Most people assume a space launch is an event of pure, forward-looking optimism. The launch of Soyuz MS-18 from Baikonur on April 9, 2021, complicates that. It was a routine procedure, the kind of orbital mechanics ballet perfected over decades. Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, along with NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, settled into their seats for the journey to the International Space Station. The world’s news feeds, however, were not tuned to the steppe of Kazakhstan. They were fixed on the town of Bago, Myanmar, where security forces were killing at least eighty-two civilians in a single day. The simultaneity is the overlooked detail. One vehicle ascended on a pillar of flame, a symbol of international cooperation and technological reach. On the same planet, other vehicles carried men with rifles to a residential neighborhood. The space station orbits Earth every ninety minutes, passing over countless conflicts and collaborations. The crew of Expedition 64 joined that perpetual transit, their mission one of microgravity research and maintenance, their view a breathtaking but silent panorama of the world that had launched them, and the one that continued to fracture below.
2021
The Unseen Crew of Soyuz MS-18
While a nation descended into violence, a spacecraft carried three people to a station of peace, a stark contrast unfolding simultaneously on the same calendar day.
April 9Original articlein the voice of reframe