Cosmonauts mock Russia’s space leader on Twitter, a robot calls them drunks

Enlarge / Roscosmos Head Dmitry Rogozin before Russia-China talks at the Moscow Kremlin in June. (credit: Mikhail Metzel/TASS via Getty Images)

There's a nasty, increasingly public battle that has engulfed a handful of former cosmonauts, a robot, and the current leader of Russia's space program, Dmitry Rogozin, in controversy.

The genesis of the dispute seems to be that some former cosmonauts have begun to speak out against Rogozin's leadership of Russia's space efforts-which has at times seemed self-serving-amid the rise of competitors like SpaceX and the decline of the country's aging infrastructure.

The most outspoken critic of Rogozin and Russia's space program has been Maxim Suraev, a Russian fighter pilot who served six-month stints on the International Space Station in 2010 and 2014. After retiring from the cosmonaut corps, Suraev was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian assembly.

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