Sanctioned minister tells NASA to take a leap to International Space Station

Moscow: Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a target of US sanctions sparked by the Ukraine crisis, said on Tuesday that those sanctions would boomerang against America’s space effort and essentially told Nasa to take a flying leap ... on a trampoline.

“After analysing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline,” Mr Rogozin said via his Russian-language Twitter account.

The tart tweet came after news reports in which Rogozin, who is in charge of the Russian space program, was quoted as saying sanctions against Russia would have a negative effect on Nasa as well as Europe’s space effort.

“Essentially, the Americans want to clear us out of the space services market,” he said. Russian rockets are being used to launch European satellites as well as Nasa astronauts, he noted.

“I am sick and tired of these sanctions, to be honest,” he told journalists in the Crimean city of Simferopol, which was part of Ukraine until Crimea was annexed by Russia last month.

“They don't understand that the sanctions will hit them like a boomerang.” Mr Rogozin is on the list of Russian officials whose financial assets are supposed to be frozen under the terms of the US sanctions. He came under criticism last week from SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, who is contesting the US Air Force’s decision to buy rocket hardware from United Launch Alliance.