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Will Russia leave the International Space Station? Take Roscosmos chief’s words with a grain of salt – Space.com
Posted: May 9, 2022 at 8:47 pm
You may have heard that Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin recently threatened, yet again, to pull his nation out of the International Space Station program.
Several media outlets reported that news last weekend, basing their stories on an interview that Rogozin the head of Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos gave recently to Russian state television about leaving the International Space Station program. But, as Ars Technica's Eric Berger noted, Rogozin's words don't really amount to a threat.
"The decision has been taken already; were not obliged to talk about it publicly," Rogozin said, according to Bloomberg. "I can say this only: In accordance with our obligations, well inform our partners about the end of our work on the ISS with a years notice."
That's not an announcement of a departure from the program just an acknowledgement that Roscosmos will give the other partners a heads-up if such a decision is made. (The ISS partners, including Roscosmos, are currently signed on to operate the orbiting lab through the end of 2024. NASA wants to keep the station going through the end of 2030, a desire backed by U.S. President Joe Biden.)
Related: Ukraine invasion's impacts on space exploration
Rogozin's statements need to be viewed through a particular lens: He is angry about the economic sanctions imposed on Russia due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine and wants them lifted. He has railed against the sanctions repeatedly over the past few months, on several occasions suggesting that their existence imperils the ISS partnership.
For example, on Feb. 24 the day the invasion began Rogozin said on Twitter that the sanctions could "destroy" cooperation on the ISS. And on April 2, he tweeted (in Russian), "I believe that the restoration of normal relations between partners in the International Space Station and other joint projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions."
(Rogozin has since protected his tweets, so only approved followers can see them. That's why we're not linking to them here.)
These statements raise the prospect of Roscosmos leaving the ISS partnership but certainly don't promise that such a move is imminent. And it's tough to know how seriously to take any Rogozin threat, either explicit or implicit, because he's a blustery figure prone to making hyperbolic statements.
In April 2014, for example, when he was Russia's deputy prime minister, Rogozin suggested that the United States should use a trampoline to get its astronauts to the space station. This comment, a reference to NASA's total dependence at the time on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crewed orbital flight, came shortly after sanctions were imposed on Russia for a previous invasion of Ukraine. During that invasion in February 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which it still holds today.
(The U.S. can get astronauts to and from the ISS now, thanks to SpaceX, which launched its first crewed mission to the orbiting lab in May 2020. Just after that liftoff, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk clapped back at Rogozin, saying, "The trampoline is working!")
Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight
So, what are the odds that Russia actually does leave the ISS program in a huff in the relatively near future? Not high, according to NASA chief Bill Nelson.
"They are not pulling out," Nelson said Tuesday (May 3) during a hearing of the U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee, as reported by SpacePolicyOnline.
"I see nothing in the very even-keeled professional relationship between the cosmonauts and the astronauts, between Mission Control in Moscow and Houston, in the training of Russian cosmonauts in America and American astronauts in Moscow and Baikonur [the Russian-run cosmodrome in Kazakhstan]," Nelson added.
"I see nothing that has interrupted that professional relationship no matter how awful [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is conducting a war with such disastrous results in Ukraine," he said. "We see every reason that the Russians are going to continue on the space station for the immediate future and, of course, we personally hope that they will continue with us all the way to 2030."
That professional relationship was on display on March 30, when NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei came back to Earth with two cosmonauts in a Soyuz spacecraft after an American-record 355-day stay aboard the ISS. The landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan, and everything that followed, went off without a hitch, said former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, citing conversations with Americans who were there.
"They said you would have not known the difference with how they were treated,the relationship there," Kelly told Space.com last month.
Kelly who has four spaceflights under his belt, including a 340-day stay aboard the ISS from March 2015 to March 2016 is an outspoken critic of the Russian invasion. He has called Putin a murderous dictator and a war criminal, and he got into a Twitter fight with Rogozin shortly after the invasion began. (Kelly has stopped targeting Rogozin directly, complying with a request from NASA officials concerned that such feuds could damage the ISS partnership.)
Kelly is obviously no fan of Rogozin, but he stressed that Roscosmos is far bigger than one man.
"I know NASA is committed to maintaining this partnership with Russia," Kelly said. "I know most of the people at the Russian space agency are as well. I'm not too sure about Rogozin, but others that I know that work there are good people."
Most of Russia's other space partnerships have fallen apart as a result of the Ukraine invasion. For example, Europe recently announced that its life-hunting Mars rover Rosalind Franklin will no longer launch atop a Russian Proton rocket and land on a Russian-built platform, as previously planned moves that will likely push the rover's liftoff back six years, to 2028. Russia is no longer selling Russian-made rocket engines to American companies, and Soyuz rockets aren't flying out of Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana as they once did.
So Russia may wish to remain in the ISS partnership to avoid further deterioration of the nation's civil space program, at least until it has other options, some experts have suggested.
"Just to summarize the discussion: Roscosmos will hold on to ISS for as long as technically and politically possible. The goal is to sustain the ISS until the Russian station is ready, which [is] realistically not likely before the 2030s," journalist and author Anatoly Zak, who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com, said via Twitter on Wednesday (May 4), referring to the planned Russian Orbital Service Station.
Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.
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See What Happens on the Space Station During an Orbital Reboost Maneuver – SciTechDaily
Posted: at 8:47 pm
By European Space Agency (ESA)May 8, 2022
Video clip of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his Expedition 66 crewmates experiencing a reboost of the International Space Station. While the video at the bottom of this article is sped up by 8 times, this GIF is sped up by 32 times.
Get in line with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his Expedition 66 crewmates to experience an orbital reboost of the International Space Station (ISS) from the inside. This video is sped up 8 times faster than real-time.
