Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag | Hacker News Reader

Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag

thetimes.co.uk

76 pointsleephillips34 comments

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.

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.

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

Glenn Greenwald? He's a hack.

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.

He's always just pushed the West is bad narrative. Maybe you agreed with him on a few issues. But he's like that on every issue: liberal democracies are the reason anything is bad in this world. Really obvious to me when he took the side of the pre-ISIS jihadists that took over northern Mali as soon as France finally intervened, he wrote an article where it didn't seem he understood anything about the conflict but just picked the anti-West team as always.

"always"? Were you reading him during his salon.com times?

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.

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

In our streets bins for trash go out and support Ukraine every Thursday. Yellow for plastic and blue for paper.

I absolutely agree that propaganda in news is so strong nowdays. Basically everything flows on emotions. It must be great time for news agencies.

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,

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...

I am confused, I was asking the people that said that this yellow is a standard uniform to share with us a photo or video where it was used because this would be an instant way to shut up the "pro Ukraine" messaging.

If you want to add evidence that only blue was used probably you should reply to the comment above that said yellow is a an old uniform used for years, the person I asked if he or people with same believes can share a image/video with yellow.

I'm sorry, were you expecting a confrontation, since that's the norm in Internet conversations nowadays?

I'm agreeing with you that yellow doesn't seem to be that common.

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.

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.

Interesting perspective, could you elaborate?

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

Actually, they pretty much can do that.

Flightsuits are not complicated and the NASA ones, almost the same as the ones used in orbit, have been sold at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center in adult sizes, or at Space Camp. As I recall, the actual astronauts receive standard sized flightsuits which are adjusted by a tailor. Astronauts are almost required to look sharp in public.

US military pilots sometimes order squadron flightsuits, with minimal approvals and lead time. If the pilots really wanted to, they are actually measured and tailor made for the pilots, instead of custom ordered from standard sizes.

More notably,the US Navy Blue Angles actually walk into a tailor in Pensacola, Florida and get measured for a flightsuit. A few days later they walk out in the first blue and yellow flightsuits we all at airshows, they test fit that suit, fly with it, make any adjustments, before several additional flightsuits are made.

For the 75th Anneversary of the Blue Angels[1], they had yellow suits made, presumably with command approval, and it couldn't have been difficult or expensive to have them tailor made for limited use.

The Russian cosmonauts and their tailors would have a pretty good idea of what material is approved for space use, and what they have in stock, so tailor made flightsuits would not be a huge undertaking. I'd assume they actually do have a tailor make or adjust the flight suits for the cosmonauts, to minimize the chance of snagging something in space.

[0] https://www.pnj.com/videos/news/military/2019/07/26/longtime...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ndBAx5GHhE

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

In some cultures, white cloth is for funerals.

And surrender.

> 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

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.

> 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

I can hardly imagine what you and your countrymen are going through, I'm certainly not making light of it.

I just don't understand why Russia would put out anti-war propaganda that yes makes a few Russians look good, but ones that are (ostensibly) speaking out against their government, against their country's invasion of yours.

> I just don't understand why Russia would put out anti-war propaganda that yes makes a few Russians look good

You just would not be able to fully understand Russians & how Russian propaganda works if you are not Ukrainian living in Ukraine.[0]

I already highlighted "few Russians" which are trying to "look good":[1,2,3,4,5,6]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine-Russia_relations

[1] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1504424886126755840

[2] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1505481614624702467

[3] https://twitter.com/SolveSpace/status/1502321643229794310

[4] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1502360879697956867

[5] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1502340942682066946

[6] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1502353051868401665

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.

I'd agree

Russian cosmonauts will be wearing the Chinese flag soon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com