Could tensions over Ukraine hit space?

When Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface in 1969, it was the pivotal point in a space race that had lasted for more than a decade.
America had beaten the Soviets to the Moon.
It was a great moment of US national pride, but the two rivals soon realised they could achieve so much more by working together.

Mike Foale Former Nasa astronaut

"I had no idea when I joined Nasa, wanting to be an astronaut, hoping to fly, that I would have anything to do with Russia," says Mike Foale, the British-born Nasa astronaut.

But during his 26-year career with the US space agency, he worked extensively with Russian cosmonauts as the alliance between the two nations grew.
"Collaboration between any group, and of course countries, is far more profitable for everybody than reservation and competition and being antagonistic," he explains.
"So, in the end, humans always win more if they co-operate."

But today, the Americans don't just collaborate with the Russians. They depend on them.
In 2011, the Atlantis Shuttle flew its last mission. Nasa's space shuttle programme had come to an end.
Now, to get to the International Space Station (ISS) - a long-serving symbol of unity in space - the Americans have to catch a lift from the Russians on their Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost of more than $60 million a seat.
But as tensions grow over Ukraine, relations between the US and Russia are becoming ever more fraught.
Earlier this year, a leaked memo revealed that Nasa was suspending some of its ties with Russia as part of America's ongoing sanctions, apart from work on the ISS.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin responded by suggesting the Americans send their astronauts into space using a trampoline.
If Russia put a stop to these space taxi rides, American astronauts would be grounded. But Dr Foale says the Russians would lose out, too.
"In the case of America and Russia building the ISS, America agreed to build all of the electronics and electric power systems, and Russia agreed to build all of the fuel systems. So, we're joined together in this common endeavour and we both need each other critically,"