The three Russian cosmonauts who boarded the International Space Station to join their American and German colleagues, they wore bright yellow overalls with accents of blue, instead of their standard uniform (all blue). The move immediately seemed to observers, as reported the Bbc, a not too veiled reference to the Ukrainian flag and therefore a silent stance against the invasion. The three men were warmly welcomed aboard.
The debate on Twitter broke out. However, where several experts have pointed out that the material that the crew brings into orbit, including clothes, is always chosen well in advance: a last-minute modification is unlikely, unless the prepared clothes have been secretly replaced.
Quite an unlikely (and risky) hypothesis. To make the choice of colors for the spacesuit by Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev e Sergey Korsakov was a video, circulated shortly thereafter, which immortalized Artemyev as the Soyuz capsule was preparing to dock at the International Space Station, wearing a blue flight suit, different from the one in which he was filmed later.
As soon as they boarded the ISS, the three Russian cosmonauts had the opportunity to greet their families on Earth. And it was Artemyev who was asked why they were wearing yellow suits: he, without being too unbalanced, replied that each crew chooses their own flight suits, so that they are not all the same. “It was our turn to choose a color. And, in fact, we had accumulated a lot of yellow material that had to be used. That’s why we had to wear yellow”, was the explanation of the Russian astronaut, who instead of dampening the questions did not. than to feed them.
Until, a little while ago, the Russian Space Agency intervened on the point, and firmly denied that the yellow dresses with blue accents of the three cosmonauts have any reference to Ukraine. “Sometimes yellow is just yellow,” the Roscosmos press service said on its Telegram channel, reports the Guardian.
“The new crew’s flight suits are made in the colors of the State Technical University emblem Bauman of Moscow, where all three cosmonauts graduated. Seeing the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy. “