10811 ae of the most significant news is ae Perhaps in all of human history, Se olding here ona daily basis but has _*©ome so routine that it scarcely makes Press headlines anymore. It’s the Soviet ae Program, moving from success to ee in recent years while its Ameri- * Counterpart has spectacularly un- Tavelled and degenerated into little more an a hi-tech workhorse for the Pentagon. ‘ Spee plans to conquer the high fron- 4 T took a quantum leap forward this “Pring with the successful test-launching ee SPN RATES ES A new solar-power unit outside the craft in preparation for still further expansion of Mir. Large Project Planned During more than 15 years of opera- tion, Salyut orbiters played host to 11 international crews, including guests from most socialist countries, India, and France. Currently in training at Baikonur cosmodrome in preparation for upcom- ing visits to Mir are cosmonauts from Syria, France and Bulgaria. Soviet ex- perts say they hope to greatly expand international participation over coming SSRN EE Taal rms a Soviet scientists are working on an infrastructure to support permanent human presence in orbit. .. — oh RATES, Sis TEE Of the world’s most powerful propulsion system, the Energia booster rocket. “Apable of lifting a 100-ton payload into _ $rbit — more than three times the capa- tity of the U.S. space shuttle — Energia Will serve as a basic launch vehicle for an Mpressive array of upcoming space pro- . ects. These may soon include the USSR’s own re-usable space shuttle, a ‘Imanently inhabited scientific-indus- Mal complex in earth’s orbit and per- laps, as early as the turn of the century, a -tuman voyage to Mars. 13 Years in Orbit | The heart and soul of the Soviet space Been is the concept of the per- Manently occupied space station, which. ? Oonid Brezhnev described in 1978 as | Our pathway to the universe.’’ Begin- pine in 1971, the Soviets orbited seven »alut-class space laboratories, each more ambitious than the last. In February, 1986, the first of a new generation of So- Viet space stations went into orbit, the Mir. Over these long years of develop- Ment, Soviet cosmonauts have garnered Some 13 person-years of experience in Space, well over twice the time logged by the Americans. | The Mir is more spacious and far more Sophisticated than its Salyut pre- #cessors. However, its most remark- able feature is a spherical ‘docking adaptor”’ with six ports, which enables it 0 mate with freighters carrying cargo and Passengers, but also to add on whole Rew sections, building-block fashion. _ The first of five specialized modules lor the Mir has already been developed. The Kvant astrophysical laboratory, will ®pen a new window on the universe When it becomes fully operational. The Self-contained capsule houses four Wwerful x-ray telescopes — which will € trained upon some of the most my- ctetious of celestial phenomena: qua- “ars, pulsars, black holes and super- Novae — an ultraviolet band telescope, eid living quarters for astronomers who ill employ the equipment. a The only current inhabitants of the Mir prition are veteran cosmonaut Yuri 4 manenko and flight engineer Alexan- ¢r Laveikin, who have been there since ee y 8 this year preparing the station . full-scale operation as a biological, pcal; industrial and astrophysical re- ;arch centre. The highlights of their stay in * So far included the docking of Kvant Pare and a spectacular double space in June, when they assembled a a EES LATE years, both in manned space activity and in the launching of satellites for com- munications, earth exploration and scientific research. In a recent interview with the news- paper Trud, the head of the Soviet Aca- demy of Sciences, Gury Marchuk, re- vealed that the USSR is planning to loft still larger space stations in the near fu- ture, and is also developing a re-usable transport system to ferry them into orbit. This new Soviet space shuttle is said to be bigger and much improved over its ill-starred American counterpart. When it is launched, possibly within the coming year, it will roar skyward strapped to an Energia booster. Soviet scientists are gradually working up an entire technological infrastructure designed to support a permanent human presence in orbit. Besides the space shut- tle, and an array of throwaway rocket boosters, there will be new and special- ized types of freighters, intra-orbital tugs and possibly a ‘‘space plane’ for trans- porting passengers between stations. The Soviet record in planetary ex- ploration has been dazzling over the past few years, in contrast to the American effort which has not seen a single new launch since 1978. Soviet probes have mapped the surface Venus and, last year, contributed two spacecraft to an inter- national mission to rendezvous with Hal- ley’s Comet. There is a glittering agenda of future projects in preparation. A year from now two Soviet space vehicles will venture to Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. They will park in various orbits to study the Mar- tian surface, the solar wind, and other phenomena, and will then descend to the surface of Phobos to carry out a de- tailed examination of that mysterious body. ‘A Cosmic View’ Soviet scientists speak hopefully of a human mission to the red planet within a decade or two, but point to the formi- dable technical and logistical require- ments of such a project. The obstacles could best be overcome by a joint U.S.- Soviet effort in this direction, say many Soviet experts joined by prominent Americans such as Carl Sagan. The spiritual father of the Soviet space program was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky who, back in the 1920s, urged his coun- trymen to ‘‘try to develop a cosmic view of things.’’ In experimenting with rock- et-propelled vehicles, he said, ‘*I have in mind peaceful and loftty goals: to con- quer the universe for the good of - humanity.” ‘ In 30 years since the first Sputnik streaked across the night sky, despite some serious setbacks, the pace of the Soviet push into space has hardly slack- ened. Soviet leaders stress that theirs isa stage-by-stage approach, building: stead- ily and gradually toward a permanent human colonization of the solar system. The U.S. civilian space agency — NASA — which has known many stir- ring achievements in the past, is seen today to be teetering on the verge of ex- tinction. Demoralized by the loss of Chal- lenger last year, its agenda of planetary exploration gutted by budget cuts, the agency now seems utterly dependent upon military projects for its sub- sistence. Even the much-vaunted U.S. space station, planned for 1996, is threat- ened by horrendous cost-overruns and by wrangling over Pentagon demands that full priority be accorded to military uses of the station. The fact that the U.S. is so far behind in peaceful space development is not due to any deficiency in American technol- ogy or ability, Soviet scientists are quick to point out. It is rather a failure of na- tional will, a narrowing of American:ef- * fort to a vision of military supremacy in space which threatens everyone’s hopes for the peaceful development of the cos- mos. If sophisticated weaponry is devel- oped in earth orbit, laboratories, indus- tries and planetary probes are going to have a hard time coexisting with it, both literally and philosophically. _ .For-this reason-the, Soviets cansidet itr; imperative to reach broad, international ° agreement on the demilitarization of space as a condition for opening it up to scientists, explorers and, in the not-too- distant future, permanent human inhabi- tants. ‘‘We are convinced,’ says Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, “‘that space science and technology should be used for the social, economic and. cultural: development of humanity. And we in- tend to do everything we can to win that approach.” et Model of the huge Mir space station, more spacious and far more sophisticated than its Salyut predecessors, will greatly expand manned space activity in coming years. . PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 15, 1987 ¢ 5