Soviet Space Planning
PROJECTIONS OF SOVIET SPACE PLANS
By Dr. Charles S. Sheldon II*
1971-1975
I. INTRODUCTION
The preceding chapters have discussed Soviet space activities and programs for the years 1971 through 1975 inclusive in greatest detail, plus providing considerable historical material to summarize earlier flights and to complete time series in statistical tables. There have been some occasional references to trends and extrapolations which pointed toward the future. The purpose of this chapter is to deal more systematically with what the Soviet Union may do in the years ahead.
A. HOW PLANS CAN CHANGE
No one has found a technique for reading the future, and this study will not be able to break new ground in this regard. What this chapter will do is identify and comment upon existing trends, assemble Quotations on what the Russians themselves have said about their future activity in space, and provide some possible scenarios for implementing some of the projections.
Recent history seems to provide little confidence for assertions that some political systems are inherently more likely to follow a steadier course than others. There are differences of appearance and detail in the decision-making process in Western-style democracies and in more centralized societies where decisions seem to come from the top down. These differences in certainty of plans are so contradictory and kaleidoscopic, that almost any model explaining the differences can be challenged.
In the United States we make budget decisions each year for many programs and some people fear we can blow hot and cold so quickly that orderly progress is difficult. But we also use "no-year" funding for some projects and we increasingly supply at least five-year cost-cuts on projects. Also other programs are funded on a mandatory basis, so that the amount of the Federal Budget which is truly controllable each year is so limited as to make freedom to be flexible not always easy. In our representative form of government, with checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, the pattern suggests that major decisions usually require a fairly broad base of public support, and wild swings may be tempered by the almost cumbersome process of bringing together all interests that make inputs.
In the Soviet Union, it is possible that decisions from the top down on the one hand can change very quickly without a popular referendum, but also some decisions can continue for many years without the annual budget contests between a President and a Congress faced in the United States. But the political system of the Soviet Union as in all states must be responsive to some kind of a consensus if it is to survive for long.
In the United States, in spite of our slow processes where issues move through the bureaucracy and the Congress, and where many interest groups throughout our society make their inputs, we have had an example of a fairly sharp shift in attitudes. In the summer of 1969, Apollo 11 reached the surface of the Moon, a great euphoria swept the public, and many foreign nations also seemed not only to be impressed with the achievement but to share in the success. The Vice President called for going on with a manned expedition to Mars. But within a matter of months, it seemed as if the space program fell into some lower estate with much more attention focused on ecology, pollution, and social changes. It was popular to label the space program as a misguided and not very useful effort. Actually, space expenditures had peaked in the middle 1960's and had been going downhill quite markedly since that time.
Although we can study Soviet decision-making from its outward manifestations, many of us have less of a feel for the subtleties of their processes. Over recent decades we have seen changes in Soviet political alignments. There was the Russo-German pact of 1939; then the U.S.S.R. was an ally of the Western democracies; post-war America became the prime "enemy" of the Soviet bloc; now we have detente and our men have flown together in space.
Probably careful analysis will show consistent threads of national interest prevail in both kinds of societies, but the current manifestations can seemingly change quite abruptly and even arbitrarily. The task here is to discern some of the underlying, persistent goals, but to recognize the sharp shifts of direction which may occur from year to year.
B. PAUCITY OF SOVIET INDICATORS
It is hard enough to predict trends in the U.S. space program when business cycles and popular enthusiasms of particular times shift the relative priority of work on space. Estimating Soviet behavior has added difficulties. They have never provided a table of space expenditures or budget commitments. Even if they did, there would be translational difficulties to understanding what they were doing when the costs of the factors of production in the two countries give entirely different ratios to the relative values of different inputs. In the absence of any economic measures, we have to fall back on counting the number of flights, estimating weight of hardware, and looking for clues to Soviet attitudes in speeches and articles.
To a considerable degree over the last 20 years, the two space programs, American and Soviet, have interacted politically with each other, regardless of disclaimers by leaders in the two countries. This interaction means that judgments of either program cannot be taken in isolation but must be tempered and modified by what each observes or assumes about the other nation. Hence, what the United States decides on the space shuttle, planetary flights. Earth resources satellites and military applications could have significant repercussions in Soviet planning as well. That is not to say reactions are one for one, merely that size and pace of programs and sometimes the choices to avoid direct overlap and sometimes deliberately to race to be first or to excel will all be possibilities. The repercussion will be there even if we cannot predict its nature.
C. EFFECTS OF PERSONALITIES AND SPORADIC EVENTS
Analysis would be manageable if all we had to worry about was a study of long-term national aspirations and economic conditions, together with the state of the art in technology. Human history is still affected by personalities and by natural calamities or other sporadic events that our present state of knowledge does not permit us to predict precisely.
The appearance of a particular personality may be partly a response to the times, but the sudden ouster of Premier Khrushchev or the assassination of President Kennedy could make a difference in support for a program. Most observers feel the death of Chief Designer Sergey Korolev made a real difference, a setback to the Soviet program. Certainly deaths of cosmonauts or astronauts in accidents bring investigations, delays for redesign, and more boldness to critics of a program.
The failure of the Soviet G-l-e launch vehicle to achieve a successful flight in 1969 or during the six years thereafter must have affected the Soviet timetable if not the objectives of some parts of their space program.
D. CAPABILITIES VS. INTENTIONS
With all these caveats and examples of uncertainty, perhaps the proper mood has been set for examining the future of the Soviet space program. There is an analytical distinction in forecasting work which is common to military affairs and equally appropriate here. This is to recognize the difference between capabilities and intentions . A careful study of past performance, manpower, economic strength, production facilities, and other ingredients will answer reasonably well what a nation might be able to do. But no nation has the resources to pursue all of these capabilities simultaneously, and the more difficult task is to divine intentions. The verb "divine" is selected deliberately, because there is no real science to knowing what the future choices will be. As events come closer, there are indicators that give clearer and clearer warning. But longer range forecasts are harder. Also, in high technology some projects can be undertaken with several subsystems not yet in hand, but if good resources of brain power, laboratory facilities, and computers are applied, the capability will appear and grow, assuming what is sought is within the limits of the laws of nature.
Presumably if the Russians set their priorities high enough on a few projects, and apply their best talents to them, they should be capable of advancing as fast as any nation could hope to in these selected areas. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States has the resources to pursue all avenues and all programs their engineers and scientists can propose in good faith. In a largely closed society in contrast with our own, it is sometimes hard to read intentions until a time almost too late to adjust one's own responses. The study of the Russians' own predictions of what they will do in space is interesting, sometimes helpful, and sometimes not very meaningful because no time scale is provided.