The International Space Station flies around Earth at around 400 km (250 miles). It is reboosted periodically to maintain its orbit and overcome the effects of atmospheric drag created by molecules of the atmosphere, which causes the Station to lose about 100 m of altitude per day.
A Space Station orbital reboost maneuver also optimizes phasing for future visiting vehicles arriving at the station. In March 2022 the ISS performed an orbital reboost using Russias ISS Progress 79 cargo craft. By firing its engines for several minutes, the station was put at the proper altitude for a crew ship orbit rendezvous and landing operations.
During the maneuver, the astronauts inside the station keep flying at the same speed and direction. While it seems like the astronauts are moving inside the station, it is in fact the ISS that gets the boost and is moving around them.
Credit: ESA/NASA
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Astronauts to help build artificial retinas on Space Station – The Independent
Posted: at 8:47 pm
The future of vision may be out of this world.
LambdaVision is developing a synthetic retinal implant that could help restore sight to humans with degenerative eye diseases, and the companys founders and principal researchers believe the microgravity environment on the International Space Station may be the key to their project.
Right now the way that we manufacture the artificial retina is through a process called layer by layer deposition, said Nicole Wagner, a molecular and cell biologist and LambdaVision president and CEO, and company co-founder with chemist Jordan Greco.
Thats kind of a fancy word for dipping a substrate in multiple solutions and building a number of layers of thin film.
Connecticut-based LambdaVision uses bacteriorhodopsin, a light-reactive protein, to replace the function of photoreceptors in the retina, the layer of the eye responsible for converting light into nerve impulses for interpretation by the brain.
Its a process that involves moving a piece of gauze between multiple beakers hundreds of times, and sedimentation, evaporation, convection, and other factors influence how well those thin films can form. But in a microgravity environment, you remove a lot of those, Dr Wagner said.
An experimental, miniaturised version of LambdaVisions synthetic retina manufacture process was aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Nasas Crew-4 mission rode to the ISS on 27 April and was just one of a wide array of experiments the Crew-4 astronauts will set up or conduct over the next six months.
The Crew-4 team Nasa astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins, along with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will participate in a study of how microgravity affects the human nervous system when reaching for and grasping objects, and wear smart shirts lined with sensors monitoring their hearts and blood pressure, the latter an experiment from the German Space Agency called Ballistocardiography for Extraterrestrial Applications and long-Term missions, or Beat.
The astronauts will also grow plants using hydroponic and aeroponic technologies as part of the exposed Root On-Orbit Test System (xroots) experiment, and test how well off-the-shelf terrestrial technologies identify disease-related biomarkers in liquid samples in microgravity in the rhealth one Microgravity Demonstration.
The results of the rhealth experiment could have implications for future deep space missions, such as Nasas journey to Mars in the late 2030s or early 2040s, where astronauts will need to carry all the medical support they might require for an entry two-year mission with them.
But for the LambdaVision experiment, according to Dr Wagner, staying in low Earth orbit, rather than going to Mars, is the goal. The goal would be eventually to continue to manufacture on the International Space Station, she said, or on future commercial space stations. This is a way to sort of realize what could be the potential for a low Earth orbit economy.
If manufacturing in microgravity helps create the thin layers of the protein necessary to build a functional retinal implant, LambdaVision could build in space synthetic tissues that could restore sight to people with conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration on Earth.
Were still about three years out from a clinical trial, even with the work that were doing on the International Space Station, Dr Wagner said, but the ultimate goal is to get these into patients as soon as possible.
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NASA SpaceX astronaut, Washington native returns from space station – Kitsap Sun
Posted: at 8:46 pm
FormerNavy submariner Kayla Barron and three other astronauts splashed down offthe Florida Coast on Friday following about a half a yearof conducting experiments and performing repairs aboardthe International Space Station.
Barron, a Washington native who served aboard the Bangor-based USS Maine, returned to Earth along withfellow NASA Astronauts Tom Marshburn andRaja ChariandEuropean Space AgencyastronautMatthias Maurer. The fourpiled in the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft Thursday for a trip back to Earth.
Barron and the others splashed down safely early Friday, local time, off the coast of Tampa.
"Living and working aboard the International Space Station has been a transformative experience and an extraordinary privilege," Barron said on social media before departing the station."Part of me is ready to come home I miss my loved ones dearly, and wouldnt mind sipping coffee out of a cup instead of through a straw but part of me is having a hard time letting go."
Related: Pioneering female Navy submariner on the International Space Station has her eye on the moon next
After launching to the station Nov. 10, Barron, 34, conducted two spacewalks, one to repair a damaged antenna and the other to install a roll-out solar array kit. She also helped perform and monitormany scientific experiments, many helping to advance the knowledge of growing food and plantsin space. And she humanized her first experience in space through social media, demonstrating the basics of life in microgravity to include a how-to video of washing her own hair.
She also never tired of photographing her home planet, admiring its cloud formations often.
I hope you arent tired of seeing photos of clouds from space because Im not tired of taking them yet," she wrote in April.
Raised in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, Barron graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2010. The Navy lieutenant commander was one of the first women to serve aboard Navy submarines. Barron was a nuclear reactor officer aboard the USS Maine, a "boomer," orballistic missile sub, from 2013 to 2015.
It was while working as a flag aide to Vice Adm. Walter "Ted" Carter Jr., the superintendent of the Naval Academy, that she got an opportunity to meet Space Shuttle program veteran astronaut Kathryn "Kaye" Hire. Talking to Hire about space travel reminded her of her service on submarines.
Barron was selected in 2017to be an astronaut from NASA's largest applicant pool ever, atmore than 18,300.
Barron's time as an astronaut could be far from over. As part of NASA's Artemis program, the 34-year-old could even be the first woman to walk on the Moon. Success in the program will inform NASA's next goal: landing humans on Mars.
Josh Farley is a reporter coveringthe military and Bremerton for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-9227,josh.farley@kitsapsun.comor on Twitter at@joshfarley.
