A document from the CQ Researcher archives: Report Outline
Joint U.S.-Soviet Space Mission
Rapid Progress in Space Programs
Goals of Future Space Exploration
Special Focus Joint U.S.-Soviet Space Mission Technical and Political Purposes of Apollo-Soyuz Shortly after noon (EDT) on Thursday, July 17, about 135 miles above Europe, a silver, bullet-shaped American Apollo spacecraft will maneuver slowly toward a green and white Russian Soyuz capsule with a bulbous nose and a pair of wings. The Apollo will push a black docking module toward the Soyuz and a metal ring will lock into a series of latching devices and pressure seals. After docking is completed, a hatch will open to permit Apollo astronauts Thomas P. Stafford and Donald K. (Deke) Slayton, weightless in space, to crawl into the docking module, while Vance D. Brand remains behind in the Apollo command module. Sometime after 3 p.m., the Soyuz hatch will open and Stafford will reach out to shake the hands of Russian cosmonauts Aleksey A. Leonov and Valeriy N. Kubasov. Their historic handshakes will be shown live to a worldwide television audience. People around the world will also hear the astronauts address the cosmonauts in their native language and vice versa—“language of the listener” is the rule for the mission. The crews will exchange flags and sign a joint flight certificate. Later, the Russians will serve their American guests a luncheon of sour cabbage soup, jellied tongue, dried fish, rye bread, cream cheese with black currant jam, honey cakes, prunes with nuts, tea and candy—all from aluminum tubes and tin cans. Thus will begin the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (Astp)—the first international manned space flight in history—if all goes according to schedule. It is an undertaking which many believe will open a new era of international cooperation in space. If humanity is ever to venture out through the solar system into the galaxy and beyond, it clearly must be a combined effort of more than one nation. “Somewhere along the line in space programs, we have to start doing a lot of work with other countries, basically to economize,” astronaut Vance Brand said recently.“Fifty years from now, undoubtedly, we'll be doing really great things. I think that it's important that we make this first step in cooperation.” The ostensible main purpose of the Apollo-Soyuz mission is to test the new international docking system. Built at a cost of about $25 million, the new mechanism combines the best engineering ideas of the Soviet Union and the United States to make a system better than either nation had before. Earlier space linkups required one vehicle to have a probe device and the other a conical target; two similarly equipped spacecraft were not able to connect with each other. In the future, any two vehicles with the new docking unit will be able to hook up at any time, whether in routine or emergency situations. “It will allow spacecraft of different national origin to mate in space for cooperative experiments, or one nation's spacecraft to berth at another's space station,” wrote James J. Haggerty in Aerospace magazine. “It will also make possible rescue of one nation's stranded astronauts by the most readily available spacecraft, regardless of the flag it flies.” The joint mission will have other tangible benefits, as well. For one thing, it will enable the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to fly another Apollo mission at minimal expense, since the Saturn 1B launch vehicle and the Apollo spacecraft are both leftovers from the moon program. Also, Nasa is able to keep the momentum going between the Skylab program, which was originally to be the last use of Apollo equipment, and the Space Shuttle program, which will start in 1979. The team of government, industry and academic personnel, as well as the astronaut crews and launch teams, will thus stay together longer than expected. In addition, the flight affords the last opportunity until the Space Shuttle for conducting manned scientific experiments in space, and there is a lengthy agenda of scheduled tests. The primary gains from the joint mission probably will be political, however. Nasa officials say the project already is a success because U.S. and Soviet personnel have worked together for several years in greater harmony than either side expected. There have been disagreements and controversies, but they have been worked out in a spirit of negotiation and compromise that rose above the language barrier and technological differences. Chester M. Lee, Nasa's director of the mission, said: “This operation has given us a window into the Soviet Union, some visibility we haven't had before—not just a closer view of their space program, but the whole Soviet system.” Lengthy Foreign Training for Crews and Staff Technical experts, officials, astronauts and cosmonauts from the United States and the Soviet Union have been commuting between the two countries for more than three years in preparation for the joint mission. A crisis occurred early in the planning stage when Mstislav Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and leader of the Russian staff, became gravely ill with crippling cardiovascular complications in his legs. But the U.S. State Department arranged to fly a famous Houston heart surgeon, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, to Moscow to perform an operation. Within a few months Keldysh was again participating in the complex technical talks. 
