Space Station ‘largely isolated’ from tensions over Ukraine

By ALEX SANZ
Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — The former head of the National Space Council tells The Associated Press that tensions in eastern Ukraine – and heightened Western fears of a Russian invasion – should not have a significant impact on the International Space Station or U.S.-Russia cooperation in space. Scott Pace, who served as executive secretary of the space council under President Donald Trump and is now the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the space station “has been largely isolated” from political events. In 2020, the space station marked two decades of people continuously living and working in orbit. Russia kept station crews coming and going after NASA’s Columbia disaster in 2003 and after the space shuttles retired in 2011.