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Space Hotel Slated to Welcome Earthlings in 2025 | Smart News – Smithsonian Magazine
Posted: at 8:46 pm
Pioneer, the newest station concept, can accommodate 28 people and is scheduled to open in 2025. Orbital Assembly
Booking your next vacation to space with out-of-this-world views could soon be a reality.
Orbital Assembly Corporationannounced two new station concepts designed with space tourism accommodations. One of the stations, dubbed Pioneer, could orbit Earth as early as 2025.
The Gateway Foundation circulated ideasfor a space hotel in 2019. The goal of the stations is to run a space business park that can serve as a home away from home with room for offices and tourists, reports Francesca Street forCNN.
The proposed Pioneer station can accommodate 28 people, reports Stephanie Wenger forPeople. The second station, Voyager, scheduled to open in 2027, can hold up to 400 people. Previously announced in 2019, the Voyager Station was known as the Von Braun Station but was later rebranded.
"The goal has always been to make it possible for large amounts of people to live, work and thrive in space," Orbital Assembly's CEO Tim Alatorretells CNN.
A smaller station like Pioneer allows people to start experiencing space on a larger, faster scale, Alatorre explains CNN. Pioneer will also have research facilities available to rent.
Both stations resemble awheel and will feature artificial gravity that allows guests to move comfortably on each station. Artificial gravity technology is not available on space stations currently,Peoplereports. Pioneer features five modules built around the rotating "Gravity Ring" architecture design.
Facilities on both the Pioneer and Voyager stations will have hybrid microgravity and variable gravity levels up to .57-G, reports Sean Cudahy forThe Points Guy. Tourists may still feel some weightlessness but will also be able to drink out of a cup and won't have to be strapped to a bed to sleep. The gravity works similar to how a spinning bucket pushes the water out to the sides of the bucket and stays in place, Alatorre explains to CNN in a previous interview. Near the middle of the station, there will be no artificial gravity, but gravity gradually increasesfurther away from the center.
While the Pioneer station will be smaller than Voyager, guests can still shower, eat and drink sitting down in areas with gravity. Each station is furnished like luxury hotels on Earth. Renderings of what Voyager may look like feature a restaurant and suites with views of Earth.
The ethics of space tourism and associated costs are currently an ongoing conversation as billionaires Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin and Elon Musk with SpaceX plan missions into outer space.
However, Wendy Whitman Cobb, an Air Force political scientist, tells the Shira Ovide for theNew York Timesthat rocketing non-astronauts to space opens the door up for advancing technologies, generates enthusiasm about space travel, and tests the safety parameters of traveling to and from space.
Another significant barrier to space travel is the cost. However, Orbital expects tourists to seek a trek into space as space travel eventually becomes less expensive, perThe Points Guy.
"We envision our Pioneer and Voyager space stations as the ultimate ecotourism destinations. Once people get to space, it will change their perspective about Earth," Alatorre tellsPeople. "Space travel is still in its infancy, and we're excited to do our part to push it forward to help improve life on Earth."
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Why alcohol is banned on the International Space Station from soggy burps to ruining toilets… – The US Sun
Posted: at 8:46 pm
IF you're partial to a glass of wine or a can of beer, being an astronaut probably isn't for you.
Alcohol is banned on the International Space Station for numerous practical and safety reasons.
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This doesn't mean alcohol has never been consumed in space.
In the 1990s, photos of Russian cosmonauts enjoying a 'cognac party' onboard the Mir Space Station were revealed.
The cosmonauts were said to have hid the alcohol in their space suits because they didn't want to go without it during their mission.
Even the first liquid that was drank on the Moon was wine.
Buzz Aldrin revealed that he took a small sip of alcohol while taking communion on the lunar surface.
Although, we know humans can drink alcohol in space, Nasa doesn't seem to think they should.
According to a BBC report, Daniel G Huot, a spokesperson for Nasas Johnson Space Center, said: "Alcohol is not permitted onboard the International Space Station for consumption.
"Use of alcohol and other volatile compounds are controlled on ISS due to impacts their compounds can have on the stations water recovery system."
The main reason for the sober space lifestyle seems to be due to concerns that alcohol would negatively effect equipment and the water system on the ISS.
Astronauts don't even use things like mouthwash or perfume because these products contain alcohol.
Ethanol is a key ingredient in wine, beer and spirits and it also happens to be highly volatile and flammable.
That makes it a risk to even take to space, let alone consume.
A drunk astronaut would also pose a danger to missions as everything in space has be controlled precisely.
The ISS also uses a water recovery system to recycle urine and provide clean water for astronauts to drink.
Alcohol poses a risk to this toilet system.
If astronauts went against the rules and did drink alcohol, they may not have the most comfortable experience.
According to New Scientist, drinking beer in space may result in wet or soggy burps because the gases would be drawn to the top of their stomachs.
That's also why astronauts steer away from carbonated drinks.
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‘Analog astronauts’ assemble in Biosphere 2 bubble to talk simulated space missions – Space.com
Posted: at 8:46 pm
Out in the desert in Arizona, "analog astronauts" gathered this weekend for an annual conference in a giant, futuristic habitat called Biosphere 2.
The event, called the Analog Astronaut Conference, is an annual meetup showcasing the work of "analog astronauts," or researchers who have completed simulated space missions, living and working in habitats on Earth that mimic expected living conditions in destinations like Mars or the moon.
The event took place from May 6 to May 8 at Biosphere 2, an immense research facility in Oracle, Arizona that, in the early 1990s, housed an experiment in which a team of "Biospherians" lived in the habitat for two years.
Video: 'Spaceship Earth' tells story of 8 'visionaries' in Biosphere 2 - Trailer
But don't worry the conference didn't lock the participants in for two years. Instead, those in attendance got a peek into what the habitat is really like; Biosphere 2 houses a number of human-created biomes including a rainforest, a coral reef, manufactured ocean and more.
