Russia is furious about what it considers unfair criticisms of its space program.Late last month, the country's latest addition to International Space Station, long-awaited Nauka Module, docked with outpost. During docking procedures, however, its thrusters erupted unexpectedly and caused the entire ISS spin one-and a half revolutions.The international community was not impressed and hurled a lot of negative press at Roscosmos' space program. Critics wondered aloud if Russia had become a liability, and whether NASA should continue its partnership.Now, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS has responded with dramatic accusations. It offers little or no evidence to support its claims.AdvertisementAdvertisementAccording to the news service, Serena Aun-Chancellor, NASA astronaut, suffered a mental breakdown while aboard the ISS. She also intentionally damaged a Russian spacecraft in order to return to Earth in 2018. This was spotted by Eric Berger of Ars Technicas. Berger was also singled out in the TASS report as having criticised Russia's space program after the Nauka incident.According to the report Aun-Chancellor suffered a severe psychological crisis due to deep vein thrombosis. TASS suggests that she had to drill numerous holes in the module's wall in order to return home earlier.This is a serious accusation that requires extraordinary proof. TASS only offers an anonymous Roscosmos source accusation and circumstantial evidence that a camera did not capture the event. TASS claims that Americans refused to do a polygraph test, which is also a weak claim since experts agree they are ineffective at detecting lies.True, there was a 2018 incident where the Russian space agency claimed to have discovered evidence of multiple attempts to drill into the walls at the ISS.AdvertisementAdvertisementRussia escalated the situation by sending two Russian cosmonauts on a spacewalk in December 2018 to explore the tiny holes.According to Ars Technicas report on the allegations, two theories have been proposed to explain the hole's origin. Either small pieces of space debris, micrometeorites, or an engineer from Russia rushed to fix their mistakes by supergluing a patch on top of them.Russian officials never denied the possibility of sabotage, and the state news agency seems to be using the ambiguity surrounding the incident to justify its failure to dock the Nauka.READ MORE: Russia's space program just kicked a NASA astronaut under a bus [Ars Technica]AdvertisementAdvertisementRussia's Space Agency: Russia Says It Is Not a Big Deal That We Thrown the ISS into a Tailspin