There were also initial difficulties to overcome in the operation of the two space programs and in human relations between the crews. Both the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft had to be modified for the joint flight. One major initial difference was that the two vehicles had incompatible atmospheres—the Apollo crewmen breathe pure oxygen at five pounds per square inch pressure, while the Soyuz normally operates at an earth-sea-level atmosphere combining oxygen and nitrogen at 14.7 pounds per square inch. The Soviets agreed to reduce this pressure to 10 pounds per square inch while the spacecraft are docked; without this modification, transferring crew members would have been forced to spend three hours in the docking module airlock to avoid aeroembolism—“the bends.” With it, crew transfers will take only about 10 minutes. “The modification represents something of a milestone in U.S.-Soviet space relationships,” Haggerty wrote. “Soviet willingness to undertake this very costly narrowing of the pressure gap convinced the American team early in the program that the U.S.S.R. was really serious about the cooperative venture.” The main barrier between the crews was one of language, but four to six hours a day of Russian or English lessons soon began to pay off for the astronauts and cosmonauts. After about a year of training and practice, the crewmen developed a competence roughly equivalent to about four years of college language instruction. They decided that the best system for the flight was for the astronauts always to address the Soviets in Russian and for the cosmonauts to address the Americans in English. Gauges and instruments are labeled in both languages on the spacecraft. Interpreters will be at the control centers in both Houston and Moscow to relay communications and help translate difficult technical terms. The crews seemed to hit it off almost from the beginning of their training programs, developing what a Nasa official called “the camaraderie of World War I fighter pilots.” After getting to know one another on brief visits, they went through lengthy joint training sessions in the Soviet Union and the United States. “They have run, swam, fished and played tennis together, had snowball fights in Moscow, hunted antelopes in Wyoming and toasted away countless convivial evenings in one another's homes,” wrote Don A. Schanche in Parade. “We must trust each other with our lives, therefore we must be like a family,” cosmonaut Leonov has said. American and Russian crew members and other staffers have exchanged four visits to each other's countries. There have been tours and training sessions at Cape Canaveral and at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, and at Zvetzdny Gorodok (Star City) outside Moscow and at the huge Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakhstan desert in Soviet Asia. In keeping with the political differences between the two countries, the U.S. sessions have been wide open and heavily publicized while the Soviet tours have been limited and veiled in secrecy. Soviet obsession with secrecy threatened the future of the joint mission at one point when the Russians initially refused to allow the U.S. crew to visit the launch site and go aboard the Soyuz spacecraft and rocket, contending that the Russians also launch long-range military missiles from that base. But astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, an Air Force brigadier general, insisted on a tour, declaring: “I never fly on a spacecraft I haven't been in on the ground.” The Russians gave in and in April and May 1975 took the Americans through the base and the new city of Leninsk nearby. It was a revealing trip, as American crews, staff and officials saw an enormous space complex and evidence of a massive Soviet space effort. But cameras were forbidden and the Americans were flown in and out in darkness. The area “makes Cape Kennedy look very small,” Stafford said at a press conference in Houston on May 14. “If all the lights we saw …were associated with the launch complex, I would say in the ballpark, it's three to four times as big as the Cape.” The new city of Leninsk, which houses space workers and their families, already has a population of 50,000, although it does not appear on ordinary Soviet maps. “It's a huge city they're building out there in the desert and it looks like they're still building it,” Stafford said. Origins of U.S. Space Cooperation With Russia It is unlikely that the elaborate extent of necessary preparation was fully realized when the joint U.S.-Soviet space mission was first agreed upon. It is unclear who had the initial idea, but it apparently was first proposed publicly by Jess Gorkin, editor of Parade magazine, in 1966, in the form of an open letter to President Johnson. The idea worked its way up the official hierarchy, and in 1969 astronaut Frank Borman, back from the circumlunar flight of Apollo 8, was on a tour of Russia when he proposed a joint flight to Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov and Dr. Boris Petrov, chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences Committee on Manned Flight. The Russians, having lost the race to the moon, were attracted to the idea because it would make it appear to the world that their technology was on a par with that of the United States. But there was still some hesitation on the part of the Russians. One thing that helped convince them, according to one account, was the filming of Marooned, a popular 1964 space novel by the American writer Martin Caidin. The movie depicts American astronauts stranded in orbit and being rescued by Russian cosmonauts, who take a risky “space walk” to deliver oxygen to the Americans. Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences, saw the film at a benefit in Washington in the spring of 1970, and on a later trip to Moscow he glowingly described it to his counterparts at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The idea of a common international docking mechanism appealed to the Russians, who were then having trouble with their Soyuz program. Less than two months later, the Russians told Handler they were willing to begin discussions, and the two countries initiated formal negotiations shortly thereafter. The first tentative plans for the joint mission were formulated at a meeting of senior Nasa officials and Soviet Academy of Sciences representatives in Moscow in October 1970. The participants agreed to design a compatible rendezvous and docking system and to establish three working groups. Further meetings in June 1971 resulted in agreements on a test mission, coordination of systems, documentation procedures, airlock volume, optical and radio communications, control stations and other design features. A series of meetings in November-December 1971 produced agreements on test mission objectives, life support systems and docking designs. Finally, meetings in April 1972 set the year of the mission as 1975, accepted documents describing the test project, and agreed on specific principles including frequent direct contact among personnel, detailed schedules, a comprehensive training program, joint working groups, information exchanges, language training and a public information program. The agreement was formally ratified by President Nixon and Premier Alexsei N. Kosygin in Moscow on May 24, 1972. The agreement came in the context of a general policy of detente and American efforts to help hasten the end of the Cold War. In addition, although this was the first agreement on a joint manned mission, there was ample precedent for cooperation in space dating back to the early 1960s. In June 1962, a three-part bilateral space agreement was drawn up as a result of talks between then Deputy Nasa Administrator Hugh L. Dryden and Soviet Academician Anatoliy A. Blagonravov. It provided for (1) coordinated U.S. and Soviet launchings of experimental meteorological satellites and exchange of data, (2) satellites equipped with absolute magnetometers to help complete a map of the earth's magnetic field in space, and (3) joint communications experiments using Echo 2, the U.S. satellite. So the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, although an extraordinary breakthrough, was not unprecedented or totally unexpected. Questions Raised by American Critics of Project There have always been critics of joint U.S.-Soviet cooperation and detente, whether in space or on the ground, and the Apollo-Soyuz project is no exception. Criticism has ranged from comments that the mission is a meaningless “handshake in space” to more serious charges that it is a “wheat deal in the sky,” with the Russians likely to reap all the technological benefits.Nasa officials generally agree that the Soviet space program is about 10 years behind the U.S. program in rocket boosters and spacecraft sophistication, and the open nature of the American system has allowed Russian visitors a first-hand look. On the other hand, the basic Apollo technology is almost 15 years old, and most experts believe that the Russians will see nothing they could not have observed by other means, except perhaps some new computer programing techniques. Nonetheless, some critics still contend that the United States has much to lose and little to gain. “From the Soviet standpoint, the goals were obvious,” wrote Robert Hotz, editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, in a recent editorial. “First, to tap into the mainstream of U.S. space technology, which had spurted a generation ahead with Apollo. Second, to blur the international image of U.S. superiority with at least the appearance of parity by flying a joint manned mission. Third, to develop the technical base for an international space rescue capability. This last objective was shared by the U.S. But other U.S. goals sought from this venture remain obscure and may be nonexistent beyond the political parameters.” In a similar vein, Michael S. Kelly argued in National Review that the Soyuz was “little more than a man-rated unmanned satellite,” lacking an inertial guidance system, an onboard computer, sufficient manual control, adequate engine burn timing, backup life support systems, re-entry precision and stabilization methods. Moreover, Kelly charged that the vaunted rescue capability of the international docking system was “purely academic,” since the Apollo will never fly again. The Space Shuttle, the next U.S. space vehicle, would be capable of rescuing a Soyuz by hoisting it into its huge bay and