--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noelle King: Coming up on Today Explained, how Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has reached the final frontier. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. Didn't know that. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most. I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.
--:-- Noelle King: We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair. Oof, yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen, so now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Learn more at Schwab.com.
--:-- Noelle King: Lauren Grush of The Verge, I don't think I realize just how much the U.S. and Russia have had to cooperate in space. What's the history of how this happened?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, let's go all the way back to the early days of the U.S. space program. In fact, let's go back to October 4th, 1957. That was the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first man-made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today. And this launch shocked the world. Because if you have the capability to put an artificial satellite into Earth orbit, then you might also have the same capability to put a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In its orbit, 560 miles above the Earth, the satellite reached a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, circling the globe once every 96 minutes. And it also prompted a lot of soul-searching in the United States about how we should invest in space and space research. Soviet films of student groups tracking the satellite underscore the emphasis on science in Russian schools. It is a challenge that President Eisenhower has said, America must meet to survive in the space age. And experts will say that Sputnik officially kicked off the space race when the U.S. and the USSR were competing for dominance in space.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And that's how we got that famous JFK speech in front of Congress. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. That the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade in the 1960s. Space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Even in the earliest days of the space race, when we were still just sending people to orbit, there were discussions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union about ways that the space programs between these two nations could collaborate and share data. Those talks occurred under President Kennedy, and so when he was assassinated, they fell apart.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So fast forward, the U.S. was the first to land a person on the moon in 1969. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Roger Twink. Tranquility, we copy. And while the Soviet space program tried to reach that goal, they were never able to. That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So then the 1970s come, and the relationship between the two space powers becomes much more collaborative. And it culminates in this really incredible mission in 1975 known as the Apollo-Soyuz test project. We also have capture. Docking completed. And that's where we see an American Apollo spacecraft dock in Earth orbit with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so astronauts from the United States and cosmonauts from the Soviet Union actually met in space. They shook hands with each other. They ate together. They shared some Russian borscht that was labeled as vodka, as a joke. And they did some science experiments together. And it was a really great collaborative project. And it was in the middle of the Cold War, which is astonishing.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This moment is often considered the end of the space race, but I think it just goes to show that we've always had somewhat of a frenemy relationship with the Soviet Union and now the Russians when it came to space. There was always an intent to collaborate, even when we were at odds, you know, militarily and economically.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How eventually does that get us to the International Space Station, which is a form of collaboration that is far greater than probably anything the U.S. and Russia had tried on Earth?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had wanted to build a space station. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. And the Soviet Union had their own station called Mir which was in orbit from 1986 to 2001
--:-- Lauren Grush: And starting in the 90s our space shuttle began docking with Mir. In fact the commander of the first shuttle mission to Mir likes to say his handshake with the cosmonauts when the hatch opened, ended the crane war. After 20 years, our spacecraft are docked in orbit again. Our new era of space exploration has begun.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This really proves, I think, that Russians and Americans can work together and that we can make this International Space Station project successful. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And then in the early 90s, under President Clinton, the U.S. and Russia decided to collaborate on a space station together. And in 1998, the first module of that space station, the International Space Station, was launched into orbit.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How exactly do two countries who were once very hostile to each other decide that they're going to split the responsibility of running something really high stakes like a space station?
--:-- Lauren Grush: So the International Space Station is actually laid out into two complements. You have the Russian side and the American side. We're going into the Russian segment. Be ready. You don't need a passport either. Each side are made up of modules that each country has made and launched themselves.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And the different sides do different things. So the Russia-controlled section is in charge of propulsion. So if you ever need to boost the space station's orbit, move out of the way of space debris, the Russians control that. But in terms of our side, you know, we do plenty ourselves. The United States is responsible for electrical generation.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's very much a symbiotic relationship, and that's how it was designed, so that we have to rely on one another. And that way, you know, it's a great collaborative tool in that respect.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And we have command centers in both Houston and Moscow, and they're constantly in contact to make sure that the International Space Station is running and operating safely.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And even though there's a Russian half and an American half, I'm imagining that the astronauts do things like eat dinner together, hang out after work together.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Oh, absolutely. It's meant to be a free-flowing place where they're constantly working together. In fact, Russian cosmonauts will come to Houston to train, while NASA astronauts will go to Moscow to train. They have to learn Russian in order to go to the space station, and the cosmonauts need to know English as well.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In fact, when NASA retired its space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. had to rely on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. We didn't have a way to get our people to the ISS, so we had to use the Soyuz.
