is propaganda. People should ask if their deontological justification of propagandistic falsehoods if doing any good, or whether it's embroiling the Ukrainian people in a NATO proxy war.

[1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1505253430331387915

simion3142• 4 years ago

But they asked them and from what I read the response was "we had a lot of yellow material around" and later some officials had various explanations like "is an university color" (why did not the cosmonauts say that is their university color and tell everyone how proved they are of the university or "it is just a color".

I asked for videos/images of yellow being used in the past on ISS and still no one was shared.

If the cosmonauts would have responded with the "university colors" explanation I would have believed it so not sure how can I explain their joke,

netsharc4• 4 years ago

YouTube has videos of the last few (maybe all of them, but I only checked for some) hatch openings and welcomings of Soyuz missions, and the astronauts mostly wear light blue, or dark blue...

https://youtu.be/uF4_QagEoWE?t=5487 MS-19 - Light blue, and red for an actress

https://youtu.be/ynNuF6_pj3k?t=124 MS-18 they're wearing white here.

https://youtu.be/3bXh6u_YCzE?t=104 MS-17 - Dark blue

https://youtu.be/KrPg4q1OUSQ?t=402 MS-16 - Light blue

https://youtu.be/DoLhVmA31Vs?t=140 MS-15 - Dark blue

Geez, somehow we got this version of the future right, where trips to space are so common that we don't even notice them. The rest of the future though...

carlosdp• 4 years ago

This seems like the most likely explanation here, after looking through all the related threads. There's clear evidence these exact uniforms have been used plenty of times by cosmonauts, as recently as last year.

MomoXenosaga• 4 years ago

Russian cosmonauts will be wearing the Chinese flag soon.

Theodores• 4 years ago

This is interesting human psychology. You can jump to conclusions based on the colour of the tie that a news anchor is reading. If the news anchor on the other channel also has the same colour tie then you could conclude your assumptions to maybe think that the people in the media support a particular cause but they have to be professional and unbiased.

There are a finite amount of colours as well as an infinite amount of colours. For this reason assumptions can be made and conclusions jumped to.

dopa42365• 4 years ago

Heh, and every color can be interpreted in so many ways that fit so many narratives.

Like: White? Statement for piece, definitely. No way it's just default plain white.

t0bia_s2• 4 years ago

In some cultures, white cloth is for funerals.

throwawayfuture• 4 years ago

The conspiracy theorist in me would think that this effectively non-news is being planted / spread simply to piss Putin off and see how he reacts to it.

If anything 'weird' happens to these astronauts after this mission, that's his reaction.

amriksohata• 4 years ago

I'd agree

daniel-thompson• 4 years ago

The three Russian astronauts in question are all graduates of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and its colors are yellow and blue. According to the Denver Post (https://www.denverpost.com/2022/03/19/live-updates-thousands...), the astronauts claimed today that that's why they chose those colors. Who knows if that's the real reason, but one could certainly imagine that that explanation would be a convenient way to avoid getting themselves in trouble with the Russian authorities.

godDLL• 4 years ago

Plausible deniability does not work in Russia. If you dry your clothes on the balcony and happen to put a blue towel next to a yellow teeshirt expect a knocking down of your door and family inside. Rounding up of neighbours too.

Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag

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