flying back to earth, while the Soyuz would be “useless” in any attempt to rescue a disabled Shuttle. “We get all this—and pay for it, too,” Kelly wrote. But perhaps the most serious concern is over the safety of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Sen. William Proxmire (D Wis.) for more than a year has raised questions about the safety of the Apollo astronauts spending time inside the Soyuz spacecraft, and the limited rescue capability of the Soyuz should something go wrong with the Apollo. On June 4, 1975, Proxmire called Dr. Carl Duckett, the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy director for science and technology, to Capitol Hill to give secret testimony on safety issues in the Apollo-Soyuz mission. After the meeting, Proxmire said: “I'm very concerned about the risk to our astronauts in space. The danger is significant.” However, Proxmire said the odds were that the mission would be successful. Chester M. Lee, Nasa's joint project director, has said in defense of the program that it is as safe as the two nations' experts can make it. “I'm confident that it is safe, as safe as our own spacecraft,” he told the National Space Club last Oct. 31, while adding, “There are some things that could happen that only God could prevent.” Go to top Rapid Progress in Space Programs Early Soviet Triumphs in Competition With U.S. The united states and the Russia have been competing vigorously in space for two decades. In 1955 both countries announced their intentions to launch by 1957 small scientific satellites as part of the International Geophysical Year program. But the American public and most U.S. scientists were shocked when the Soviets put Sputnik 1 into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957. “Few had supposed that the ‘backward’ Ussr would beat the scientifically advanced United States in this particular endeavor,” wrote Charles S. Sheldon II, chief of the science policy research division at the Library of Congress. “One western reaction was that this and subsequent Soviet achievements were fakes; and another reaction was one of near panic with thoughts of bombs dropped from orbit.” Concern intensified when Sputnik 2 was launched on Nov. 3, 1957, carrying a live dog, Layka. American embarrassment was heightened when the widely publicized Vanguard rocket blew up on its launching pad before a nationwide television audience on Dec. 6, 1957. Explorer 1, an Army rocket, finally was launched on Jan. 31, 1958, and the Navy's Vanguard 1 went up on March 17, 1958, after two other unsuccessful attempts. But the Russians on May 15, 1958, launched Sputnik 3, a comprehensive orbital laboratory weighing almost one and one-half tons (1,327 kilograms). Its weight and complexity demonstrated how far ahead was the Soviet space program. The United States began a series of lunar and interplanetary flights in 1958, including two Pioneer rockets intended to photograph and fly by the moon, but all four attempts that year failed to reach the moon. The Soviets' Luna 1 missed the moon in January 1959 and went into orbit around the sun, as did the American Pioneer 4 in March 1959. The U.S. plan was to follow up with four more Pioneer lunar orbit flights in 1959 and 1960, but all failed even to reach earth orbit. Meanwhile, the Russians hit the moon with Luna 2 in September 1959 and photographed the far side of the moon for the first time with Luna 3 in October 1959. The United States finally reached the moon in 1962, with Ranger 4, and Ranger flights in 1964–65 took spectacular television pictures of the moon up to the moment of impact. In the race to put a man into space, the Russian Vostok program proved the better of the American Mercury program. First, the Soviet Union in August 1960 recovered from orbit two dogs sent aloft in a five-ton (4,700 kilogram) spaceship. Then on April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first man in space when he completed an around-the-earth orbit in Vostok 1. The United States followed with Alan B. Shepard Jr.'s 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) on May 5, 1961, and a similar flight by Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom on July 21, 1961. But the Soviets sent up Gherman S. Titov for 17 orbits in Vostok 2 on Aug. 6, 1961, again making the U.S. space program appear considerably behind. John H. Glenn Jr. became the first American to orbit the earth, on Feb. 20, 1962, in Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7). The United States followed with a series of Mercury-Atlas flights by M. Scott Carpenter, Walter M. Schirra Jr. and L. Gordon Cooper, who in their separate flights completed a total of 22 orbits in May 1963. But the Soviet Union's Vostok program was more impressive, with four cosmonauts compiling 241 orbits during a number of flights in 1962 and 1963. Valentina Tereshkova, the only woman to fly in space, made 48 orbits in Vostok 6 in June 1963—more than all six Mercury astronauts. American Dominance in Gemini and Apollo Era Both nations then began shifting to multiple-crew flights, with the Soviets' Voskhod 1 being the first three-man space flight, for 16 orbits, on Oct. 12, 1964. Voshkod 2 provided another space first in March 1965 when cosmonaut Aleksey A. Leonov, later to take