The speakers for the event included astronaut (as well as analog astronaut) Sian Proctor, who flew with SpaceX's private Inspiration4 orbital mission; architect Leszek Orzechowski, who created the LunAres Research Station, an analog habitat in Poland; space engineer Sahba El-Shawa; exploratory space artist Richelle Gribble; filmmaker and researcher Kai Staats and more.
The event's keynote speaker was author Frank White, who is best known for his 1987 book "The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution." White coined the term "the overview effect," which is used to describe the psychological shift that humans experience when viewing Earth from space.
Explore a full list of speakers here.
In addition to panels and speakers, the event also included art and music at the event as well as stargazing with Proctor.The event also included a screening of the Space.com documentary about senior writer Chelsea Gohd's adventures as an analog astronaut titled: "Chelsea Goes to Mars."
Disclosure: Author Chelsea Gohd participated in the planning of the Analog Astronaut Conference and is an analog astronaut, having completed an analog Mars mission in 2020 alongside other team members who helped to plan this event. Gohd is listed as a speaker for the event but, having contracted COVID-19, she was not a speaker.
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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Cape Canaveral is gearing up for a busy year of space launches – WUSF News
Posted: at 8:46 pm
Space Coast residents had a chance to wake up Thursday to the 18th orbital launch of the year from Cape Canaveral, as a SpaceX Falcon 9 topped with 53 Starlink internet satellites lifted off just before sunrise.
With at least five more launches expected this month, Space Florida President and CEO Frank DiBello said Wednesday that local launch facilities might handle more than 40 additional launches before the end of 2022 from private companies, NASA and U.S. Space Force.
We're likely to see 60, 61, 62 launches this year, DiBello said during a conference call with the Space Florida Board of Directors.
That, to me, is really significant in terms of the investments that we've made over time, thanks to the board and to our partnership with (the Florida Department of Transportation) and to the support that we've had from the Legislature to investing in infrastructure that supports the increased capability that we have, DiBello added.
Hours before Thursdays launch, SpaceXs Dragon Endurance spacecraft, carrying three NASA astronauts and a European Space Agency mission specialist, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa Bay. The Dragons return wrapped up a 176-day expedition to the International Space Station that began with one of the 31 rockets that reached orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASAs neighboring Kennedy Space Center in 2021.
Since the start of 2022, launches from licensed sites tied to Space Florida, the states aerospace-arm, have put about 250 tons of equipment and supplies into space. Last year, Space Florida facilities accounted for about 370 tons of materials put into space, including 1,730 satellites.
We could conceivably in the first four months of this year --- having done 250 (tons) --- we could easily see 550 to 600 tons to orbit this year, which is a big boost in our lift capacity, DiBello said.
Meanwhile, with nearly 700 satellites launched so far this year, including the 53 that went up Thursday, DiBello said the cape is ahead of the 2021 pace, which ended 30 percent higher than in 2020.
We see a decade where between (50,000) and 100,000 satellites are going to be launched by 2030, DiBello said. And we want to try to capture a lion's share of those out of Florida. Again, what's driving the growth in the industry is our insatiable demand for bandwidth that all of us have. We feed that market regardless of the device that we're using.
Space Florida is also looking to focus on capturing a piece of an emerging market that services the space economy, by developing the capabilities to send robots and people into space to extend satellite life, move crews, conduct research and manufacturing and undertake the removal of space debris.
We're really looking at this industry, DiBello said. Forecasts are for this to be between $15 (billion) and $20 billion (in economic impact) by the end of the decade. And that's not insignificant.
Among the more-anticipated launches this year is the uncrewed Artemis I, now expected in August, which would mark the first integrated test of NASAs deep-space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center. Orion is planned to travel 280,000 miles from Earth, beyond the orbit of the Moon.
Also in August, the Psyche asteroid explorer is expected to be sent to a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
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Russia’s space agency chief claimed his nation could destroy NATO countries in ‘half an hour’ during a nuclear war – Yahoo News
Posted: at 8:46 pm
Dmitry Rogozin is the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin claimed NATO countries could be quickly destroyed in a nuclear war.
The space agency leader said Russia could destroy the countries in "half an hour."
In the same Telegram post, he urged his country not to wage a nuclear war, however.
The head of Russian space agency Roscomos has claimed his country could quickly destroy NATO countries if a nuclear war took place.
Dmitry Rogozin, who has made many outlandish and provocative comments in recent months, shared the message in Russian on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
Rogozin claimed that the destruction could happen in 30 minutes, "but we must not allow it, since the consequences of an exchange of nuclear strikes will affect the state of our Earth," he added.
Rogozin also wrote in his Telegram post: "NATO is waging war against us. It has not declared it, but it doesn't change anything. Now it's obvious to everyone."
His comments do not align with the stance of NATO, which posted a statement on its website in April, saying that the organization "condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine which is an independent, peaceful and democratic country, and a close NATO partner."
It continued: "The Alliance calls on President Putin to stop this war immediately, withdraw all his forces from Ukraine without conditions and engage in genuine diplomacy."
In February, Russian president Vladimir Putin put Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on high alert amid the sweeping sanctions the US and EU have imposed on it.
Rogozin has previously said Roscosmos would leave the International Space Station and that the decision had already been affirmed. He also criticized the litany of Western economic sanctions imposed on Russia.
"I believe that the restoration of normal relations between partners in the International Space Station and other joint projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions," he tweeted in April.
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Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the US along with the European Union and the UK have ramped up sanctions against Moscow, Putin, and many individuals in the leader's inner circle.
Rogozin added in his Telegram message that the war, which Putin called a "special military operation," had gone "far beyond its original meaning and geography," and called it "a war for the truth and the right of Russia to exist as a single and independent state."
