I had a strange reaction to the moron who’s head of the Russian space program threatening to take down ISS (all the rocket motors are in the Russian section of the space station, so he says he could order the little corrections necessary to keep the station in orbit and out of the way of space junk turned off, but that’s a lie because NASA has a backup). He’s also stated Russia will strand an American astronaut on the station, another lie (he can go home on the next Space-X mission), and that all shipments of Atlas engines will be halted (there’s a big reserve supply of those!)
My reaction is a bit different than Scott Kelly’s, though, where the ex-astronaut said that fellow who kisses Putin’s ass will have to get a new job when the Russian space program goes kaput, maybe a job at McDonald’s if the chain, so beloved by Russian young people, ever reopens its doors. In all that has gone on since the mad monster Putin invaded Ukraine, it’s useful to step back and take a look at the dictator’s enablers. (The space program’s head, other scientists, sports figures, and artists support the dictator. Perhaps he would be dead by now if they didn’t?)
That aforementioned crazy bastard who runs Putin’s space program made a similar threat during Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the one where he stole Crimea, so people didn’t pay much attention to that tweet or have forgotten about it if they did. Maybe at the peril of the astronauts aboard if the two Russian cosmonauts decide to take over ISS or make it crash?
But my reaction went beyond that “oh no!” kneejerk one. It made me think of something I’ve known as fact for a long time and is so obvious that people forget it: Autocratic societies living under the threats of their despotic leaders—we have plenty of examples—can’t begin to match the inventiveness of free societies. The latter nurture free thinkers, inventive people who have new ideas and create things that can change the world for the better. Autocratic societies stifle all creative thinking.
I won’t go into the many examples that prove my claim. As a scientist would state, it’s a solid theory based on a wealth of overwhelming experimental facts. Instead, let me stick to space programs. While the USSR shocked the world with Sputnik, the Russians went downhill from there. Every setback the US and EU have had—cancelling the US shuttle program is an example—is on them and not competition from Russian competitiveness, and the programs in the western democracies have moved on to greatness, helped by free enterprise, not state-controlled economic systems. Both Russian and China are in catchup mode now. As they do with a lot of tech, they often prefer to steal it because their homegrown inventiveness sucks. We have a booster that can return to Earth to land even on a ship; Russia has a glorified Nazi rocket that hurts the Russian economy with its every launch. Russia is now basically a Third World country under Putin, and China still doesn’t have a modern mRNA Covid vaccine! (I doubt Russia does either, which explains why Putin always sits so far away from his advisers and visitors.)
It’s clear to me that an authoritarian regime will always destroy creativity and most chances for real technological advance unless they steal the ideas. And yet some idiots even in the US admire such regimes and want us to live in a dystopian world where all creative thought is banned. I don’t want to live in such a world! Most of us don’t.
And seeing how this is St. Paddy’s day, enjoy my Irish background scene. Slainte!