--:-- Lauren Grush: The interesting thing about this is that things on Earth between the United States and Russia have not been perfect over the last couple of years. Has this collaborative relationship been in trouble before?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Absolutely. And probably the most recent scenario is in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. And that was definitely a really difficult time for NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space program.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In 2014, we were still reliant on Russia to send our astronauts to the International Space Station. So we couldn't completely dissolve that partnership. We're less reliant on Russian rockets today because we have the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
--:-- Lauren Grush: It launched its first humans to the International Space Station in 2020. Ignition. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. Go NASA. Go SpaceX. Godspeed. Spot and Doug.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so we have that option to send our astronauts to the ISS. We don't need the Russian Soyuz rocket anymore. However, we still need to work together when it comes to the International Space Station because we are reliant on various Russian systems to keep the space station afloat.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's not as if we can completely dissolve, but we are in a much more powerful position than we were back when the Crimea invasion occurred.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Thank you.
--:-- Noelle King: Lauren Grush of The Verge, I don't think I realize just how much the U.S. and Russia have had to cooperate in space. What's the history of how this happened?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, let's go all the way back to the early days of the U.S. space program. In fact, let's go back to October 4th, 1957. That was the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first man-made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today. And this launch shocked the world. Because if you have the capability to put an artificial satellite into Earth orbit, then you might also have the same capability to put a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In its orbit, 560 miles above the Earth, the satellite reached a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, circling the globe once every 96 minutes. And it also prompted a lot of soul-searching in the United States about how we should invest in space and space research. Soviet films of student groups tracking the satellite underscore the emphasis on science in Russian schools. It is a challenge that President Eisenhower has said, America must meet to survive in the space age. And experts will say that Sputnik officially kicked off the space race when the U.S. and the USSR were competing for dominance in space.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And that's how we got that famous JFK speech in front of Congress. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. That the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade in the 1960s. Space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Even in the earliest days of the space race, when we were still just sending people to orbit, there were discussions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union about ways that the space programs between these two nations could collaborate and share data. Those talks occurred under President Kennedy, and so when he was assassinated, they fell apart.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So fast forward, the U.S. was the first to land a person on the moon in 1969. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Roger Twink. Tranquility, we copy. And while the Soviet space program tried to reach that goal, they were never able to. That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So then the 1970s come, and the relationship between the two space powers becomes much more collaborative. And it culminates in this really incredible mission in 1975 known as the Apollo-Soyuz test project. We also have capture. Docking completed. And that's where we see an American Apollo spacecraft dock in Earth orbit with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so astronauts from the United States and cosmonauts from the Soviet Union actually met in space. They shook hands with each other. They ate together. They shared some Russian borscht that was labeled as vodka, as a joke. And they did some science experiments together. And it was a really great collaborative project. And it was in the middle of the Cold War, which is astonishing.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This moment is often considered the end of the space race, but I think it just goes to show that we've always had somewhat of a frenemy relationship with the Soviet Union and now the Russians when it came to space. There was always an intent to collaborate, even when we were at odds, you know, militarily and economically.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How eventually does that get us to the International Space Station, which is a form of collaboration that is far greater than probably anything the U.S. and Russia had tried on Earth?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had wanted to build a space station. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. And the Soviet Union had their own station called Mir which was in orbit from 1986 to 2001
--:-- Lauren Grush: And starting in the 90s our space shuttle began docking with Mir. In fact the commander of the first shuttle mission to Mir likes to say his handshake with the cosmonauts when the hatch opened, ended the crane war. After 20 years, our spacecraft are docked in orbit again. Our new era of space exploration has begun.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This really proves, I think, that Russians and Americans can work together and that we can make this International Space Station project successful. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And then in the early 90s, under President Clinton, the U.S. and Russia decided to collaborate on a space station together. And in 1998, the first module of that space station, the International Space Station, was launched into orbit.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How exactly do two countries who were once very hostile to each other decide that they're going to split the responsibility of running something really high stakes like a space station?