Scholars, however, have debunked Russia's many attempts at justifying the war, including Putin's claim that he aimed to "denazify" Ukraine.
They told NPR that Putin's language was offensive and factually wrong. One of the experts, Laura Jockusch, said: "There is no 'genocide,' not even an 'ethnic cleansing' perpetrated by the Ukraine against ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the Ukraine. It is a fiction that is used by Putin to justify his war of aggression on the Ukraine."
Jockush added in her email to NPR that using the word "denazification" was also "a reminder that the term 'Nazi' has become a generic term for 'absolute evil' that is completely disconnected from its original historical meaning and context."
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From the archives: The germ theory of disease breaks through – Popular Science
Posted: May 7, 2022 at 7:38 pm
To mark our 150th year, were revisiting thePopular Sciencestories (both hits and misses) that helped define scientific progress, understanding, and innovationwith an added hint of modern context. Explore theNotable pagesand check out all our anniversary coverage here.
Germs first came into focus, literally, under the microscope of Robert Koch, a doctor practicing in East Prussia in the 19th century. Until then, as Popular Science reported in September 1883, getting sick was attributed to everything from evil spirits to impurities of the blood. Koch first eyed Bacillus anthracis, or anthrax, in animal tissue in 1877, from which he linked microbes with disease. But it was his isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1881then known as consumptionthat set off an avalanche of germ discovery.
In the 1880s alone, Koch and others cataloged a slew of plagues: cholera (1883), salmonella (1884), diphtheria (1884), pneumonia (1886), meningitis (1887), and tetanus (1889). By 1881, Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, had already developed the worlds first vaccine, used on sheep to prevent anthrax.
Henry Gradle, a Chicago physician and the author of Popular Sciences 1883 The Germ-Theory of Disease (originally delivered as a lecture to the Chicago Philosophical Society in November, 1882) had been a pupil under Koch and brought word of the German and French discoveries to the US and UK. Gradle writes with great flourish, not holding back his disdain for those who disagreed with the new germ theory, likening them to savages of human antiquity who saw only evil spirits in diseaseas vulgar as such phrases are in a modern context.
Although now considered a watershed moment for medicine, at the time, germ theory had gaping holes, including anunderstanding of the immune systems role in disease. Antoine Bchamp, a chemist and Pasteurs bitter rival, argued that it was not germs but the state of the host (the patient) that caused illness otherwise, he noted, everyone would be sick all the time. Bchamp had his followers who stood fast against the germ theory.
As Thomas Kuhn, a noted scientific philosopher, proposed in his 1962 essay, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, paradigm shifts like germ theory were revolutions, because they shook both science and society.
Scourages of the human race and diseases are attributed by savages to the influence of evil spirits. Extremes often meet. What human intelligence suspected in its first dawn bas been verified by human intelligence in its highest development. Again, we have come to the belief of evil spirits in disease, but these destroyers have now assumed a tangible shape. Instead of the mere passive, unwitting efforts with which we have hitherto resisted them, we now begin to fight them in their own domain with all the resources of our intellect. For they are no longer invisible creatures of our own imagination, but with that omnipotent instrument, the microscope, we can see and identify them as living beings, of dimensions on the present verge of visibility. The study of these minute foes constitutes the germ theory.
This germ theory of disease is rising to such importance in medical discussions that it cannot be ignored by that part of the laity who aspire to a fair general information. For it has substituted a tangible reality for idle speculation and superstition so current formerly in the branch of medical science treating the causes of disease. Formerlythat is, within a period scarcely over nowthe first cause invoked to explain the origin of many diseases was the vague and much-abused bugbear cold. When that failed, obscure chemical changes, of which no one knew anything definitely, or impurities of the blood, a term of similar accuracy and convenience, were accused, while with regard to contagious diseases medical ignorance concealed itself by the invocation of a genus epidemicus. The germ theory, as far as it is applicable, does away with all these obscurities. It points out the way to investigate the causes of disease with the same spirit of inquiry with which we investigate all other occurrences in nature. In the light of the germ theory, disease is a struggle for existence between the parts of the organism and some parasite invading it. From this point of view, diseases become a part of the Darwinian program of nature.
The animal body may be compared to a vast colony, consisting as it docs of a mass of cells the ultimate elements of life. Each tissue, be it bone, muscle, liver, or brain, is made up of cells of its own kind, peculiar to and characteristic of the tissue. Each cell represents an element living by itself, but capable of continuing its life only by the aid it gets from other cells. By means of the blood vessels and the nervous system, the different cells of the body are put into a state of mutual connection and dependence. The animal system resembles in this way a republic, in which each citizen depends upon others for protection, subsistence, and the supply of the requisites of daily life. Accustomed as each citizen is to this mutual interdependence, he could not exist without it. Each citizen of this animal colony, each cell, can thrive only as long as the conditions persist to which it is adapted. These conditions comprise the proper supply of food and oxygen, the necessary removal of the waste products formed by the chemical activity of all parts of the body, the protection against external mechanical forces and temperature, as well as a number of minor details. Any interference with these conditions of life impairs the normal activity of the entire body, or, as the case may be, of the individual cells concerned. But the animal system possesses the means of resisting damaging influences. Death or inactivity of one or a few citizens does not disable the state. The body is not such a rigid piece of mechanism that the breakage of one wheel can arrest the action of the whole. Within certain limits, any damage done to individual groups of cells can be repaired by the compensating powers of the organism. It is only when this compensating faculty fails, when the body can not successfully resist an unfavorable influence, that a disturbance arises which we call disease. This definition enables us to understand how external violence, improper or insufficient food, poisons, and other unaccustomed influences, can produce disease. But modern research has rendered it likely that the diseases due to such causes are not so numerous as the affections produced by invasion of the body by parasites.
