A woman is blamed for everything - the American astronaut Serena Aunion-Chancellor.
Yelena Ivanova
On August 30, 2018, the cosmonauts discovered a hole 2 mm in diameter in the living compartment of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, through which air was leaking. First, it was about a meteorite that could damage the hull of the ship. Then experts said that the hole was man-made, and traces of a drill were found on the surface. The hole was repaired with Hermetall repair staff, but questions still remain.
On April 19 this year, cosmonaut, RAS Corresponding Member Oleg Atkov made a speech at the general meeting of the RAS Department of Medical Sciences "The 60th Anniversary of Yury Gagarin's Space Flight and Current Health Problems". He said that the hole on the ISS was drilled by a mentally unstable person who "had no labor lessons." He talked about heterogeneous crews with cultural, linguistic and gender differences.
“If we want to avoid a situation when an inept hand drills a hole with a drill, and the drill slides off, because a person is in a labor lesson ... and there were no labor lessons, and he does not know how to drill a curvature. Then all this is sealed, so that later the oxygen leak and pressure drop is detected or not detected... It is necessary to select people very well and provide psychological support throughout the flight", - Gazeta.ru quotes the cosmonaut.
Pilot-cosmonaut, Hero of Russia Elena Kondakova suggested that it is possible that Serena-Aunyon drilled the hole, but added that nothing has been proven:
“I don’t know her, but in the national cosmonautics there was also a situation with one of the girls. They tried to pull her [into space], but the doctors gave the conclusion that the person is psychologically unbalanced, it is not clear how he will behave in flight in zero gravity. I think this is not the first time the Americans have, I think you remember how one of the astronauts rushed after her lover to another city".
Now another source confidently claims that it was her, the American astronaut Serena Aunyon-Chancellor, allegedly due to extreme stress. A detailed story is given about the problems that arose on board the ISS with an American woman. She was unhappy with the unsanitary conditions on the ISS. Because of her, a high-tech toilet, the pride of American astronautics, broke down. It is reported that the captain of the crew, Andrew Fuustel, reported to the NASA mission control center in Houston and asked to send a ship to evacuate Aunyon "for health reasons". Allegedly, Houston refused: "there is no money for the Russian space taxi in the budget of the NASA expedition", "establish relations there as you wish".
This is followed by a story about an insidious American woman, when she, being alone at the station, while her colleagues were in outer space, made her way into the Russian compartment and drilled a hole in the station's body with a portable drill. On debriefing, she confessed and said it was a way to summon the ship. The story adds an international aspect - the insidious American wanted to fly to Earth at the expense of the Russians and along the way to discredit the backward Russian technologies.
At the request of NASA, the generous Roskosmos did not voice this version - Rogozin said that he knew everything, but he would not say.
Where did the author of the publication get such details, history is silent.
Rogozin himself did not rule out that someone had drilled a hole already in orbit, from inside the space station.
German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who first discovered the hole, does not believe in the cosmic version. In an interview with the BBC, he said that the hole was most likely drilled in the Earth by mistake and then unsuccessfully repaired. There is no such drill on the ISS at all. In the history of astronautics, there was another similar case, the astronaut said. The worker also damaged the ship on Earth with a drill, and then covered the hole with epoxy. The hole was discovered before the start. Perhaps something similar happened this time, they just did not notice the hole.
The internal commission of RSC Energia also confirmed that there is no such drill at the station. In November 2018, astronauts went into outer space and examined the damage. On the skin, they found traces of sealant, which spoke in favor of the earthly version.
Without challenging the psychological problems of a multinational crew and interpersonal problems in a confined space, blaming everything on a single woman does not look comradely or masculine. In this case, it would be wiser not to look for a woman. Moreover, Roskosmos is not going to reveal the cause and culprit of the incident.