[That today is in fact known to be wrong because of the failure of the U. S intelligence community to recognize and except the immense predictability of the Soviet “Five Year Plan” system of fiscal planning during the Cold War even when pointed out to them which does provide the reference frame time scale. It is true and recognized that the then in existent Soviet Ruble had no viable relationship to Western currency and when they did convert it to western currency figures it was for Western consumption with its many negative implications. –CPV]
II. GENERAL TECHNICAL CAPACITY
A. OVERALL SUPPORT
1. Industrialization and Gross National Product
Judgments vary as to where the Soviet Union is in technology relative to the United States. Overall, as a less developed country it is not as advanced, and field by field, people close to that field are able to estimate "on a par or ahead", or "two years behind", or "six years behind", or "not in the running". An overall measure of comparison is the amount of Soviet gross national product, which is said to be about half as large in the aggregate as that of the United States. But the closer one comes to learning how such estimates are built, the more elusive the comparison becomes. Any two societies or even the same society in different decades have such changes and differences of product mixes that comparisons of GNP may be generally indicative but cannot be precise measures. Whenever U.S.-Soviet comparisons are made in ruble prices, the ratios are quite different from the comparison if made in dollar prices.
[In the Soviet based command economy with its Five Year Plan, ten year Forecast Plan and fifteen year Outlook Plan, fiscal planning has no resemblance to the Western (GNP) Gross National Product in real Western terms because it is not convertible-CPV]
The industrial revolution began in Russia before World War I, but well after it was fairly advanced in Western Europe and the United States. Between World War I and World War II, the Russians paid a considerable price by collectivizing their farms and putting stress on heavy industry to the exclusion of many important aspects of balanced growth. Armaments have been a heavy drain, and the physical destruction of World War II was very great. Growth some years has been high compared with the United States because the base figure was so low, but the growth was not as great as that shown by postwar Germany and Japan, which also suffered heavy war damage. The phenomenon of slower growth rates now is almost worldwide. Today, while Soviet consumers are much better off than they have been in the past, the U.S.S.R. lags behind even some of the Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe, because of a continuing emphasis upon industrial growth and military hardware. The Soviet economy today is large enough and strong enough, despite shortages, that it can support what is now the world's largest space program, with no sign that this level of effort cannot be sustained indefinitely.
S. Key Industries
By selective application of the most efficient parts of their economic and technical structure, the Russians have been able to match the performance of other leading countries in selected fields, when they have chosen to do so. The general view has been that they are behind in electronics, microminiaturization, computers and some kinds of chemistry. All such comparisons are relative and subject to change. It is easier to point to specific examples than it is to quantify any overall comparisons. For example, although their electronics may not be the very best, some of their radars are rated as quite good. We know they do not have as many computers as the United States, and probably are not as advanced in the computers they have, but the kind of estimates one receives are that they may be about one generation behind, perhaps four or five years, while it was not so long ago they were two generations behind, the equivalent seven to nine years. While clerks in a store may use the abacus, computers in high priority uses are conducting support for space rendezvous and missile intercepts, or supporting the Gosplan. Hence, even if it was judged that in many technical fields they were two to five years behind the United States, that would hardly be a basis for writing off their capacity for further progress, or for finding ways around some specific limitations.
3. Education and Manpower
The Soviet Union today has a larger student population in science and engineering than does the United States. While the two countries are more or less matched in numbers of working engineers and scientists, any extrapolation of trends based on the number being trained gives the Soviet Union a strong emerging lead. However, some studies suggest that much Soviet technical training is narrower, and in a time when many people end up having more than one career as national needs change, the American trained engineer may prove more adaptable collectively than the Soviet counterpart. At the top, the very best people in terms of performance, breadth of grasp, creativity, are about equal in both countries.
The Soviet Union is a nation with a large population, many technical institutes, a good base of trained manpower, and reasonably good access both to their own many scientific journals, and the shared world community of knowledge. If it chooses to pursue a large space program that is both vigorous and ambitious, it is in as good a fundamental position to achieve this as any nation.
B. SUPPORTING HARDWARE AND FACILITIES FOR SPACE
1. Launch Sites
The Soviet Union demonstrates from time to time that its three launch sites each of which is spread over many square kilometers of terrain and with multiple pads, are capable of conducting a considerable number of space launches in a few days. Their annual total launches are the highest in the world even though some pads and some vehicles are used only sporadically. Perhaps a contributing factor to high launch rates is the checkout for many vehicles done in horizontal assembly, followed by rail movement to the launch pad and a short time in vertical position on the pad before launch. This type of launch may be typical even of the D class launch vehicles, but less is known about the long-delayed and uncertain-performing G class vehicles which are so large that they may have to be assembled and tested on the pad.
2. Tracking Systems
The Soviet Union still lacks a deep-space worldwide network equivalent to that used by NASA, but manages passably by timing major activities to occur within view of Yevpatoriya in the Crimea. There may be another deep space capability in the Soviet Far East, but this cannot be confirmed. Additionally, their three largest tracking ships, while falling short of the high capacity of Yevpatoriya, can give important global coverage, especially up to lunar distances.
Soviet ability to do automatic rendezvous and docking, intercepts, and 24-hour synchronous flights suggests their general Earth orbital capacity is at least adequate. We also have seen them run the Soyuz 6, 7, and 8 operations simultaneously, and the Salyut 4, Soyuz 19, and Apollo operations simultaneously. We also know that they have at least, redundancy in control centers having these at Yevpatoriya and Kaliningrad as a minimum.
3. Manufacturing and Testing of Space Hardware
We do not know in detail what their full capabilities are in this regard. It has been believed in the past that ground test facilities were limited and many vehicles and payloads were tested in all-up flights with a consequent higher loss rate than would otherwise likely apply. Virtually all major flights now are described as being matched on the ground by an analog in a test chamber on which commands can be tested, and fixes in emergencies tried before commitment to the flight itself. There is probably some basis for belief the "Russians do not have as much computer capacity dedicated to checkout and testing as do their American counterparts.
Because the continuing Soviet flight program itself is so massive year after year —three times that of the United States —there seems little challenge to the notion they can sustain the present high level of activity indefinitely. At least until the American shuttle becomes operational, a continuation of these trends would guarantee Soviet leadership in space over a period of time. If the Soviet economy continues to grow, and this program holds a proportionate share, then we may see an even larger Soviet space program, although not one growing as fast as it did in the 1960's. Soviet capabilities will be enhanced as their computer capacity grows and as they apply more attention to cybernetics, to quality control, and to advanced industrial management and operation.
C. VEHICLE CAPABILITIES
1. Existing Vehicles
The spectrum of existing vehicles is adequate to take care of a fairly comprehensive space program. Although the A class of vehicles, in use since 1957, may eventually be declared obsolete, there is no real sign of its replacement. Through upgrading of payload capabilities, some tasks previously handled by the C class vehicles are now being handled by the larger A class. An even larger number of payloads once handled by the low capacity B class vehicles now are routinely handled by the more powerful and more versatile C class.
The D class launch vehicles are gradually becoming more reliable, even though not yet proven as man-rated in the launch phase. At the least, this delay in man-rating cost the Russians the first successful manned circumlunar flight, as well as causing many grievous losses of expensive payloads to the Moon and planets.
The use of F class launch vehicles for military missions has not accelerated yet despite the apparent simplicity of the basic design concept and the maneuvering capabilities which have been demonstrated by upper stages.
The G class vehicles remain the biggest unknown because there is so little information in the public domain. Soon it will be a decade since their first use was expected, which is why some observers think they never existed and others think they have been written off. It seems both not consistent with the kind of testimony from high level U.S. officials, and not in keeping with Russian determination to be a space leader to accept either of these viewpoints. Although a decision to abandon could still come, the best guess now is that one of these days, we shall see a successful flight of a very large vehicle. After the troubles it has already experienced, one can imagine a possible redesign effort and also major steps to increase testing, reliability, and simplified operations to insure that so expensive a vehicle will do what is intended of it.
