The Backstory
The United States was in this very position just months ago, when an unexpected coolant leak left American astronauts effectively stranded aboard the ISS with no immediate NASA vehicle capable of bringing them home. SpaceX—Elon Musk, not Washington—executed the rescue.
Now China finds itself in a disturbingly similar predicament. And as scientists admit they still don’t know what piece of “debris” tore into China’s Shenzhou-20 return craft, the question lurking behind every official statement is unavoidable: was this really random junk, or fallout from the extraordinary activity around the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS and recent solar flare bursts?
By Samuel Lopez | USA Herald
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Beijing now has six astronauts aboard its Tiangong space station—double the usual capacity—after three men were forced to shelter in place when their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was damaged by an unidentified high-velocity impact last week. Chinese officials insist the crew is “safe and working normally,” but they have not released even basic details about the strike: no images of the damage, no confirmation of whether the hull was punctured, no telemetry showing depressurization, and no orbital debris ID.