--:-- Lauren Grush: So the International Space Station is actually laid out into two complements. You have the Russian side and the American side. We're going into the Russian segment. Be ready. You don't need a passport either. Each side are made up of modules that each country has made and launched themselves.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And the different sides do different things. So the Russia-controlled section is in charge of propulsion. So if you ever need to boost the space station's orbit, move out of the way of space debris, the Russians control that. But in terms of our side, you know, we do plenty ourselves. The United States is responsible for electrical generation.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's very much a symbiotic relationship, and that's how it was designed, so that we have to rely on one another. And that way, you know, it's a great collaborative tool in that respect.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And we have command centers in both Houston and Moscow, and they're constantly in contact to make sure that the International Space Station is running and operating safely.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And even though there's a Russian half and an American half, I'm imagining that the astronauts do things like eat dinner together, hang out after work together.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Oh, absolutely. It's meant to be a free-flowing place where they're constantly working together. In fact, Russian cosmonauts will come to Houston to train, while NASA astronauts will go to Moscow to train. They have to learn Russian in order to go to the space station, and the cosmonauts need to know English as well.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In fact, when NASA retired its space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. had to rely on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. We didn't have a way to get our people to the ISS, so we had to use the Soyuz.
--:-- Lauren Grush: The interesting thing about this is that things on Earth between the United States and Russia have not been perfect over the last couple of years. Has this collaborative relationship been in trouble before?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Absolutely. And probably the most recent scenario is in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. And that was definitely a really difficult time for NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space program.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In 2014, we were still reliant on Russia to send our astronauts to the International Space Station. So we couldn't completely dissolve that partnership. We're less reliant on Russian rockets today because we have the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
--:-- Lauren Grush: It launched its first humans to the International Space Station in 2020. Ignition. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. Go NASA. Go SpaceX. Godspeed. Spot and Doug.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so we have that option to send our astronauts to the ISS. We don't need the Russian Soyuz rocket anymore. However, we still need to work together when it comes to the International Space Station because we are reliant on various Russian systems to keep the space station afloat.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's not as if we can completely dissolve, but we are in a much more powerful position than we were back when the Crimea invasion occurred.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Thank you.
--:-- Noelle King: Lauren Grush of The Verge, I don't think I realize just how much the U.S. and Russia have had to cooperate in space. What's the history of how this happened?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, let's go all the way back to the early days of the U.S. space program. In fact, let's go back to October 4th, 1957. That was the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first man-made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today. And this launch shocked the world. Because if you have the capability to put an artificial satellite into Earth orbit, then you might also have the same capability to put a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In its orbit, 560 miles above the Earth, the satellite reached a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, circling the globe once every 96 minutes. And it also prompted a lot of soul-searching in the United States about how we should invest in space and space research. Soviet films of student groups tracking the satellite underscore the emphasis on science in Russian schools. It is a challenge that President Eisenhower has said, America must meet to survive in the space age. And experts will say that Sputnik officially kicked off the space race when the U.S. and the USSR were competing for dominance in space.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And that's how we got that famous JFK speech in front of Congress. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. That the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade in the 1960s. Space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Even in the earliest days of the space race, when we were still just sending people to orbit, there were discussions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union about ways that the space programs between these two nations could collaborate and share data. Those talks occurred under President Kennedy, and so when he was assassinated, they fell apart.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So fast forward, the U.S. was the first to land a person on the moon in 1969. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Roger Twink. Tranquility, we copy. And while the Soviet space program tried to reach that goal, they were never able to. That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So then the 1970s come, and the relationship between the two space powers becomes much more collaborative. And it culminates in this really incredible mission in 1975 known as the Apollo-Soyuz test project. We also have capture. Docking completed. And that's where we see an American Apollo spacecraft dock in Earth orbit with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so astronauts from the United States and cosmonauts from the Soviet Union actually met in space. They shook hands with each other. They ate together. They shared some Russian borscht that was labeled as vodka, as a joke. And they did some science experiments together. And it was a really great collaborative project. And it was in the middle of the Cold War, which is astonishing.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This moment is often considered the end of the space race, but I think it just goes to show that we've always had somewhat of a frenemy relationship with the Soviet Union and now the Russians when it came to space. There was always an intent to collaborate, even when we were at odds, you know, militarily and economically.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How eventually does that get us to the International Space Station, which is a form of collaboration that is far greater than probably anything the U.S. and Russia had tried on Earth?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had wanted to build a space station. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. And the Soviet Union had their own station called Mir which was in orbit from 1986 to 2001
--:-- Lauren Grush: And starting in the 90s our space shuttle began docking with Mir. In fact the commander of the first shuttle mission to Mir likes to say his handshake with the cosmonauts when the hatch opened, ended the crane war. After 20 years, our spacecraft are docked in orbit again. Our new era of space exploration has begun.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This really proves, I think, that Russians and Americans can work together and that we can make this International Space Station project successful. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And then in the early 90s, under President Clinton, the U.S. and Russia decided to collaborate on a space station together. And in 1998, the first module of that space station, the International Space Station, was launched into orbit.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How exactly do two countries who were once very hostile to each other decide that they're going to split the responsibility of running something really high stakes like a space station?