part in the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission, performed the first 10-minute “space walk” (extra-vehicular activity, or Eva). But after Voskhod 2 the tide of space activity swung sharply in America's favor; 10 successful Gemini flights were conducted during 1965–66 without a single Soviet manned flight in the same period. The Gemini spaceships were able to maneuver to change orbit, to rendezvous, and to dock with Agena target vehicles. One of the Gemini spacecraft set a new altitude record of 849 miles (1,369 kilometers), and astronauts completed about 12 hours of Eva activity. The year 1967 was a tragic one for both U.S. and Soviet space programs. On Jan. 27, fire engulfed the oxygen-filled interior of the Apollo 204 moon capsule while it was on the launch pad for a pre-flight test at Cape Kennedy. Three astronauts—Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White 2d and Roger B. Chaffee—were killed. Less than three months later, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first human being to be killed in a return from space when the parachute lines of his Soyuz 1 became tangled during re-entry and the spacecraft crashed to earth. These accidents set back both the U.S. and Soviet space programs by almost two years and were shocks to both nations. In the United States, the tragic fire touched off a series of investigations and put Nasa through one of the stormiest stages of its career. Investigators criticized many aspects of Nasa's program, leading the agency to make personnel changes and to order major engineering improvements in the Apollo capsule. Exposed wiring was shielded, new fire extinguishing equipment was installed and a speedier escape hatch was designed. With manned flights suspended and the space program surrounded by controversy, 1967 was the year in which public interest and congressional support sank to their lowest ebb. However, some activity did proceed that year. The lunar orbiter scanned the moon, the Surveyor spacecraft softlanded on the moon, the Saturn V was sent aloft on its maiden flight, and a Mariner rocket explored the planet Venus. Space Race Victory in Manned Moon Landing In 1968 manned space flight again claimed wide public attention—the standard by which progress in space programs tends to be judged. In October, the revamped moon capsule passed its first flight test in the Apollo 7 mission, demonstrating that the Apollo program was back in high gear and America was shooting for the moon. Apollo 8 won acclaim in December when it carried three men around the moon, which they orbited 10 times. In March 1969, Apollo 9 went into earth orbit and a three-man crew completed the successful rendezvous and docking of the command-service modules with the lunar module. This test was repeated in May during the lunar orbit of Apollo 10. Next came Apollo 11—the moon landing. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon, while Michael Collins circled above in the lunar orbiter. The historic moon landing made good the pledge of President Kennedy, on May 25, 1961, that the United States would land men on the moon and return them safely before the decade was out. It also placed the American space program securely in the lead in the U.S.-Soviet space race. In November 1969 the crew of Apollo 12 made a second moon landing, bringing home some parts from an earlier Surveyor 3 rocket. The flight of Apollo 13 was marked by drama and near-disaster. An explosion in the service module two days out required an emergency return to earth after a single lunar orbit. The successful recovery clearly was a triumph of U.S. engineering and spacecraft management. Subsequent flights of Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 marked new successes for the program, with manned rover vehicles helping to collect a wealth of rock samples and other lunar information. Advances and Setbacks for Russian Cosmonauts The fate of the Soviet manned lunar program remains a mystery to western observers. Many expected the Russians to launch a manned circumlunar flight before the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution in November 1967, but none occurred. The Russians did make two unmanned flights around the moon in 1968, and their cargoes of cameras and specimens were the first to be recovered on earth. As late as 1969, Soviet cosmonauts were still predicting that Russians would beat Americans to the moon. “Some analysts doubt that it existed, but there are many signs that up to some unknown point there was a program to land Soviet cosmonauts on the moon,” Charles S. Sheldon II wrote in Air Force Magazine. The Soviet counterpart of the Apollo program was the Soyuz series, which scored a number of space “firsts,” including the first docking of two manned craft (Soyuz 4 and 5) and the transfer of a crew, which returned to earth in a different vehicle. The first welding experiments in space were conducted in Soyuz 6, by Valeriy N. Kubasov, but Soyuz 7 and 8 failed to dock as apparently planned. Meanwhile, the Soviet Zond program sent live animals around the moon and recovered them successfully, in several apparent precursor flights to a future manned mission. Soyuz 9 set a duration record of 18 days in orbit in June 1970, but there was no movement toward