mo4ch:>‘US concerned about our good ties with Europe’: Cosmonaut says pressure forced ESA to ditch Soyuz | Mo4ch News
The European Space Agency’s decision to replace Russian launch vehicles with those made in the US was forced upon Europeans by their big “ally,” a Russian cosmonaut has said, noting that the US was jealous of the cooperation.Rene Pischel, head of ESA's permanent office in Moscow, announced this week that Italian astronaut Luka Parmitano might be the last European to have travelled to space in the famed Soyuz MS-13 Russian launch vehicle, at least for the foreseeable future. Parmitano has been at the International Space Station (ISS) since July.In the coming years the ESA would be switching to US spacecraft for the mission, Pischel said, noting that the arrangement had been made necessary by the contractual obligations existing between the ESA and NASA.Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov told the website 360tv.ru that the ESA decision is a result of an ongoing pressure campaign by Washington.As soon as Americans order something, everything is being done accordingly. Americans have a…