NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonauts team up for new eight month mission to the ISS
Russia and America might not be seeing completely eye-to-eye at the moment but the two countries are now confirmed to be teaming up for a new space mission.
While leaders Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump continue to talk the talk over Ukraine ceasefire negotiations, cosmonauts and astronauts from the two countries are planning to space-walk the walk with a mission later this year.
It seems as if neither party has been put off by the recent events, that saw Barry 'Butch' Wilmore and Sunita 'Suni' Williams stranded up in space for over nine months, having initially only planned to be there for eight days.
And while they were nearly 'lost in space', NASA's plans for space discovery and research certainly won't have changed off the back of that unusual situation.
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NASA has confirmed that astronaut Chris Williams will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station (ISS), serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 74 crew member.
He will accompany cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which is scheduled to set off from Earth in November 2025.
While hoping everything goes to schedule, although they will definitely miss Christmas, as Williams and Wilmore were unfortunately forced to do.
NASA said: "During his expedition, Williams will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations that help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity."
While Jeff Bezos is reportedly planning to 'replace' the ISS, which has been crucial to NASA's research since being sent up into space back in 1998, with a £7,700,000,000 'space park', the American aeronautics administration will have plenty of plans to continue utilising the station before it is eventually sent splashing down back to Earth around 2030.
Williams, who was selected as a NASA astronaut back in 2021 and graduated last year, began training for his first space station flight assignment immediately after completing his initial astronaut candidate training.
Elon Musk clearly has big plans for space travel in the future and the research being done on the ISS is also crucial to opening up more possibilities for 'commercial opportunities' in the future.
The space agency added: "The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit.
"As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA is able to more fully focus its resources on deep space missions to the Moon and Mars."
Given that it costs a significant amount of money for the average passenger right now, it isn't exactly accessible for the vast majority of us. Though considering how much the train prices are going up in the UK, going to space and back just to get to Birmingham New Street could well be the new option for customers who aren't in a rush.
James Moorhouse