the moon. In April 1971, the Russians launched the world's first space station—the 20-ton (18,600 kilogram) Salyut. Two days later, Soyuz 10, with a three-man crew, was sent to rendezvous and dock with Salyut. But some unspecified problem with hatches foiled the mission, and Soyuz 10 separated from the space station after only 5.5 hours of docked flight. In June, Soyuz 11 was launched with a similar mission, and the three crewmen successfully entered the Salyut craft and set a new duration record for manned flight of almost 24 days. They carried out a large number of scientific and technical experiments in Salyut's relatively roomy interior. However, when Soyuz 11 returned to earth, the recovery crew on the ground was horrified to find all three cosmonauts dead, victims of an air leak in a valve of their command module. “This wholly unexpected tragedy caused one of the most noticeable perturbations in the level of Soviet space activity and publicity about space observed so far,” Sheldon wrote for the Congressional Research Service. “Only late in the year did the former high pace resume, recouping all the statistical losses to set a new all-time high in number of flights.” Even so, there were no Soviet manned flights in 1972, and the Salyut 2 space station launched in April 1973 went out of control and was destroyed. A series of Kosmos flights also were plagued by failure in 1973 and 1974. Salyut 3 was successful, however, being occupied by cosmonauts for about 15 days in 1974. But it was not until 1975 that the Russians were able to set long endurance records in their space stations—29 days by two Soyuz 17 cosmonauts in Salyut 4 in January and February, and more than a month by two Soyuz 18 cosmonauts in the same Salyut 4 in May and June. The first Soyuz 18 attempt in April failed, however, when the spacecraft veered off course and the engine was automatically shut down after only six minutes of flight. The spacecraft landed safely in Siberia, only 170 miles from the Chinese border, where the cosmonauts had to spend a night before being rescued. Soviet scientists contended that the abortive mission would have no effect on the Apollo-Soyuz flight. Go to top Goals of Future Space Exploration U.S. Programs from Skylab to Space Shuttle America's space program, in contrast to Russia's, has been fi characterized by notable successes in recent years. Skylab, a manned orbiting laboratory and workshop, has been the most complex space system in the U.S. program thus far. It weighs 82.5 tons (75,000 kilograms) and has as much interior space (12, 605 cubic feet—357 cubic meters) as a room that is 100 feet long, 10 feet wide and 12 feet high. Put in orbit by a Saturn 5 rocket in May 1973, Skylab was visited by four successive Apollo crews. The first visit lasted 28 days, the second almost 60 days and the third 84 days—a space endurance record which still stands. The purpose of Skylab was to develop the capability for extended spaceflight and to conduct a series of experiments, including studies in astronomy, physics, biomedicine and various technologies. Skylab will continue to circle the earth for seven or eight more years, gradually descending from its 200-mile-high orbit until it burns up in the upper atmosphere like a meteor. The next big manned U.S. space effort is the Space Shuttle, a $6.2 billion program which officially began in 1972. The Shuttle will be the first reusable, rather than throwaway, spacecraft. Not only will it drastically reduce the cost of space transportation but it will open up space to the non-astronaut. The flight crew will be astronauts, but passengers may include astronomers, meteorologists, climatologists, geologists, environmentalists and other earth resources experts. Nasa has described the Shuttle as a two-stage vehicle that will “take off like a rocket, fly in orbit like a spaceship, and land like an airplane.” It will consist of a reusable orbiter that will be launched into space by a recoverable booster or from the back of a B 747 jumbo-jet aircraft. It will look roughly like an airliner, but will have three high-pressure, oxygen-hydrogen engines to provide power in orbit. The Shuttle will be able to remain in space for at least a week and perhaps a month or longer. First test flights are planned for 1977, with an initial earth orbit scheduled for mid-1979. The Shuttle will also be capable of flights to the moon, and will take along reusable vehicles known as “space tugs” to transport large loads to the lunar surface. “This breakthrough in lunar logistics,” wrote space-age pioneer Wernher von Braun, “will make possible the establishment and support of a permanent research station on the moon, operated on the principles of …older research stations in the antarctic.” Involvement of Western Europe in Space Effort One indication that future space flights will involve cooperation among many nations is the fact that a consortium of European countries is now building Spacelab, a versatile orbiting laboratory scheduled to be rocketed into space in 1980 aboard the Shuttle. The Spacelab contract was arranged in cooperation with the European Space Research Organization (Esro), which celebrated its 10th anniversary in March 1974 and was then incorporated into the new European Space Agency (Esa). The European organization already has launched several satellites and about 180 rockets. It has its headquarters in Paris, a research and technology center in the Netherlands, a space operations center in West Germany, a rocket launching range in Sweden, a document institute in Rome and a network of satellite tracking stations. In little more than a decade, the group was able “to pioneer a highly advanced and complex technology, virtually unknown in Europe 10 years ago” In addition, American and Soviet space officials have held discussions to consider joint manned space flights that could be undertaken in the early 1980s by a U.S. Space Shuttle and a Russian spacecraft. NASA and Soviet Academy of Sciences officials held informal discussions in May 1975 and will hold further meetings late this year. Among projects being considered are the docking of a Salyut space station with a Space Shuttle. Plans to Continue Exploration of Solar System The current goal for the space programs is to explore the planets of the solar system. Both the United States and the Soviet Union, through the Mariner (U.S.) and Venera, Mars and Zond (Russian) programs, have sent vehicles to Mars, Venus and Mercury which returned photographs and other information. The Soviet Venera 7 was the first flight to survive a Venus landing, and Venera 8 returned a soil analysis. The U.S. Mariner 9 has conducted extensive television mapping of Mars and remains in orbit around the planet. “How does one compare these programs?” asked Charles S. Sheldon II in his Library of Congress analysis. “Our spacecraft have been limited in number, limited in size, and limited in experiments carried. The Soviet flights have been more frequent, far larger, and in many ways more ambitious in their goals. But a larger percentage of ours have succeeded.” Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively, have returned data and pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, the largest outer planets. Pioneer 10, which has traveled farther and faster than any other man-made object, will continue its voyage through the solar system for several more years. It is due to cross Pluto's orbit in 1987 and, heading in a straight line at some 25,000 miles per hour toward the constellation Taurus, will become the first vehicle to penetrate interstellar space. Spacecraft from earth are continuing to explore the planets. The Soviet Union launched Venus 9 and Venus 10 in June 1975, and one or both are expected to land on the cloud-covered planet next October. The United States in August 1975 will launch, within 10 days of each other, two Viking spacecraft intended to land on Mars in 1976—one of them on or about the nation's bicentennial day, July 4, 1976. Their primary mission will be to take Martian soil samples and search for any sign of life on the red planet. In 1977, two additional Mariner flights are planned to Jupiter and Saturn, and in 1978 still two more Pioneers will head toward Venus. Other orbiters, landers and automated rovers are on the drawing boards for the 1980s. “Among space scientists themselves enthusiasm is at a peak,” wrote Allen L. Hammond in Science, “and there is talk of a golden age of planetary exploration and a virtual revolution in space astronomy in the 1980s.” However, the future of the space program depends heavily on political and social factors on earth. In the United States, the space effort is no longer glamorous or popular enough to guarantee public support and large-scale congressional funding. In the face of energy, food and economic crises, a space program currently exceeding $3 billion a year is an inviting target for budget cutters. The Ford administration's attitude toward the space program is not yet clear, nor are those of the new con gressional budget committees. If unemployment remains high, the program probably will have the support of organized labor; it provided some 400,000 jobs at the height of the Apollo program and now provides about 110,000. Another intangible is the effect of future discoveries. “At present, there is no direct evidence for life on any of the other planets,” concluded a study in Space World magazine, “but the observations to date would hardly be capable of detecting life on earth. It has been said that if life of any kind is discovered elsewhere in our own solar system, we can assume that it will occur wherever conditions amenable to the origin of life exist—and, hence, that intelligent civilizations probably exist elsewhere in our galaxy.” Search for Indications of Extraterrestrial Life Indeed, the possibility that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is considered by many to be one of the primary motivations behind the space program. Capt. Robert F. Freitag, deputy director of advanced programs in Nasa's Office of Manned Space Flight, has said that the search for extraterrestrial life and for the origin of life is one of the most important goals behind the space science program and planetary exploration projects. “Today, many scientists—if not the majority—agree that extraterrestrial life surely must exist and possibly in enormous abundance,” Freitag wrote. “They even do not shrug off any longer the possible existence of intelligent life in our galaxy. The question