2. Additions to the Vehicle Stable
Studies by Western observers have suggested that in many instances there is a product improvement trend in Soviet launch vehicles which' allows the upgrading of their capabilities over a period of time. But perhaps some existing models can be pushed only so far at reasonable cost and risk. Hence, some Western observers postulate that we shall see new additions to the known types. For example, many of the Western analyses of expected Soviet missions suggest that the D class vehicle is not quite equal to some useful missions, and a vehicle larger than D but not as large as G would be a useful gap filler both in Earth orbit and in deep space work. Until such a vehicle appears or its facilities are evident, considering the Soviet penchant for secrecy, it remains highly speculative to assume its certainty.
3. Use of High Energy Fuel in Rockets
The Russians have not been in any hurry to move to high energy fuels as we understand them, because they had the early advantage of bigger capacity in their conventional rockets. Also, high chamber pressures were fairly typical so that they got quite a bit of performance from these engines. It is really a surprise that a decade behind the Americans, we have not had any good indication of Soviet operational use of hydrogen-oxygen combinations. In general, they are content to cluster large numbers of engines of moderate size as they need more thrust. Perhaps since they have not taken the fairly obvious and clean route to use of hydrogen and oxygen, it is even less likely that we shall see early Soviet use of hydrogen-fluorine, metallic fuels, or other exotic and toxic types.
4. Nuclear and, Electric Rockets
There is no good evidence in the public domain to answer how vigorously the Russians are pursuing development of solid-core nuclear fission rockets, even though they are well aware of the possibilities and of previous U.S. efforts in this regard. One can assume that at least paper studies and breadboard engines have been tested, as in keeping with Soviet status as a leading space power. Soviet spokesmen of the caliber of Glushko have stressed the important place nuclear power can hold.
Electric rockets have a potential both for station-keeping and for gradual acceleration on very long flights. Here there is more evidence that Soviet work continues actively in flight tests. Preceding chapters have given examples of several classes of flights which have included electric rocket systems. Those relying on solar cells provide measurable changes of orbit, but not very large increments of velocity. Future systems may do more, though to date the only nuclear power sources announced or circumstantially suspected have been radioisotope thermal generators (RTG's), applying the heat from radioisotopic decay and not chain reactors of the full-scale fission type.
5. Reusable Vehicles
The United States space program leaders have recognized the development of a reusable space shuttle as a key step in putting the program on a long-term sustainable basis, pointing to the wastefulness of throwing away expensive hardware after brief use, and to the importance of providing a more benign environment to payloads so that design constraints could be eased, thereby cutting costs.
Soviet space spokesmen have recognized the same logic and see reusability as the only way to go. Soviet incentives may be even greater because their level of activity is so much higher that the overhead costs of developing such a system would be sooner recovered.
The press has been filled with rumors of such a Soviet development for several years, but there is no evidence in actual flights to give substance to the reports. That is not to say they are untrue, because it could be quite late in the development process before there would be overt signs of such a new system.
One of the most specific current stories on Soviet plans is that carried in June, 1975 by Flug Revue und Flugwelt, crediting A. Chikarin of the TT.S.S.E. State Research Institute for Civil Aviation. The supposed system would include two completely reusable stages of delta wing platform, with the first stage flying to 2.2 km per second, and releasing at 30 km altitude an upper stage which would then accelerate to 7.9 km per second, Earth orbital speed. During reentry, in order to dissipate heat, the return glide would take about one hour instead of the ten minutes typical of ballistic reentries. The principal suspicion about the report is that the U.S.S.R. does not normally admit to new technological developments, especially to give details before they begin flying. (1)
III. A CHRONOLOGY OF SOVIET STATEMENTS ON FUTURE SPACE PLANS
This section discusses a moderately complete review of available actual quotations and paraphrasing of Soviet expressions on their future plans, goals, and policies carried as an annex to this chapter. By selection, one could bias an account to emphasize some preconceived notions of Soviet future objectives in space. Also, it would be easy to read more into these statements than in fact is there. Aware of these risks, the attempt has been made to include what could be found even when contradictory, and to let the statements or abstracts speak for themselves, with analysis to follow later.
The Soviet spokesmen, if known, are identified by names and categorized by occupations or position titles to the extent this can be determined. The published source of the quotation or reference is usually identifiable. If, in a few cases, lack of permission to quote limited full use of an item, a generalized paraphrase and reference to "news dispatches" has been made. All TASS bulletins referenced are from Moscow unless otherwise indicated.
In the previous study prepared for the Senate covering the years 1966 through 1970, there was a similar chronology, and many of those items are still of interest. The annex to this chapter picks up a similar listing in December 1970 and carries it through 1975, to the extent material became available.
The material is in chronological order of publication, grouped by years. Cosmonauts are frequently making forecasts, and one does not know to what extent they are privy to official timetables or when their own enthusiasms run ahead of reality. Most of the academicians who speak also head important bureaus within the space program so that their views reflect greater program responsibility than might be true of American professors on the fringes of our actual operations. In a few cases, important officials are labeled in pictures and write for journals under pseudonyms. (Maarten Houtman of the Netherlands has catalogued the names of about 6,000 space technicians and officials, and the true names of about 60 known by their pseudonyms. He has found what patterns are applied to selecting pseudonyms.) For example, Valentin P. Glushko, the Chief Rocket Engine Designer, wrote in the open as Georgiy V. Petrovich, and only recently has come into the open.
It must also be remembered that some predictions which appear at more than one place in the chronology may have added weight for appearing several times, or it may be no more than a reflection that a one-time statement is reissued in a variety of publications in the absence of anything new to add.
The chronology referenced for the 1971-1975 period, as noted, is carried as an annex following this chapter.
IV. ANALYSIS OF SOVIET INTENTIONS IN SPACE
A. UNMANNED SPACE FLIGHT
1. Earth Orbital Science
One of the more complete recent forecasts by a "Westerner of possible Soviet plans is that written by Saunders Kramer, published in July 1975. (2) Kramer has done a thoughtful, integrated piece, but suffers the same disadvantage everyone does, that it is easier to calculate
projections of capabilities than it is to know intentions.
Kramer has not said very much about Earth orbital unmanned scientific flights. A review of the statistical tables in this study will show that the Soviet Earth orbital record of science flights is a modest component in their total program; however, they apparently fly more such payloads these years than NASA does. There is some question whether they gain as much new scientific knowledge from each flight. The volume of published findings is considerable, but apparently computation is slow, and results are still being published on flights dating back even a decade and more. Many of the findings these days represent refinement of esoteric minutiae that are not very exciting to laymen, but presumably strengthen the foundation of understanding of phenomena related to particles, radiation, fields, solar processes, signal propagation, weather movements, climate, geomorphology, and so forth. Some Western scientists talk down many of the Soviet experiments, and it is hard to know how much of that is the scathing review many scientists give to each other's work, and how much is a matter of "not invented here" criticisms of other people's approaches. It is unlikely that the assessments are seriously tinged by differences of ideology as many scientists have a certain impatience with or indifference to political problems.
