In a threat right out of a James Bond movie, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top space official raised the possibility of responding to American sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine by crashing the International Space Station (ISS) into the U.S. or another Russian enemy.
The threat is reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist hijackings that caused mass casualties by intentionally crashing civilian aircraft. But the devastation wrought by similarly weaponizing the ISS would be far more catastrophic, with victims possibly numbering not in the thousands but in the tens of thousands or even millions. It is not an exaggeration to say that such an attack would be comparable to the use of a nuclear weapon, and could in fact be deadlier than some of the nuclear bombs in Russia’s arsenal. To hijack the ISS and put it on a collision course with one of Russia’s geopolitical foes, the two Russian cosmonauts currently living and working aboard the orbiting outpost would not even have to overpower the four NASA astronauts and one European astronaut also stationed there. The ISS is reliant upon support from the engines of Russia’s Progress MS cargo ships to maintain its orbit. Without Moscow’s cooperation, the station could enter an uncontrolled deorbit and crash anywhere along its flight path. As the ISS circles the globe in a low-Earth orbit, it passes over China, India, the United States, and much of Europe — but not Russia.
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