Of these a few are known to be animalsfor instance, the trichina, and some worms found in the blood in certain rare diseases. But the bulk of the hosts we have to contend with is of vegetable nature, and belongs to the lowest order of fungi-commonly termed bacteria.
Special names have been given to the different subdivisions of this class of microscopic beingsthe rod-shaped bacteria being termed bacilli; the granular specimens, micrococci; while the rarer forms, of the shape of a screw, arc known as spirilla.
Bacteria surround us from all quarters. The surface of the earth teems with them. No terrestrial waters are free from them. They form a part of the atmospheric dust, and are deposited upon all objects exposed to the air. It is difficult to demonstrate this truth directly with the microscope, for in the dry state bacteria are not readily recognized, especially when few in number. But we can easily detect their presence by their power of multiplication. We need but provide a suitable soil. An infusion of almost any animal or vegetable substance will sufficemeat broth, for instancethough not all bacteria will grow in the same soil. Such a fluid when freshly prepared and filtered, is clear as crystal, and remains so if well boiled and kept in a closed vessel, for boiling destroys any germs that may be present, while the access of others is prevented by closure of the flask. But as soon as we sow in this fluid a single bacterium, it multiplies to such an extent that within a clay the fluid is turbid from the presence of myriads of microscopic forms. For this purpose we can throw in any terrestrial object which has not been heated previously, or we can expose the fluid to the dust of the air. Air which has lost its dust by subsidence or filtration through cotton has not the power of starting bacterial life in a soil devoid of germs. Of course, the most certain way of filling our flask with bacteria is to introduce into it a drop from another fluid previously teeming with them.
In a suitable soil each bacterium grows and then divides into two young bacteria, it may be within less than an hour, which progeny continue the work of their ancestor. At this rate a single germ, if not stinted for food, can produce over fifteen million of its kind within twenty-four hours! More astounding even seems the calculation that one microscopic being, some forty billion of which can not weigh over one grain, might grow to the terrific mass of eight hundred tons within three days, were there but room and food for this growth!
During their growth the bacteria live upon the fluid, as all other plants do upon their soil. Characteristic, however, of bacteria-growth is the decomposition of any complex organic substances in the fluid to an extent entirely disproportionate to the weight of the bacteria themselves. This destructive action occurs wherever bacteria exist, be it in the experimental fluid, or in the solid animal or vegetable refuse where they are ordinarily found. It constitutes, in fact, rotting or putrefaction. The processes of decomposition of organic substances coming under the head of putrefaction are entirely the effect of bacterial life. Any influence, like heat, which kills the bacteria, arrests the putrefaction, and the latter does not set in again until other living bacteria gain access to the substance in question. Without bacteria, no putrefaction can occur, though bacteria can exist without putrefaction, in case there is no substance on hand which they can decompose.
No error has retarded more the progress of the germ theory than the false belief that the bacteria of putrefaction are identical with the germs of disease. The most contradictory results were obtained in experiments made to demonstrate on animals either the poisonous nature, or, on the other hand, the harmlessness, of the fungi commonly found in rotting refuse. But real contradictions do not exist in science; they are only apparent, because the results in any opposite eases were not obtained under identical conditions. The explanation of the variable effects of common putrefactiongerms upon animals is self-evident as soon as we admit that each parasitic disease is due to a separate species of bacteria, characteristic of the disease, producing only this form and no other affection; while, on the other band, the same disease can not be caused by any other but its special parasite. It can be affirmed, on the basis of decisive experiments, that the bacteria characteristic of various diseases float in the air, in many localities at least. Hence rotting material, teeming with bacterial life, may or may not contain disease-producing germs, according to whether the latter have settled upon it by accident or not. Even if these disease-producing species were as numerous in the dust as the common bacteria of putrefaction, which we do not know, they would be at a disadvantage, as far as their increase is concerned. For experience has shown that the germs of most diseases require a special soil for their growth, and can not live, like the agents of putrefaction, upon any organic refuse. In some cases, indeed, these microscopic parasites are so fastidious in their demands that they can not grow at all outside of the animal body which they are adapted to invade. Renee, if a decomposing fluid does contain them, they form at least a minority of the inhabitants, being crowded out by the more energetically growing forms. In the microscopic world there occurs as bitter a struggle for existence as is ever witnessed between the most highly organized beings. The species best adapted to the soil crowds out all its competitors.
Though the putrefaction bacteria, or, as Dumas calls them, the agents of corruption, are not identical with disease-producing germs, they are yet not harmless by themselves. Putrid fluids cause grave sickness when introduced into the blood of animals in any quantity. But this is not a bacterial disease proper; it is an instance of poisoning by certain substances produced by the life-agency of the bacteria while decomposing their soil. The latter themselves do not increase in the blood of the animal; they are killed in their struggle with the living animal cells. The putrefaction-bacteria need not be further present in the putrid solution to produce the poisonous effect on animals. They may be killed by boiling, if only the poisonous substances there formed remain.
In order to prove the bacterial origin of a disease two requirements are necessary: First, we must detect the characteristic bacteria in every case of that disease; secondly, we must reproduce a disease in other individuals by means of the isolated bacteria of that disease. Both these demonstrations may be very difficult. Some species of bacteria are so small and so transparent that they can not be easily, if at all, seen in the midst of animal tissues. This difficulty may be lessened by the use of staining agents, which color the bacteria differently from the animal cells. But it often requires long and tedious trials to find the right dye. The obstacles in the way of the second part of the proposition mentioned are no less appalling. Having found a suspected parasite in the blood or flesh of a patient, we can not accuse the parasite with certainty of being the cause of the disease, unless we can separate it entirely from the fluids and cells of the diseased body without depriving it of its virulence. In some cases it is not easy, if possible, to cultivate the parasite outside of the body; in other instances it can be readily accomplished. Of course, all such attempts require scrupulous care to prevent contamination from other germs that might accidentally be introduced into the same soil. If we can now reproduce the original disease in other animals by infection with these isolated bacteria, the chain of evidence is complete beyond cavil and doubt. But this last step may not be the least difficult, as many diseases of mankind can not be transferred to animals, or only to some few species.
