Russia's Spaceflight Chief With Coronavirus Dies After Sending Off Astronauts

[LiberalArkie]

The head of Russia’s human spaceflight program who contracted the coronavirus has died at age 65, the national space agency Roscosmos announced Tuesday.

Yevgeny Mikrin, designer general of the Energia aerospace and defense corporation, died weeks after attending the April 9 launch of a three-man crew aboard a Russian capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). Mikrin’s coronavirus infection was asymptomatic, the state-run TASS news agency reported in mid-April.

“The best doctors fought for his life for several weeks,” Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said in a statement announcing Mikrin’s death.

“Unfortunately the illness gained the upper hand,” Rogozin said without specifying the cause of Mikrin’s death.

Snip

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/07/russias-spaceflight-chief-with-coronavirus-dies-after-sending-off-astronauts-a70209

[DURHAM D]

1. Glad we will no longer be using

them as our Uber ride to the space station.

[LiberalArkie]

2. They were reliable though.

[ecstatic]

3. Are they saying he was asymptomatic as far as

covid-19 specific symptoms, but experienced complications and/or inflammation in various organs?

Or are they saying that his infection began as asymptomatic and then became symptomatic?

[cbdo2007]

4. was wondering the same thing...but it says he was asymptomatic in mid-April so he must have become

symptomatic after that time.

[Cracklin Charlie]

5. Makes no sense.

why would an asymptomatic person need to fight for his life for weeks?

Maybe he was showing no symptoms when the mission launched. Translation issue, maybe.

[LisaL]

9. Some people are asymptomatic or mostly asymptomatic initially, then take a turn for the worse.

[Sanity Claws]

6. So are the Russian astronauts on their way to the space station?

Aren't they bringing COVID-19 to the space station? Is anyone voicing concern about this?

[2naSalit]

7. That's my first question...

And did he have any contact with the team?

[GemDigger]

8. My first question is the same as yours and my second question is more morbid...

If someone up there gets C19 and dies, do they just send the body into space? This can turn into a huge oh shit!

[2naSalit]

11. My thinking went there...

it's horrible thought but could be the upcoming scenario that ends the program or messes it up for a while.

Looks like the political scene in russia is heating up with the collapse of the oil industry and the pandemic taking it's toll on an autocratic system.

[LisaL]

10. It launched on April 9.

Presumably if any astronauts were infected, it would have been known already.