For the first ten years of the space program, only NASA had an extensive international cooperative effort underway. Today, the Soviet Interkosmos effort, plus bilateral work with France, the United States, India and Sweden give them a pattern not essentially different from that which NASA pioneered.
It can be expected that this program of unmanned Earth orbital science will continue at about the present level, done with fairly modest vehicles, and done with either international cooperation in preparation of experiments and readout of telemetry, or with fairly complete reporting of results at COSPAR meetings and in the open literature.
There may be some shift toward increasing use of manned stations of the Salyut type as affording better opportunities to gather synoptic data, with men to calibrate the instruments and make adjustments, rather than relying so extensively on unmanned vehicles.
2. Civil Space Applications
This study has shown that the Soviet Union has turned to applications flights at a later date than did the United States. But their present concepts for applications are fairly ambitious and moving ahead reasonably consistently, with quite large deployed patterns of spacecraft and more ambitious types in development.
a. Communications. —In the Molniya series, they are simultaneously using Molniya 1, 2, and 3 classes, with a pattern in each, of flights in planes 90 degrees apart. Experimentally, they have a Molniya 1 in 24-hour synchronous orbit, supplementing the 12-hour repeating ground trace flights in eccentric orbits that are operational together with the first operational 24-hour Statsionar. They have promised us further Statsionar flights in 1976 which will give them fixed antenna pointing, round-the-clock coverage for middle, southern latitude, and inter-national service, to supplement the northern latitude including arctic coverage which the operational Molniya flights provide. The Statsionars are expected to come closer and closer to attaining a direct broadcast capability. The Molniyas already have supplied the first comprehensive domestic distribution system of any country.
b. Weather. —The Meteor weather satellites have evolved with the addition of more sensors, although basically they supply primary cloud cover pictures in the visual range by day and do infrared at night. APT (automatic picture transmission) gives real time coverage to users anywhere. The Meteor 1 class has been joined by the first of the Meteor 2, and perhaps this will expand into a whole new series. There is already a commitment to put up a 24-hour synchronous satellite south of Eurasia as part of the global system shared by Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. Again, these unmanned systems are likely to be supplemented by some manned coverage which on some orbits can watch particular weather phenomena.
c. Earth Resources. —Unmanned Earth resources survey work has been slow to mature to an operational system in the unmanned mode. There has been greater use of Soyuz and Salyut flights for such purposes. However, valuable data have been supplied by Kosmos 243 and its successors with such devices as passive microwave and work in the ultraviolet range for data on temperature, humidity, soil conditions, and other phenomena. Even Soviet weather satellites, which have a fairly high resolution, have returned geomorphological details which have been used to locate oil fields and other mineral deposits. Color photographs taken from the circumlunar Zond craft covering much of Africa have provided geobiological maps which from single pictures have equaled the work of months or years on flights by aircraft closer to the ground, in classifying vegetation.
Some people have suggested that Soviet computer capacity is not yet equal to handling the great volume of data an Earth resources satellite is capable of returning, and that this is why we have not seen a full-scale operational deployment of such flights, even though the satellite sensors themselves are sufficiently developed.
d. Other. —It is assumed that Soviet navigation satellites are still largely dedicated to military uses, so that it is not known how soon or how far civil applications will be carried near term. The same is true of geodesy, mapping, and general data relay. Until these uses move out of the exclusively military sphere, it is difficult to make judgments about future civil use. Still newer activities like traffic control are yet to come.
3. Military Applications
Here again, the difference between capabilities and intentions is crucial. We can count on existing programs continuing and gaining in effectiveness. So long as this is all they do, the equations of power will not be seriously perturbed.
a. Recoverable Observation. —Many generations of these flights have come, as they enjoy a high priority and presumably are being improved. Such flights can be expected to give close attention to both area searches and close inspection, with larger numbers put up in times of crisis, and with some of them maneuvered to give more frequent coverage of order of battle data. Already there is circumstantial evidence that they are learning the techniques of returning data capsules, as done with Salyut 3 and as beacon signals suggest with some other flights. Presumably resolutions will improve as they perfect the various things which now limit them. They can fly lower, and use extra propulsion to prevent early decay. They may learn camera and film handling techniques to reduce the blur in pictures. The principal competitor to these automated flights is likely to be manned military space stations, although there are indications that a fourth generation of unmanned flight of longer duration is about to be introduced.
b. Early Warning. —Already there are flights which move in orbits like those of the Molniyas and which may give early warning. It is possible that 24-hour synchronous satellites for early warning will be deployed to give continuous surveillance that now is only periodic with the present 12-hour system.
c. Electronic Ferret. —These flights are used so extensively and have been available for so many years, that one assumes the principal change will be one of greater versatility and sensitivity in collecting data for analysis. There may be an upgrading to larger payloads as part of this improvement.
d. Ocean Surveillance. —The system is likely to move from early operational to full scale global coverage. Not only must radars be able to distinguish classes of ships, but the system will not be really operational until a big computer complex can keep track of all ships and is fed other data on ship movements and behavior before it will fulfill its potential.
e. Navigation. —There have been several generations of these flights already, and further improvements in 'accuracy can be expected, which in turn will open up applications of these techniques beyond location of nuclear submarines carrying ballistic missiles to all classes of ships and to tactical targeting for all military forces.
f. Geodesy. —Geodetic work is probably far enough along already to provide the Russians with reasonable assurance they have denned the geoid to the point that long range missiles will reach their targets if the rockets perform properly. As geodetic work continues, presumably the military uses will begin to gain a lower increment of new information than will the scientific uses of geodesy.
g. Mapping. —Mapping has always been important to military operations as well as to economic and scientific users. Probably mapping is already underway within the military observation program. What one might expect to see are flights more carefully placed at optimum, circularized orbits, and probably still using photographic film which can be recovered. Better selection of orbits would minimize the work of picture rectification required when many scales and many angles are involved. The work of map improvement is never ending because both natural features and man-made features are constantly changing the surface of the Earth, and getting really good stereo pairs of every part of Earth without cloud cover, and possibly doing so in several parts of the electromagnetic spectrum takes time.
h. Communications. —It would be strange if the Molniya satellites were not carrying military traffic, and the same can be expected of the Statsionar 24-hour synchronous satellites as they are put in service. There also may be a continuing need for the lower orbit store-dump type satellites because those which are put up eight at a time make up such an extensive grid that they provide some important redundancy against countermeasures. They may permit sure delivery of essential messages worldwide when real-time is not necessary, or they may supply a real-time capability to tactical forces in a given operating area even remote from home territories. The larger, more complex store-dump payloads may provide facilities for storing more messages or for greater range of frequencies, so that it might be harder for other nations attempting to listen in to catch particular messages if these not only are encrypted, but may be sent line-of-sight in short, high-speed transmissions on any one of a number of different frequencies. Presumably this is a need which may continue for the Soviet Union.
i. Minor Military. —Earlier in this study, some flights were classified as "minor military" because they seemed to be repetitive payloads, largely put up by the B-l vehicle, hence relatively small, whose purpose seemed obscure. It was speculated these could be doing ferreting, or radar calibration, or testing various sensors, materials, components, etc. These missions would seem in any case to be fulfilling continuing needs, and such flights can be expected to continue, although it appears that the lower orbit missions are being phased out.
j. More Threatening Missions. —While all the foregoing make military contributions, they are essentially support, passive, and probably not necessarily destabilizing to the world scene. They increase the effectiveness of conventional air, sea, and land forces, and even of missile forces. Where they collect information, they may be creating de facto the kind of "open skies" situation which many arms control agencies believe is important to attaining workable arms limitation situations.