now is no longer so much one of ‘if’ as of ‘where.’” The U.S. satellite Copernicus, an orbiting astronomical observatory, is now scanning the stars to look for possible ultraviolet laser beam signals from other civilizations, which some scientists believe would be the most logical way for communication to be accomplished. Both American and Russian scientists for many years have used powerful radio telescopes to listen for radio signals from other civilizations, but the odds are against success for this method because there are so many frequencies. Whether or not human beings ever come in contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, it seems clear that the human urge to push outward and explore the universe will remain strong. “Some inner motivations are leading mankind to new and unknown shores,” Freitag wrote. Many people believe that space travel is part of human destiny. If that is so, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first international manned space flight, may indeed be another giant step for mankind. Go to top Bibliography Articles Aviation Week & Space Technology, selected issues. Bergman, Jules, “A Look Behind the U.S.-Soviet Space Flight,”Family Weekly, June 22, 1975. Fletcher, James C., “Nasa's Aerospace Programs: Options for the Future,” Strategic Review, Spring 1974. Freitag, Robert F., “Man's Future in Space,” Spaceflight, March 1975. Haggerty, James J., “Apollo-Soyuz: End of an Era—Start of an Era,” Aerospace, June 1975. Hammond, Allen L., “Exploring the Solar System (IV): What Future for Space Science?” Science, Dec. 13, 1974. Jukes, Thomas H., “Life on Mars?” Journal of the American Medical Association, April 7, 1975. McElroy, Michael B., “Détente in Space,” Natural History, November 1974. Schanche, Don A., “U.S. and Soviet Crews Eagerly Await Joint Space Flight,” Parade, April 6, 1975. Sheldon, Charles S. II, “The Soviet Space Program,” Air Force Magazine, March 1975. “The Purpose of Solar System Exploration,” Space World, October 1974. “The Shuttle: Keeping the U.S. Team in Space,” Business Week, July 27, 1974. “The Space Programme After Apollo,” Spaceflight, September 1974. von Braun, Wernher, “Space Riders in the Sky,” Saturday Review/World, Aug. 24, 1974. Studies and Reports Editorial Research Reports. “Snace Shuttle Controversv.” 1972 Vol. I. p. 211; “Mission to Mars: Benefits vs. Costs,” 1969 Vol. II, p. 731; “Goals in Space,” 1968 Vol. II, p. 823. House Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. Congress, “For the Benefit of All Mankind: The Practical Returns from Space Investment,” April 1974. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, “Fact Sheet,” Release No. 74–196. —“Final Flight Plan,” May 15, 1975. —“Joint Crew Activities Plan—Preliminary,” April 28, 1975. —“Press Kit,” June 10, 1975. Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, “Space Benefits—The Secondary Application of Aerospace Technology in Other Sectors of the Economy,” April 16, 1975. Sheldon, Charles S. II, “United States and Soviet Progress in Space: Summary Data Through 1974 and a Forward Look,” Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Jan. 13, 1975. Zegel, Vikki A., “Background and Policy Issues in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project,” Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Jan. 31, 1975. Go to top Footnotes Go to top Special Focus A wide range of scientific experiments will be conducted during the space mission, with five of them performed jointly, seven by the Soyuz cosmonauts alone, and 22 by the Apollo astronauts alone. After two days of docked operation, the spacecraft will separate for a final joint experiment, called the “artificial solar eclipse.” The Apollo will act as an “occulting” device to shield Soyuz from the sun at a distance of about 200 meters while the cosmonauts take photographs of the solar corona. Many of the Apollo experiments are extensions of tests begun in the Skylab flights of 1973–74. They are grouped in several categories, including earth observations (studies in geology, hydrology, meteorology and oceanography), astronomy (studies of soft X-rays and extreme ultraviolet sources), technology (studies of liquid metals, alloys, magnets, electronic materials and crystal growth), and life sciences (studies of responses to infection, cellular immunity, microbial exchange and effects of cosmic rays). Despite the increase in U.S.-Soviet cooperation in space, each country has continued to maintain an extensive military space program. About three-fifths of all U.S. space flights are conducted for the Department of Defense, and most of them involve surveillance and communications satellites. A comparable figure for the Soviet Union is difficult to establish because of secrecy, but a similarly heavy military emphasis is thought to exist. Most of their flights are also believed to be for photographic observation, electronic detection and military communications. Go to top
Document APA Citation
Hamer, J. (1975). Cooperation in space. Editorial research reports 1975 (Vol. II). http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1975070400
Document ID: cqresrre1975070400
Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1975070400
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