FieldMarshal
Banned
Silly idea I came up with during spring cleaning.
What if, at some point during the Cold War, a the crew of a Soviet space station - for the sake of this thread, let’s say it’s the Mir, ca. 1987 - 1988 - attempts to defect to the United States with said space station? Assume the entire crew has agreed to defect, and somehow this escapes the attention of the KGB/GRU until they’re actually in space.
How would they go about contacting the US? How would NASA actually secure the cosmonauts and the Mir? I assume it would be relatively simple to send a Shuttle up, though - and correct me if I’m wrong here - it seems they wouldn’t be able to actually dock the Shuttle, seeing as docking facilities weren’t installed until 1990 (and proper Shuttle docking ports weren’t installed until 1995). Assuming the Russians cut off resupply of the station, would the US have been able to resupply the station themselves?
How would the Soviets respond? The defection of multiple cosmonauts and the crown jewel of the Russian space program ought to be a major egg-on-face moment for the USSR. Would they have no realistic chance of doing anything? Would they send up cosmonauts in some sort of attempt to retake the station? Might they even attack the Mir with ASAT weaponry to prevent it from falling into American hands?
What if, at some point during the Cold War, a the crew of a Soviet space station - for the sake of this thread, let’s say it’s the Mir, ca. 1987 - 1988 - attempts to defect to the United States with said space station? Assume the entire crew has agreed to defect, and somehow this escapes the attention of the KGB/GRU until they’re actually in space.
How would they go about contacting the US? How would NASA actually secure the cosmonauts and the Mir? I assume it would be relatively simple to send a Shuttle up, though - and correct me if I’m wrong here - it seems they wouldn’t be able to actually dock the Shuttle, seeing as docking facilities weren’t installed until 1990 (and proper Shuttle docking ports weren’t installed until 1995). Assuming the Russians cut off resupply of the station, would the US have been able to resupply the station themselves?
How would the Soviets respond? The defection of multiple cosmonauts and the crown jewel of the Russian space program ought to be a major egg-on-face moment for the USSR. Would they have no realistic chance of doing anything? Would they send up cosmonauts in some sort of attempt to retake the station? Might they even attack the Mir with ASAT weaponry to prevent it from falling into American hands?