But what of other, potentially destabilizing missions in space? One such is the renewal of satellite inspector/destructor flights like those which ended in 1971. Inspection seems harmless enough, but the problem is that if satellites conducting military functions co-orbit with uncooperative targets of investigation, the added capability of destruction is a very simple step compared with the rendezvous and the selection of sensors capable of doing a good inspection. Any space power must worry about the possibility that another space power may decide to escalate rivalries to the point of interference with satellites in orbit, whether it is to blind the eyes of some, or deafen the ears, or disrupt communications, or take away some abilities to navigate.
This means that such nations must consider a range of both passive and active countermeasures available on a contingency basis. Presumably arms controllers will press for agreements to avoid mutual interference, while responsible military authorities will feel it necessary to have contingency plans in case the agreements are abrogated. Passive measures may include steps to make radar and visual detection more difficult, or possibly to have so many decoys that the expense of interception would be very heavy for the returns; also, there might be increasing use of signals buried in "noise" so they were harder to intercept, and more of them might be highly directional further adding to the difficulty of finding them. For the longer run, some types of payloads may be placed at greater distances from Earth.
Such protective measures may be used by the Russians against any perceived threat from the United States. Likewise, U.S. authorities, having seen a demonstrated Soviet capability to carry out inspection / destruction flights against targets at a number of altitudes have to assume that over a period of time the Soviet capability in this regard will grow. Meanwhile, it is apparently to the clear advantage of both nations to avoid direct interference with the space flights of the other, lest the price to be paid become too high and escalate events to very unpleasant and unforeseeable conditions.
In the area of weapons of mass destruction, deployment is prohibited by treaty. One may hope that such treaties will be honored indefinitely, and in this regard, fractional orbit bombardment system (FOBS) flights, which bordered on the questionable side, have not been flown by the Russians since 1971. Let it be clear that this paper does not recommend or even predict the abandonment of restrictions on putting weapons of mass destruction into space. Intellectually, it still can be recognized that in some future age if military rivalries of national states continue, and if major arms are not limited and controlled, one can imagine situations in which arms in space might be a lesser evil. Just as today, moving the nuclear deterrent forces to sea in submarines has been seen as a way to avoid the temptation of a preemptive strike against land targets, one could argue that someday a deterrent based in deep space, say at distances farther away than the Moon and even on the far side of the Sun, might supply a believable, survivable deterrent that would have to be overcome before major powers could risk wholesale warfare closer to home. The notion of the bloodless war fought by computer-controlled automatons, machine against machine, is probably wishful thinking, but in another century might become a part of the institution of war.
Soviet military planners would be unimaginative if they did not think of the whole realm of possibilities and the military consequences as well as the scientific and economic advantages which may flow from future breakthroughs in space propulsion, power, navigation, and life support systems. Western analysts face the same needs if they are to have countermeasures and if they are to know what advice to give in future arms control discussions.
4. Lunar Studies
The full capability of the present series of unmanned lunar flights has not been exhausted. We can expect to see one or two flights a year, including the use of more sample retrievers, roving Lunokhods, and orbiters doing picture taking and more general studies. This will lead gradually to a more detailed mapping of the Moon and understanding of its morphology and history. If the Soviet prediction of combining a roving vehicle with a sample returner is to be executed, and if they continue to use the D class of the vehicle, there will have to be surface rendezvous of two pay loads to carry this out. If they are to explore the back side of the Moon in similar fashion, it may require at least three vehicles, in order to deploy some kind of an orbital communications relay system before they can guide on the surface and get the right trans-Earth injection again while vital steps are carried out on the far side of the Moon. If the G class vehicle comes into use, more ambitious undertakings might be considered. At some point Soviet lunar exploration can be expected to shift back into the manned mode, to be discussed later in this chapter.
5. Planetary Studies
Both Mars and Venus flights have graduated to use of D class launch vehicles. These have greatly enhanced capabilities over what was done with earlier A class launch vehicles. But even for a Mars flight, the D class has proven to be so marginal that the 1975 launch window had to be skipped, and this was even after use of double pairs for the 1973 orbiter and lander missions.
Inherently, the D class vehicle is capable of lifting payloads in the American Viking category, and hence with the previous record of heavy Soviet commitment to planetary flight, there is reason to expect that the D vehicles for much of the next decade are likely to use most opportunities to fly to Mars and to Venus.
The Russians have talked about Lunokhod being a precursor for similar roving vehicles on the surface of Mars, and they have also talked of the importance of returning samples from other planets. It must be recognized that both tasks will be considerably harder than doing such work in connection with the Moon. The D class vehicles might marginally support a small rover on Mars, but the rover itself would need a new degree of automation because any human operator would be too far away in time for round trip signals to guide such a vehicle under all circumstances. Perhaps even without full automation such a device might send back some pictures of the immediate topography in its path; then receive the command to move forward within first picture range, stop again to take a new incremental forward look, and after Earth consideration move forward again, without too much risk of driving up against a boulder or tackling too steep a slope. Returning a sample would require overcoming a greater gravity barrier than on the Moon, plus accelerating to a speed to permit return to Earth, with more complex fine tuning of the return path, and severe energy constraints on the times missions could be performed still to get back to Earth.
If the Russians during the decade upgrade their planetary efforts to use of the G class launch vehicle, then there would be a capacity to make unmanned round trips to planets and to put more ambitious experiments on the surface of planets. Venus on the surface is not very promising for longer duration experiments because of the high heat. But experiments which might float in the dense atmosphere but in a lower temperature range might endure for considerable periods. Mars does not seem to present as great obstacles to longer term study as the surface of Venus, unless the phenomena of large dust storms turn out to be a problem.
To date, the Russians have only talked about missions elsewhere in the solar system, and not conducted flights equivalent to the U.S. flights to Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn. The D class vehicles are capable of supporting Mercury exploration, and while a more energetic final stage might be required, the basic lifting capacity of these vehicles also would support flights to Jupiter and beyond. Should the G-class vehicles become available for a "grand tour" type mission with suitable final staging, then the kinds of missions for the late 1970's once talked about for Saturn V in the United States would be possible, with visits to a number of the outer planets over a period of years. At the moment it seems unlikely the G vehicles will be ready for such use in this decade, or that the priorities would accord it such assignment considering all the other reliability uncertainties in such a flight.
There are other missions which the Russians have acknowledged as being of potential interest. These include a flight out of the plane of the ecliptic by first making an approach to Jupiter: a flight to a comet; and a flight to a planetoid, or a landing on the satellite of another planet such as Phobos, Deimos, or a Jovian moon.
