NASA astronaut: Russians were ‘blindsided’ by reaction to yellow suits

In his first public comments since returning to Earth last week after a record-breaking 355 days in space, Vande Hei said Tuesday that he was never worried about his safety on the station or on the Russian spacecraft that flew him and two cosmonauts home.

“I never perceive those tweets as anything to take seriously,” he said. “I just had too much confidence in our cooperation to date to take those tweets as anything but something that was meant for a different audience than myself.”

As for the Russian crew members who recently joined the space station wearing yellow-and-blue suits, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, he said the outfits were not meant as political commentary. Instead, all three members went to the same university, and yellow and blue are the school colors.

He said the cosmonauts “had no idea that people would perceive that as having to do with Ukraine. … I think they were kind of blindsided by it.”

As for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said that “it was not a topic I shied away from with my crewmates. They weren’t very long discussions. But I did ask them how they’re feeling and sometimes asked pointed questions. But our focus really was on our mission together.”

Spending nearly a year on the station, he said, he bonded with his crewmates, from the United States and Russia.

“They were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine. We support each other throughout everything. And I never had any concerns about my ability to continue working with them — very good professionals and technically competent and wonderful human beings.”

The feeling appears to be mutual. In a change-of-command ceremony last week before heading home, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said that while “people have problems on Earth … on orbit we are one crew.” Speaking in English, the Russian called the space station “a symbol of friendship and cooperation and like a symbol of the future of exploration in space.”

He thanked “my space brothers and sisters” and praised NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn, saying he would be a “professional commander of ISS.”

Vande Hei now holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American, a mark that was previously held by former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. As it did for Kelly and other astronauts, Vande Hei said, NASA will continue to monitor his health in the months and years to come to see what effect spaceflight has had on his body.

After so much time in the weightless environment of space, he said returning to gravity has been a challenge. “I was able to walk on my own within eight hours,” he said, though he was “wobbly.” He said he was “still uncomfortable.”

As NASA prepares to send humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years, he said he wanted his flight to be “remembered as the record that got broken. I’m really looking forward to the next person doing something longer and getting further and further away and exploring more, but I want this to be remembered as a steppingstone.”