If we apply these rigid requirements, there are not many diseases of man whose bacterial origin is beyond doubt. As the most unequivocal instance, we can mention splenic fever, or anthrax, a disease of domestic animals, which sometimes attacks man, and is then known as malignant pustule. The existence of a parasite in this affection in the form of minute rods and its power of reproducing the disease are among the best-established facts in medicine. It is also known that these rods form seeds, or spores, as they are termed, in their interior, after the death of the patient, which germinate again in proper soil. These spores are the most durable and resisting objects known in animated nature. If kept in the state of spores they possess an absolute immortality; no temperature short of prolonged boiling can destroy them, while they can resist the action of most poisons, even corrosive acids, to a scarcely credible extent.
Another disease, of vastly greater importance to man, has lately been added to the list of scourges of unquestionable bacterial origin. I refer to tuberculosis, or consumption. It is true, this claim is based upon the work of but one investigatorRobert Koch. But whoever reads his original description must admit that no dart of criticism can assail his impenetrable position. Here also a rod-shaped bacillus, extremely minute and delicate, has been found the inevitable companion of the disease. With marvelous patience Koch has succeeded in getting the parasite to grow in pure blood, and freeing it from all associated matter. It must have been a rare emotion that filled the soul of that indefatigable man, when he beheld for the first time, in its isolated state, the fell destroyer of over one eighth of all mankind! None of the animals experimented upon could withstand the concentrated virulence of the isolated parasite. This bacillus likewise produces spores of a persistent nature, which every consumptive patient spits broadcast into the world.
Relapsing fever is another disease of definitely proved origin. If we mention, furthermore, abscesses, the dependence of which on bacteria has lately been established, we have about exhausted the list of human afflictions about the cause of which there is no longer any doubt. Some diseases peculiar to lower animals belong also to this category. The classical researches of Pasteur have assigned the silkworm disease and chicken cholera to the same rank. Several forms of septicemia and pyemia have also been studied satisfactorily in animals. Indeed, the analogy between these and the kindred forms of blood-poisoning in man is so close that there can be no reasonable doubt as to the similarity of cause. This assumption, next door to certainty, applies equally to the fevers of childbirth. The experimental demonstration of the parasitic nature of leprosy, erysipelas, and diphtheria is not yet complete, though nearly so. Malarial fever also is claimed to belong to the category of known bacterial diseases, but the proofs do not seem as irreproachable to others as they do to their authors.
The entire class of contagious diseases of man can be suspected on just grounds of being of bacterial origin. All analogies, and not a few separate observations, are in favor of this view, while against it no valid argument can be adduced; but it must be admitted that the absolute proof is as yet wanting. Many diseases also, not known to be contagious, like pneumonia, rheumatism, and Brights disease, have been found associated with parasites, the role of which is yet uncertain. It is not sophistry to look forward to an application of the germ theory to all such diseases, if only for the reason that we know absolutely no other assignable cause, while the changes found in them resemble those known to be due to parasites. In the expectation of all who are not blinded by prejudice, the field is a vast one, which the germ theory is to cover some day, though progress can only continue if we accept nothing as proved until it is proved.
There can be little doubt that in many, perhaps in most instances, the disease-producing germs enter the body with the air we breathe. At any rate, the organism presents no other gate so accessible to germs as the lungs. Moreover, it has been shown that an air artificially impregnated with living germs can infect animals through the lungs. How far drinking water can be accused of causing sickness as the vehicle of parasites can not be stated with certainty. There is, as yet, very little evidence to the point, and what there is is ambiguous. Thus, exposed from all quarters to the attacks of these merciless invaders, it seems almost strange that we can resist their attacks to the extent that we do. In fact, one of the arguments used against the germ theorya weak one, it is trueis, that, while it explains why some fall victims to the germs, it does not explain why all others do not share their fate. If all of us are threatened alike by the invisible enemies in the air we breathe, how is it that so many escape? If we expose a hundred flasks of meat-broth to the same atmosphere, they will all become tainted alike, and in the same time. But the animal body is not a dead soil in which bacteria can vegetate without disturbance. Though our blood and juices are the most perfect food the parasites require, though the animal temperature gives them the best conditions of life, they must still struggle for their existence with the cells of the animal body. We do not know yet in what way our tissues defend themselves, but that they do resist, and often successfully, is an inevitable conclusion. We can show this resistance experimentally in some cases. The ordinary putrefaction-bacteria can thrive excellently in dead blood, but if injected into the living blood-vessels they speedily perish. Disease-producing germs, however, are better adapted to the conditions they meet within the body they invade, and hence they can the longer battle with their host, even though they succumb in the end.
The resistance or want of resistance which the body opposes to its invaders is medically referred to as the predisposition to the disease. What the real conditions of this predisposition are, we do not know. Experience has simply shown that different individuals have not an equal power to cope with the parasites. Here, as throughout all nature, the battle ends with the survival of the fittest. The invaders, if they gain a foothold at all, soon secure an advantage by reason of their terrific rate of increase. In some instances they carry on the war by producing poisonous substances, in others they rob the animal cells of food and oxygen. If the organism can withstand these assaults, can keep up its nutrition during the long siege, can ultimately destroy its assailants, it wins the battle. Fortunately for us, victory for once means victory forever, at least in many cases. Most contagious diseases attack an individual but once in his lifetime. The nature of this lucky immunity is unknown. The popular notion, that the disease has taken an alleged poison out of the body, has just as little substantial basis as the contrary assumption that the parasites have left in the body a substance destructive to themselves. It is not likely, indeed, that an explanation will ever be given on a purely chemical basis, but in what way the cells have been altered so as to baffle their assailants in a second attempt at invasion is as yet a matter of speculation. Unfortunately for us, there are other diseases of probable bacterial origin, which do not protect against, but directly invite, future attacks.