An extrapolation of past levels of Soviet planetary activity suggests that over the next decade or two, there will be fresh important Soviet advances in the planetary field. After a disheartening record of failures, they have persevered, and many of the flights are now successful, so that their existing commitment of resources even without a larger effort may be matched by a growing return of useful results.
B. MANNED SPACE FLIGHT
1. Soyuz
By now, Soyuz has evolved into several types of craft to fill several different needs. It may be useful to examine some of these categories.
a. Ferry. —There is a ferry version without solar panels and with modest maneuvering capability which can serve to re-supply Salyut space stations. Belying on chemical batteries, it can operate independently for about three days, but attached to a Salyut, may lie dormant for up to 90 days, until it is needed for return to Earth.
b. Independent Mission. —A second version of Soyuz has solar panels, and can conduct experiments and tests that either are not suitable for a Salyut, or can be done when a Salyut is not available. The flight of Soyuz 13 was of this type, and the specialized ASTP Soyuz 19 was also in this category.
c. Component. —It is less certain what the exact role of Soyuz may be as a component in other, more complex missions. For example, the Zond circumlunar flights may have stood alone as modified Soyuz, or they may have been building toward more advanced missions involving the Moon. Another obscure example relates to Kosmos 379, 382, 398, and 434. These may have been testing parts of Soyuz, or may have used other man-related but different hardware. Kosmos 159 may also have tested some Soyuz component.
d. Docking Modes. —There may have been as many as five different types: active docking with probe; passive docking with receptacle; active docking with probe, plus hatch; active/passive with androgynous connection and hatch; no docking gear.
e. Tankage. —The first nine Soyuz carried a torus tank which may have been jettisonable, and in any case, the Zond payloads and the later Soyuz do not have this fuel tank.
f. Solar Panels. —Not only do the ferry craft lack solar panels, but those with panels have two types. The Zond and ASTP Soyuz 19 have shorter panels with three segments each. The Soyuz at least up through 11 have four segments to these solar panels. A few cannot be classified in the absence of pictures.
g. Work Module. —All regular Soyuz carry a work compartment, while the Zond variant did not.
h. Heat Shield. —The heat shield is detachable, and is dropped after reentry and presumably at about the time the parachute is deployed. It is possible that the Zond variant uses a heavier heat shield to cope with the higher reentry velocity.
i. Seats. —Presumably originally the regular Soyuz all had three seats, while the Zond may have carried only one seat. From Soyuz 12 on, all Soyuz have carried two seats, in order to carry men wearing space, suits instead of coveralls.
All of these variations are important to understanding what Soyuz may have been intended to do and what it may be able to do in the future. Also there may be clues as to whether the ship was designed from the outset to perform many different missions or whether these evolved out of experience and necessity. Analysis of the possibilities by Westerners is closely intertwined with interpretations about Soviet intentions for other missions 'and spacecraft which will be turned to in the pages ahead. This makes any discussion somewhat complex and over-lapping. See Table 7-1 for a summary of suspected differences among Soyuz-related spacecraft.
j. Soyuz Capacity and Mission Potentials. —In the earlier days of Soyuz flights, the Russians consistently attributed to Soyuz a capacity to fly as high as 1,300 kilometers and to stay in orbit for 30 days. Neither capacity has been demonstrated by a regular Soyuz in independent flight. The maximum stay time for a manned Soyuz has been 18 days (Soyuz 9, with a two-man crew), and the maximum altitude has been 384 kilometers (Soyuz 18). These discrepancies between announced capacity and demonstrated flight have led to many analytical studies in the West, since the Russians have not been forthcoming. (3)
An intriguing thesis was offered by David Woods that Soyuz was designed primarily to support a Soviet manned lunar program, preceded by Earth orbital tests and only later was consigned just to Earth orbital work. In his August 1974 analysis, he thought the volumes of the four spherical tanks and the one after-torus tank suggested use of UDMH and IEFNA, the same propellants used in the American Agena upper stage. He saw these tanks as carrying up to 3,275 kilograms of propellant, and with the estimated weight of the Soyuz, a capability to supply a delta V of 1.97 km/sec, much more than was needed for routine Earth orbit maneuvers, and essentially the same delta V as the Apollo 11 CSM (LOI, 892.1 meters/sec; LO, 48.0 meters/sec; TEI, 999.4 meters/sec; for a total of 1,939.5 meters/sec). He felt the match was too close to be coincidental.
Further, he suggested that the early Soyuz flights had been made only partially fueled, because the full delta V was not required in Earth orbit, and the A-2 launch vehicle would not lift the full load. He suggested that Kosmos 379, 382, 398, and 434 were full duration firings of the Soyuz propulsion system, with the weight brought within the capacity of the launch vehicles by leaving off the command module and the work compartment. He calculated the delta V of Kosmos 379 at 1,779 km/sec and of Kosmos 382 as 1,465 km/sec. Examining the Zond flights, which were without an orbital work compartment, but otherwise complete Soyuz, he calculated the delta V as 2.25 km/sec, which if fully fueled would have permitted going into lunar orbit and returning to Earth, even though in fact the flights were restricted to circumlunar tests. He suggested that some of the delta V capacity was used to shorten flight time and to minimize trajectory errors on these first test. flights. After Soyuz 9, he assumed the Soyuz was reoriented to Earth orbital work, the torus tank was removed, and the fuel in the four spherical tanks was switched to nitric acid and hydrazine, cutting back the propellant weight to 1,325 kilograms. Tills would give Soyuz a delta V capacity of .685 km/sec, very close to the requirement for reaching 1,300 kilometers and return.
Saunders Kramer in a rejoinder to the Woods analysis saw the Zond flights as dependent upon the thrust of the escape stage of the D-l-e, not on the thrust of the Zond as well. Woods had mentioned that the delta V required for a lunar landing was 2.3 km/sec based on total propellant consumption for the LM. Kramer recalled an earlier NASA estimate of 6,000 ft/sec, equivalent to 1.83 km/sec. His own calculations on Kosmos 379, 382, 398, and 434 suggested they achieved about 1.83 km/sec, and hence could have been related to Tests not of a Soviet flight to the Moon and return, but to a lunar landing and return to lunar orbit.
3. See particularly in Spaceflight. London , the following: Woods, David R.. The Soyuz propulsion system. August 1974. pp. 300-302: Kramer, Saunders B. Soviet propulsion systems. January 1975. pp. 31-40; Gibbons. Ralph F.. The Salyut family. April 1975): p. p. 159; Ashworth. Stephen. Origin of Soyuz. April 1975. pp. 159-160; and Oberg. James E., The hidden history of the Soyuz project, Angust/September 1975, pp. 282-289.
Stephen Ashworth challenged the "Woods thesis on the grounds that Soyuz was not sophisticated enough to support lunar operations, considering its launch, navigation, propulsion, and environment control limitations. He cited disparaging comments carried in Aviation 'Week which appeared as ASTP-related Soyuz data became available. Ashworth did not explain how Zond variants of Soyuz could be used for circumlunar flights, although these flights were simpler than missions which additionally included lunar orbit or lunar landing operations.
The James Oberg review renews his theme published earlier that the Russians intended to be the first to land men on the Moon, also noting that Soyuz had been modified by omission of the work compartment, the substitution of a heavier heat shield, and the addition of a high-gain antenna, all of which required use of the larger D class launch vehicle rather than the A-2 since these pay loads were sent around the Moon.
