American and Russian Crews Launch Together to the ISS — Science Doesn't Take Sides

At 10:47 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 14, a Soyuz MS-29 rocket will rise from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina — a mixed American-Russian crew launching together on a joint mission to the International Space Station. That specific fact is worth sitting with for a moment. Whatever is happening on the ground, these three human beings are strapping into the same vehicle and trusting each other with their lives. Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will dock with the ISS and join the Expedition 74 crew already on station. Their primary mission is advancing scientific research in one of the most unique laboratories ever constructed — a facility that has been continuously inhabited since November 2000, operated through 25 years of shifting geopolitics by humans who keep showing up to do the work. Anil Menon's presence on this crew carries its own significance. A former SpaceX flight surgeon and U.S. Air Force veteran, Menon was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021 — part of a generation of crew members who represent the expanding human profile of who gets to go to space. His crewmate Anna Kikina remains one of Russia's most experienced active cosmonauts, and Pyotr Dubrov previously logged 355 days aboard the ISS on his first mission. The DrakX takeaway: space is hard, cooperation is harder, and this crew is doing both simultaneously. When a NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts launch together toward a shared orbital laboratory, it is not a political statement — it is a technical achievement and a human one. The ISS remains proof that building something extraordinary together is more durable than almost anyone expected it to be.