A question now much agitated is whether each kind of disease germs amounts to a distinct and separate species, or whether the parasite of one disease can be so changed as to produce other affections as well. When investigations on bacteria were first begun, it was taken for granted that all bacterial forms, yeast cells, and mold fungus, were but different stages of one and the same plant. This view has long since been recognized as false. But even yet some botanists claim that all bacteria are but one species, appearing under different forms according to their surroundings, and that these forms are mutually convertible. The question is a difficult one to answer, since bacteria of widely differing powers may resemble each other in form. Hence, if a species cultivated in a flask be contaminated by other germs accidentally introduced, which is very likely to happen, the gravest errors may arise. But the more our methods gain in precision, and the more positive our experience becomes, the more do we drift toward the view that each variety of bacteria represents a species as distinct and characteristic as the separate species among the higher animals. From a medical standpoint this view, indeed, is the only acceptable one.
A disease remains the same in essence, no matter whom it attacks or what its severity be in the individual case. Each contagious disease breeds only its own kind, and no other. When we experiment with an isolated disease-producing germ, it causes, always, one and the same affection, if it takes bold at all.
But evidence is beginning to accumulate that, though we can not change one species into another, we can modify the power and activity, in short, the virulence, of parasites. Pasteur has shown that when the bacteria of chicken cholera are kept in an open vessel, exposed to the air for many months, their power to struggle with the animal cells is gradually enfeebled. Taken at any stage during their decline of virulence, and placed in a fresh soil in which they can grow, be it in the body of an animal or outside, they multiply as before. But the new breed has only the modified virulence of its parents, and transmits the same to its progeny. Though the form of the parasite has been unaltered, its physiological activity has been modified: it produces no longer the fatal form of chicken cholera, but only a light attack, from which the animal recovers. By further enfeeblement of the parasite, the disease it gives to its host can be reduced in severity to almost any extent. These mild attacks, however, protect the animal against repetitions. By passing through the modified disease, the chicken obtains immunity from the fatal form. In the words of Pasteur, the parasite can be transformed into a vaccine virus by cultivation under conditions which enfeeble its power. The splendid view is thus opened to us of vaccinating, some day, against all diseasesin which one attack grants immunity against another. Pasteur has succeeded in the same way in another disease of much greater importance, namely, splenic fever. The parasite of this affection has also been modified by him, by special modes of cultivation, so as to produce a mild attack, protecting against the graver form of the disease. Pasteurs own accounts of his results, in vaccinating, against anthrax, the stock on French farms, are dazzling. But a repetition of bis experiments in other countries, by his own assistants, has been less conclusive. In Hungary the immunity obtained by vaccination was not absolute, while the protective vaccination itself destroyed some fourteen percent of the herds.
Yet, though much of the enthusiasm generated by Pasteurs researches may proceed further than the facts warrant, he has at least opened a new path which promises to lead to results of the highest importance to mankind.
The ideal treatment of any parasitic disease would be to administer drugs which have a specific destructive influence upon the parasites, but spare their host, i.e., the cells of the animal body. But no substance of such virtue is known to us. All so-called antiseptics, i.e., chemicals arresting bacterial life, injure the body as much as if not more than the bacteria. For the latter of all living beings are characterized by their resistance to poisons. Some attempts, indeed, have been made to cure bacterial (if not all) diseases by the internal use of carbolic acid, but they display such innocent naivete as not to merit serious consideration. More promising than this search after a new philosophers stone is the hope of arresting bacterial invasion of the human body by rendering the conditions unsuitable for the development of the germs, and thus affording the organism a better chance to struggle with them. Let me illustrate this by an instance described by Pasteur. The chicken is almost proof against splenic fever. This protection Pasteur attributes to the high normal temperature of that animal, viz., 42 Cent. At that degree of warmth the anthrax-bacillus can yet develop, but it is enfeebled. The cells of the birds body, thriving best at their own temperature, can hence overcome the enfeebled invader. Reduction of the animals temperature, however, by means of cold baths, makes it succumb to the disease, though recovery will occur if the normal temperature be restored in due time. In the treatment of human diseases, we have not yet realized any practice of that nature, but research in that direction is steadily continuing.
The most direct outcome of the germ theory, as far as immediate benefits are concerned, is our ability to act more intelligently in limiting the spread of contagious diseases. Knowing the nature of the poison emanated by such patients, and studying the mode of its distribution through nature, we can prevent it from reaching others, and thus spare them the personal struggle with the parasite. In no instance has the benefit derived from a knowledge of the germ theory been more brilliantly exemplified than in the principles of antiseptic surgery inaugurated by Lister. This benefactor of mankind recognized that the great disturbing influence in the healing of wounds is the admission of germs. It had been well known, prior to this day, that wounds heal kindly if undisturbed, and that the fever and other dangers to life are an accidental, not an inevitable, consequence of wounds. But Lister was the first to point out that these accidents were due to the entrance of germs into the wound, and that this dangerous complication could be prevented. By excluding the parasites from the wound, the surgeon spares his patient the unnecessary and risky struggle, giving the wound the chance to heal in the most perfect manner. Only he who has compared the uncertainty of the surgery prior to the antiseptic period, and the misery it was incompetent to prevent, with the ideal results of the modern surgeon, can appreciate what the world owes to Mr. Lister. The amount of suffering avoided and the number of lives annually saved by antiseptic surgery constitute the first practical gain derived from the application of the germ theory in medicine.
Some text has been edited to match contemporary standards and style.
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From the archives: The germ theory of disease breaks through - Popular Science
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