There are continuing studies of these issues, not yet in print. David Woods and Charles Vick are trying to refine our understanding of the Soyuz engineering with the help of new Soyuz data now available through the ASTP joint mission. Considering the fully fueled weight of Soyuz is beyond the capacity of the A-2 rocket, Vick wonders whether it was not planned from the outset that Soyuz would be launched by the D class rockets, with only preliminary, partly fueled tests using the A-2. There is no sign of any replacement for the A-2
as a launch vehicle for Soyuz permitting a fully loaded Soyuz to be launched, and the D class seems oversized for Earth orbital work by Soyuz.
k. Further Variants of Soyuz.—Soyuz evolution may still be continuing. Kosmos 670 and Kosmos 772 were man-related tests of unknown purpose. Kosmos 670 flew at an inclination not previously used by A-2, about 50.6 degrees, and it stayed up three days. Kosmos 772 flew at the ASTP inclination of 51.8 degrees and also stayed up three days. In November 1975, Soyuz 20 was launched at 51.6 degrees, and it spent two days making a rendezvous and docking with Salyut 4. As an unmanned ship, it was described as testing the possibilities for future ferry craft which could resupply stations, carry crews being rotated, or perform emergency rescues.
One further improvement in a ferry not yet demonstrated for sure is that of fuel transfer, although General Shatalov spoke of this in 1974 in Houston . Another useful step would be to enlarge the carrying capacity of Soyuz from the present two up to three or more. If indeed the Russians feel confident they can make a succession of ferry flights, unmanned in either or both directions, they may not need to adapt Soyuz to carry more than at present. Any real change would involve so extensive a redesign as to constitute a new ship.
1. Overall Design Considerations .—In retrospect, it is interesting to review the considerations which have shaped the capabilities of each of the manned craft to date, for the light this may throw on future developments. There have been fairly compelling issues in both the United States and the Soviet Union in this regard.
In the case of the United States , the Mercury was as much as the available Atlas launch vehicle could put up. It could carry only one person, and was intended to fly for three orbits, but was stretched with experience to a day and a half. The Gemini contract was let to the same builder on the ground that time would not permit a complete redesign, and establishment of know-how. "While Gemini looked like Mercury, it was really a new ship, not only able to carry two persons, but able to open hatches for EVA, and having a service module and added instrumentation to permit rendezvous, docking, and a variety of other experiments, some in conjunction with the Agena target propulsion unit. The more powerful Titan II with storable fuels also added to capacity and flexibility. Apollo of course was designed to provide the tremendous fuel capacity, special power units in the form of fuel cells, self-contained navigational and general purpose computers, and docking equipment needed for working with the lunar module (LM) to make the lunar round trip. It could have been a complete dead end, when the lunar landings were terminated with a number of missions cancelled. But it was possible to adapt at great expense the shell of a S-IVB stage into the Skylab station, another very useful but dead-end project, and then the over-qualified Apollo, by limiting the fuel carried was available for ferry visits to the Skylab, and later to meet with the Soyuz in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). Now Apollo has joined Mercury and Gemini as a museum exhibit only, along with the Saturn launch vehicles which no longer are manufactured and which no longer fly, even though they exist in mothball stockpiles.
The question is whether the Soviet program shows the same series of ad hoc decisions or whether a longer range plan has dominated their thinking. Vostok gives some evidence of being dead-ended. Indeed, the spherical capsule most closely resembled in general characteristics a high-altitude balloon capsule of the 1930's, plus ablative shielding, and a service module mostly loaded with chemical batteries. Voskhod was no more than Vostok with the ejection seat replaced by several seats to crowd in a multiple-person crew. Without the ejection system and manned parachute landing used with Vostok, the Voskhod carried some risks in abort situations, and required an extra rocket landing system just before touch-down to cushion the hard blow of land impact. America throughout has been limited to water landings, although there was talk of paraglider landings beginning with Gemini which were eliminated from the program as costing too much. time and adding other uncertainties. Soyuz gives the first signs of being a better planned ship for a sustained space effort, and the discussion in Chapter Three as well as this chapter demonstrates that it has many limitations and compromises. Zond for circumlunar manned flight is clearly built of Soyuz elements, and the debate which will emerge in this chapter is the extent to which Soyuz or Zond was originally intended to be the main stream of Soviet development, at the time planning originally was done.
The American Shuttle is designed to be OUT sustainable effort, and it has been compromised in a number of respects for both fiscal and technical reasons. We have yet to explore how long the Russians will stick with Soyuz derivatives, and when they will create a new Earth orbital manned system.
2. Salyut
Salyut falls well short of Skylab in the amount of space it provides, although the parallel agenda of experiments carried out in each superficially seem much the same. The big advantage of Salyut is that it is ongoing and evolving while the one orbiting Skylab after three successful visits of growing length continues its ghostly flight in effect derelict. Its backup was not launched for budgetary reasons.
By now there have probably been as many as six Salyut launch at-tempts, and these already include at least two programs. The evidence for these two programs was summarized by Sven Grahn of Stockholm.(4) Grahn had correctly forecast the Salyut 4/Soyuz 17 mission before its launch by noting the higher orbit selected in the earlier Soyuz 12 test; and similarly he forecast the Salyut 4/Soyuz 18 mission by noting the earlier 60-day stay time, powered down, of Kosmos 613.
a. Military Salyut — Grahn noted that the military version of Salyut flies in a low circular orbit, using frequencies and telemetry formats common to military photographic recoverable missions. Based on past experience, we should see more such flights, with military crews entering them from time to time to calibrate instruments and reload cameras. Salyut 3 already has demonstrated it could send back a capsule loaded with film and other data, and this should be a continuing feature. Life time may be extended well beyond six months or a year by refueling the station, which otherwise would tend to decay from its relatively low orbit, if its propulsion system were not fired periodically.
b. Civilian Salyut —-The civilian version of Salyut can also operate in automatic mode, but at its higher altitude will tend to have a longer life, building toward the day of "permanent" stations. Flying at this higher altitude, it will expend less fuel in maintaining the orbit. Already demonstrated to a stay time of 63 days for a single crew, this period may be extended, as they pursue geophysical, astronomical, solar, Earth resources, and biological studies.
What is not clear is whether this particular class of station has grown or will grow in size. Soviet releases suggest that from the combined length of Salyut 1/Soyuz 11 at 20 meters, the length grew to 21 meters for Salyut 3/Soyuz 14 and to 23 meters for Salyut 4/Soyuz 17. But changing the basic shell would be very costly for any benefits gained. It now seems most likely they have been the same size, but different inclusions in the length have accounted for the variations, the Western notion that Kosmos 557, a failed civilian Salyut, was bigger than Salyut 1 may be influenced by the greater optical brightness caused by the larger area of solar panels which the later stations have carried. These three steer able panels have a greater surface than the four fixed position panels used on Salyut 1.