--:-- Lauren Grush: So the International Space Station is actually laid out into two complements. You have the Russian side and the American side. We're going into the Russian segment. Be ready. You don't need a passport either. Each side are made up of modules that each country has made and launched themselves.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And the different sides do different things. So the Russia-controlled section is in charge of propulsion. So if you ever need to boost the space station's orbit, move out of the way of space debris, the Russians control that. But in terms of our side, you know, we do plenty ourselves. The United States is responsible for electrical generation.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's very much a symbiotic relationship, and that's how it was designed, so that we have to rely on one another. And that way, you know, it's a great collaborative tool in that respect.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And we have command centers in both Houston and Moscow, and they're constantly in contact to make sure that the International Space Station is running and operating safely.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And even though there's a Russian half and an American half, I'm imagining that the astronauts do things like eat dinner together, hang out after work together.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Oh, absolutely. It's meant to be a free-flowing place where they're constantly working together. In fact, Russian cosmonauts will come to Houston to train, while NASA astronauts will go to Moscow to train. They have to learn Russian in order to go to the space station, and the cosmonauts need to know English as well.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In fact, when NASA retired its space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. had to rely on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. We didn't have a way to get our people to the ISS, so we had to use the Soyuz.
--:-- Lauren Grush: The interesting thing about this is that things on Earth between the United States and Russia have not been perfect over the last couple of years. Has this collaborative relationship been in trouble before?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Absolutely. And probably the most recent scenario is in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. And that was definitely a really difficult time for NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space program.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In 2014, we were still reliant on Russia to send our astronauts to the International Space Station. So we couldn't completely dissolve that partnership. We're less reliant on Russian rockets today because we have the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
--:-- Lauren Grush: It launched its first humans to the International Space Station in 2020. Ignition. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. Go NASA. Go SpaceX. Godspeed. Spot and Doug.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so we have that option to send our astronauts to the ISS. We don't need the Russian Soyuz rocket anymore. However, we still need to work together when it comes to the International Space Station because we are reliant on various Russian systems to keep the space station afloat.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's not as if we can completely dissolve, but we are in a much more powerful position than we were back when the Crimea invasion occurred.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Thank you.
--:-- Noelle King: Lauren Grush of The Verge, I don't think I realize just how much the U.S. and Russia have had to cooperate in space. What's the history of how this happened?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, let's go all the way back to the early days of the U.S. space program. In fact, let's go back to October 4th, 1957. That was the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first man-made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today. And this launch shocked the world. Because if you have the capability to put an artificial satellite into Earth orbit, then you might also have the same capability to put a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In its orbit, 560 miles above the Earth, the satellite reached a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, circling the globe once every 96 minutes. And it also prompted a lot of soul-searching in the United States about how we should invest in space and space research. Soviet films of student groups tracking the satellite underscore the emphasis on science in Russian schools. It is a challenge that President Eisenhower has said, America must meet to survive in the space age. And experts will say that Sputnik officially kicked off the space race when the U.S. and the USSR were competing for dominance in space.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And that's how we got that famous JFK speech in front of Congress. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. That the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade in the 1960s. Space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Even in the earliest days of the space race, when we were still just sending people to orbit, there were discussions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union about ways that the space programs between these two nations could collaborate and share data. Those talks occurred under President Kennedy, and so when he was assassinated, they fell apart.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So fast forward, the U.S. was the first to land a person on the moon in 1969. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Roger Twink. Tranquility, we copy. And while the Soviet space program tried to reach that goal, they were never able to. That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So then the 1970s come, and the relationship between the two space powers becomes much more collaborative. And it culminates in this really incredible mission in 1975 known as the Apollo-Soyuz test project. We also have capture. Docking completed. And that's where we see an American Apollo spacecraft dock in Earth orbit with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so astronauts from the United States and cosmonauts from the Soviet Union actually met in space. They shook hands with each other. They ate together. They shared some Russian borscht that was labeled as vodka, as a joke. And they did some science experiments together. And it was a really great collaborative project. And it was in the middle of the Cold War, which is astonishing.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This moment is often considered the end of the space race, but I think it just goes to show that we've always had somewhat of a frenemy relationship with the Soviet Union and now the Russians when it came to space. There was always an intent to collaborate, even when we were at odds, you know, militarily and economically.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How eventually does that get us to the International Space Station, which is a form of collaboration that is far greater than probably anything the U.S. and Russia had tried on Earth?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had wanted to build a space station. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. And the Soviet Union had their own station called Mir which was in orbit from 1986 to 2001
--:-- Lauren Grush: And starting in the 90s our space shuttle began docking with Mir. In fact the commander of the first shuttle mission to Mir likes to say his handshake with the cosmonauts when the hatch opened, ended the crane war. After 20 years, our spacecraft are docked in orbit again. Our new era of space exploration has begun.
