The good news: the biggest example of cooperation between countries is not on earth, but an object orbiting the planet at 26,000km per hour at around 400km above its surface, the International Space Station (ISS).
The bad news: That era of post-Cold War global cooperation may be about to end.
What happens on the planet has an impact on what happens up there inside the International Space Station, and the war in Ukraine has changed geopolitical equations circling the lower earth orbit. Russia will withdraw from the ISS after 2024 and go back to focusing on building its own space station, ending nearly three decades of a utopian dream - that humanity can rise above their differences on earth.
But there is a silver lining to this space divorce when viewed through the prism of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Russia’s withdrawal gives India a unique opportunity to further its space ambitions as well as hasten its learning curve in making the country one of space-farers.
Here’s how.
What ISS adds to India
CNET, in an article published on the 20th anniversary of the Space Station in 1998, quoted from a book by David Nixon, an architect who was invited to work on the design of the ISS, "The International Space Station's supreme achievement is its construction."
The ISS has been an unqualified success whichever way you look at it - from medicine to computing, from astrophysics to materials sciences and from biochemistry to engineering. Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has a list of things that have benefited from research in the ISS over the last couple of decades, and it is impressive to say the least.
India has long term ambitions to create a space station itself and that project can gain massively by investing in learning the ropes now. Getting in now on the ISS would also be a prudent and relatively cost-effective way to accelerate understanding of what it takes to keep a space station running. Take for example complex manoeuvres like docking, or space walking. In effect this could help shorten the time it would take India to build and maintain its own space station, by at least a fair few years.
With space becoming more and more important geopolitically and geo-strategically, India would gain massively from cranking up the revs. There are several areas of space exploration — like space mining — that will be contentious in the future, and it would help India to have its A game ready sooner than later.
The ISS is the most complex engineering project ever undertaken. It cost as much as USD150 billion to build, making it the most expensive item put together in human history. With its construction costs already taken care of, India can focus on better return on its investment by focusing on science and furthering basic research and other issues of its interest.
The remaining partner countries of the ISS other than Russia — the United States, Japan, Europe and Canada — now have to share the cost of running the ISS, at least until 2030. It is estimated that just one of those space agencies — Nasa — spends between USD3 billion and USD4 billion on keeping this ISS running every year. With that likely to go up further following the exit of Russia, the US and Nasa will likely look for ways to broaden the source of funds. That gives India leverage.
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