Russia's Cosmonauts Arrive on the Space Station - Wearing Ukraine's Colors

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• Re:

  I'm surprised they aren't worried about what will happen when they get back to Earth, or what might happen to their families.

  • Re:

    I bet they're more worried about what happens if Putin is permitted to reform the USSR

  • Re:

    Maybe they'll end up like Krikalyov and return to an entirely different country half a year later?

  • Re: Quiet telling.

    Even in space putin could probably poison their tea with polonium.

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    I suspect they flew to space thinking if things keep up the way they are there may not be a Russia (or USA) to come back to.:-)

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    My money's on the return capsule having an "anomaly" on the way back, and a toasty end for the astronauts on board.

• For all the bluster of Russian politicians about de-orbiting the ISS and harm to others, these are how scientists choose to act: in support of peace and their fellow humans. Perhaps there is hope for the future of humanity.

  I've heard that looking down at our little blue marble tends to change a person's outlook on life.

  And Physics has a slightly liberal bias.

  • Re:

    Well "liberal" may be the wrong word because it's such a loaded word, especially in the US which redefines what it means every election. But science has a bias towards changing theories when new data arrives, as opposed to a classic conservative "never change" stance. Science has had its conservative eras though, trust in the old authorities and don't trust the new guys who disagree.

    • Re:

      Oh yeah. But Science uses it's conservative members. It does keep us from bouncing to every new hypothesis.

      And actually we love the arguments. I think that's the difference. Politics has death and destruction as the last step of disagreement, Science has either accept the preponderance of evidence, come up with something better, or just hush.

• Re:

  This doesn't surprise me. I have a Russian colleague who is working outside the country right now. He said that right now inside Russia, at least academic, circles for ever one war hawk beating the drums, there are three that oppose the war. Most of them are just to scared to speak up against it.

• • Re:

    The current russian PR campaign is like the soviet PR campaigns, they are out of touch with western thought. The corruption of the Ukraine was clear to everyone, the political system in Ukraine was not unstable because of Putins influence, it was unstable because the region had not regulated itself in 70 years. The lack of standards, practices and a legal system to deal with corruption is a problem with both Ukraine and Russia.
    The russians, under Putin, certainly are going their own way, costing their

    • Re:

      And yet Ukraine has been improving greatly. They have made tremendous gains, and yet Russia, the most corrupt country of all, uses this corruption as a very transparent excuse. The biggest corruption removal was when they voted out Yanukovich which was what triggered Putin the first place, and he invaded mere days afterwards. Putin was disturbed, maybe afraid, of all these changes in neighboring countries to go and look west instead of east; Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan. And Georgia was invaded for exac

  • Re: Quite telling?

    And yet russia is still on the UN security counsel and is still permitted to be arbiters of making Iran return to nuclear negotiations. Strip them of all their UN powers. Russia, China, and Iran are all part of this mess behind the scenes. Putin is pissed because China got cold feet on Taiwan.

    • Re:

      As much as conspiracy theorists would like to believe it, the UN is not the US/Russia/China/Illuminati world government. One "side" doesn't get to strip a country of their "powers."

      Russia has a veto on the security council. Which got overruled by the general assembly. Which is how it's supposed to work.

      • Re: Quite telling?

        Not everyone gets that power. Places like Lithuania or Chad have no such power. And if you want to pretend China/Russia werent playing chess with the west using Ukraine and Taiwan as pawns then youre a russian troll running propaganda. China even asked russia to wait till after the Olympics. China was supposed to move on Taiwan to split our attention, but they appear to have cold feet. Maybe you should tune into some international news because CNN is deliberately under reporting russian casualties by a fac

        • Re:

          The permanent members of the security council are the great powers who won WWII. Is that a bit obsolete? Yeah, probably. But don't just kick Russia off, kick them all out and reform the council as a fully elected body.

          Great power politics are great power politics. Russia has finally committed nation-state suicide by playing the game too aggressively. Their choices now are to become North Korea or toss out Putin and spend the next twenty years doing what the US tells them to do. But their invasion of Ukraine

        • Re:

          The problem is that news media wants to report facts, which means confirmed death numbers that have a high degree of verification - numbers that the experts give not what Zelenskyy says. Zelenskyy may be right of course, which is why the reporting (at least in print rather than soundbites on tv) gives two numbers; the "experts say" number and "may be as high as X according to some" number.

        • Re:

          Russia has admittted 498 military deaths, likely the number CNN is reporting as it's 'official'.

          I've read this morning that US and UK officials are estimating about 7,000 Russian military deaths.

          Other sites are using videos and photos to confirm destroyed vehicles. In modern times, I understand, an armoured vehicle getting hit by an anti armour round tends to kill everyone inside, and the number of destroyed armoured vehicles, using video and photo evidence, is in the multiple hundreds. There are quite like

    • Re:

      Well, "permitted" because there's no way to get them off of the security council.

  • Re:

    RIght now, it doesn't look like international cooperation and trade will be restored until they GTFO of Ukraine. Long-term plans are all being changed with no expectation of going back.

    That sounds like what is currently happening.

  • Re:

    I think that Russia and their admirers have a mistaken notion that we want to work with Russia, There are a sizable number who would like to Turn Moscow into a sea of Trinityite.

    We've been there before, in WW2, where annexation and appeasement simply made things worse. Russia under today's dictatorship is merely trying to do what Hitler and then Stalin tried.

    I've seen the future, and it's bright in sparkly in a bad way.

    • Re:

      It's not 'the Russians' that are the problem, it's Putin.

      Russian civilians are just like us, wanting a comfy bed, secure job, few worries and a better future for their kids.

      It's Putin and his dreams of restoring the glory of the empire that is the problem.

      So nuking Moscow is not a good idea.

      Dropping a tac nuke on where-ever Vlad is hiding, however, might be...? But only if he decides to go nuclear first, that is.

      • Re:

        The problem if we appease Putin, is that he plans to retake all of the land that they lost when the old Soviet Union broke up.

        I dont men to be blunt - but the problem is his citizens are obeying him. So they are his extension.

• • Don't lose hope (and motivation) because you confuse current trends with long-term outcomes.

    The problem is that progress tends to follow a sawtooth form - it surges forward in rare victories, and then is continuously eroded by the efforts of the selfish and powerful.

    It's easy to look around at the continuous decline, and forget about the rare victories that tend to push the tip of each sawtooth just a little higher than the one before. Especially during times like these when the major nations are all ruled by oligarchies of various stripes, who have had decades of visible successes dragging trends downward.

    But you only need to look at the long term trends throughout history to see that resistance is worthwhile. The forces of greed sometimes turn the tide for a while, but we've determinedly progressed towards less violence, more equality, and greater personal rights and freedoms for thousands of years.

    Resist.

    Even when you lose every battle. Resist.

    It slows the decline, and every now and then somebody, somewhere, manages to actually win an important battle and make progress. And as much as it may not feel it, that progress owes much to the thousands of losing battles that slowed the decline enough that the gains were able to exceed it.