--:-- Lauren Grush: This really proves, I think, that Russians and Americans can work together and that we can make this International Space Station project successful. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And then in the early 90s, under President Clinton, the U.S. and Russia decided to collaborate on a space station together. And in 1998, the first module of that space station, the International Space Station, was launched into orbit.
--:-- Lauren Grush: How exactly do two countries who were once very hostile to each other decide that they're going to split the responsibility of running something really high stakes like a space station?
--:-- Lauren Grush: So the International Space Station is actually laid out into two complements. You have the Russian side and the American side. We're going into the Russian segment. Be ready. You don't need a passport either. Each side are made up of modules that each country has made and launched themselves.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And the different sides do different things. So the Russia-controlled section is in charge of propulsion. So if you ever need to boost the space station's orbit, move out of the way of space debris, the Russians control that. But in terms of our side, you know, we do plenty ourselves. The United States is responsible for electrical generation.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's very much a symbiotic relationship, and that's how it was designed, so that we have to rely on one another. And that way, you know, it's a great collaborative tool in that respect.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And we have command centers in both Houston and Moscow, and they're constantly in contact to make sure that the International Space Station is running and operating safely.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And even though there's a Russian half and an American half, I'm imagining that the astronauts do things like eat dinner together, hang out after work together.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Oh, absolutely. It's meant to be a free-flowing place where they're constantly working together. In fact, Russian cosmonauts will come to Houston to train, while NASA astronauts will go to Moscow to train. They have to learn Russian in order to go to the space station, and the cosmonauts need to know English as well.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In fact, when NASA retired its space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. had to rely on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. We didn't have a way to get our people to the ISS, so we had to use the Soyuz.
--:-- Lauren Grush: The interesting thing about this is that things on Earth between the United States and Russia have not been perfect over the last couple of years. Has this collaborative relationship been in trouble before?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Absolutely. And probably the most recent scenario is in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. And that was definitely a really difficult time for NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space program.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In 2014, we were still reliant on Russia to send our astronauts to the International Space Station. So we couldn't completely dissolve that partnership. We're less reliant on Russian rockets today because we have the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
--:-- Lauren Grush: It launched its first humans to the International Space Station in 2020. Ignition. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. Go NASA. Go SpaceX. Godspeed. Spot and Doug.
--:-- Lauren Grush: And so we have that option to send our astronauts to the ISS. We don't need the Russian Soyuz rocket anymore. However, we still need to work together when it comes to the International Space Station because we are reliant on various Russian systems to keep the space station afloat.
--:-- Lauren Grush: So it's not as if we can completely dissolve, but we are in a much more powerful position than we were back when the Crimea invasion occurred.
--:-- Lauren Grush: Thank you.
--:-- Noelle King: Lauren Grush of The Verge, I don't think I realize just how much the U.S. and Russia have had to cooperate in space. What's the history of how this happened?
--:-- Lauren Grush: Well, let's go all the way back to the early days of the U.S. space program. In fact, let's go back to October 4th, 1957. That was the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first man-made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today. And this launch shocked the world. Because if you have the capability to put an artificial satellite into Earth orbit, then you might also have the same capability to put a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.
--:-- Lauren Grush: In its orbit, 560 miles above the Earth, the satellite reached a speed of 18,000 miles an hour, circling the globe once every 96 minutes. And it also prompted a lot of soul-searching in the United States about how we should invest in space and space research. Soviet films of student groups tracking the satellite underscore the emphasis on science in Russian schools. It is a challenge that President Eisenhower has said, America must meet to survive in the space age. And experts will say that Sputnik officially kicked off the
