With the downing of flight MH17, tensions between Russia and the U.S over Ukraine are at a new high. Sanctions have been put in place, targeting Russia’s finance, defence and energy sectors. Russia has found a way to hit back; America’s space industry is its target. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface in 1969, it was the pivotal point in a space race that had lasted for more than a decade.
America had beaten the Soviets to the Moon. It was a great moment of US national pride, but the two rivals soon realised they could achieve so much more by working together. "I had no idea when I joined Nasa, wanting to be an astronaut, hoping to fly, that I would have anything to do with Russia," says Mike Foale, the British-born Nasa astronaut.
But during his 26-year career with the US space agency, he worked extensively with Russian cosmonauts as the alliance between the two nations grew. "Collaboration between any group, and of course countries, is far more profitable for everybody than reservation and competition and being antagonistic," he explains. "So, in the end, humans always win more if they co-operate."