Even though it has not been put to use yet, the addition of a large hatch for EVA work on the newer Salyuts may be a portent of activities to come where cosmonauts will work in free space.
c. Salyut as a Component —Just as some Western speculation is that Soyuz was designed to be a component part of some larger construction in space, it is also a possibility that at some point Salyut also was so regarded. For example, the G class launch vehicle could put a Salyut into lunar orbit for manned survey of the Moon, or could carry men into a Molniya-type inclined, eccentric orbit, or into 24-hour synchronous orbit. In some of these missions, it might have to be combined with other components. This especially would be true if it became part of a manned lunar landing mission. This will be discussed below. It might also become a component in a larger space station assemblage in Earth orbit, and this will also be discussed below.
d. Large Conical Instrument Container. —One of the elements of adaptability which has made the Salyut station versatile and opens up its future uses as well is the big conical structure which is mounted transversely in the largest diameter part of the cabin, and this cone at its wide base opens into space. Like a big ice cream cone, it can be stuffed with different flavors. Flying in low orbit, and with the Salyut rolled to point the base of the cone downward, it provides space for the folded optics of a high-resolution camera system. When the ship is flying in higher orbit, and it is rolled to point the base of the cone outward, it can be used to carry a different package to conduct solar studies, or astronomical studies. Since the solar panels now are automatically oriented to point toward maximum sunlight as they swivel up to 180 degrees, either orientation for the cone can be sustained at all times without relying upon chemical buffer batteries alone during some maneuvers. Inside the station, a crew member mounts a chair to the viewing eye pieces and controls which pierce the cone, and connect with the inserted instruments.
e. Docking. —So far, only one docking port has been provided on the Salyuts which have been pictured. It would seem that flexibility of use would be increased if there were more than one port. It would permit the easy transfer of more than one crew, and simplify other ferrying operations without adding much to the risk of a crew in residence. Fuel transfer would seem to be easier if done at the opposite end of the station where the fuel tanks and propulsion units are located.
However, Bushuyev was in Houston at the time of the docking of Soyuz 20 in an unmanned flight with Salyut 4, and he suggested it was entirely feasible to contemplate ferry trips that might take a crew to the station, leaving them there while the Soyuz with film, tape? And experimental results returned to Earth and a later automatic Soyuz could come up to collect the crew when they were ready to return to Earth. This sounds a little hazardous as a routine procedure, considering the number of docking failures which the space program has experienced. Obviously, the automatic mission would be a useful technique to have in reserve for some kinds of rescue situations, but as a routine substitute for adding a second docking port seems less desirable.
f. International Cooperation. — Salyut today has only the standard Soviet passive docking gear. Perhaps in the future that will be retained for the military version of the station as an added assurance of no unwelcome visitors. But perhaps the civilian Salyut in time will adopt the androgynous system used for ASTP. This would permit domino-by future American Space Shuttles as well as Soyuz craft. Station crews of the future may include Russians, Americans, and nationals of other countries. (5)
There is one ironic fact about the American Shuttle. While it is a logical ferry vehicle, which could go to visit a Salyut, it is also so large that a complete Salyut could be carried to orbit in the cargo bay of the Shuttle!
3. A Long-Term Space Station
The Russians for many years have said they would establish long-term space stations with larger crews and long stay time for the crew, as well as using crew rotation.
a. Single Launch —The, simplest way to put up a larger station would be to use a G class launch vehicle. This would be similar to the launch of Skylab using the Saturn V. This larger station would have the potential of being more versatile than Salyut, launched by the D class vehicle, but like Skylab would have an early limit to growth as an isolated unit.
b. Multiple Launches —Just as the U.S. program has considered in the future putting up a succession of station components in Shuttle flights, the Russians have also talked about multiple launches of units which could be assembled in space to create a larger station. Without a reusable shuttle, any rapid build-up would be an expensive proposition, if using the D class launch vehicle. One can also envision the use of the G vehicle to put up a large starter unit to which other D-launched units would be attached. A Soviet design concept drawing released some years ago showed a hub to which four A-2-launched Soyuz were attached. One can also see a system in which four Salyut stations might be attached. But the Salyut, probably designed primarily for independent operations would not be the ideal building block for a long term, large station. If the decision were to go to a ring assembly to provide a more useful artificial gravity than spokes provide, a station unit that could be moved around by space tug and which had air locks and docking attachments at least at each end and perhaps in other locations would be more convenient to use. This shape of unit with multiple ports would be more akin to the U.S. Space Task Force plan that called for a universal station component which could be used not only in low Earth orbit, but in synchronous 24-hour orbit, in orbit around the Moon, on the lunar surface as a habitat, and for manned voyages to the planets.
c. Other Orbits. —As already mentioned, the Russians might use Salyut or a new large station in other orbits from those flown so far They have mentioned that a polar orbit to give world coverage will be required sometime. In recent years, all manned flights have been at an inclination of 51 to 52 degrees. More exotic orbits perhaps will not come as operational modes until a new station component is available.
d. Near Term. —The Salyut station may be stretched to extend its useful life for two or more years. Perhaps crew size could be doubled to four persons without too much trouble, considering it was designed for three originally, even though it has been operating with two since Salyut 3. Automatic resupply should make this crew growth easier to attain.
e. Longer Term. —Much larger stations almost certainly will require assembly, and Soviet spokesmen have mentioned crews in the range of 12 to 20 as a realistic early goal, with stations of much larger size not needed for many years. Crew stay times may be extended to six months or even a year. 'Longer stay times would cut operating costs, and would also be the training ground for the development of future planetary missions that might come in the late 1980's or in the 1990's.
4. Reusable Space Shuttle
These have already been discussed in an earlier section of this chapter looking at launch vehicle capabilities. If the Russians make the decision to develop a reusable space shuttle, as they may already have done, it will be able to support the creation of an orbital launch assembly and checkout station to support flights to the Moon and to the planets.
In his review article, Kramer predicts routine use of a Soviet space shuttle by 1982, with a lifting capability of 30 to 45 metric tons. (6) That time estimate seems as reasonable as any other which has been offered, although it must be noted there is no hard evidence in the public domain of such development. But then, the U.S. Shuttle which should be flying sooner would also still be secret under Soviet-style information policies. Perhaps the larger question is not so much Soviet desires for a shuttle but some of the materials, quality control, aerodynamics, and computer technology that bring the shuttle within reach, and here we are less certain of Soviet capabilities.
5. Zond
The Zond circumlunar flights of a manned precursor as we have seen them probably will not be renewed in their previous form. The program either was marginal or was only a component in some larger lunar program which has also been delayed or redirected. Estimates by Westerners suggest that Zond without an orbital module would support only one man for circumlunar flight of about six days. Since the test flights lasted seven days, it is possible the six day estimate is a little low. In any case, this analysis suggests the cosmonaut would be little more than a passenger on an automatic ship. (7)
Hence, it would seem that such a flight standing alone would be useful only to establish a world first, and after Apollo 8, that opportunity was lost. In world image, the value shrank rapidly, as it could not confer equality, let alone primacy, with multiple-man Apollo crews doing more and more in the vicinity of the Moon and then on the surface. However, if Zond was indeed a step toward more ambitious Soviet lunar activities, then it was worth continuing without regard to the American successes so long as there was any immediacy to these larger Soviet plans. But Zond ran its course as an engineering test supplemented by picture-taking and service as a carrier for biological specimens.
6. Manned Lunar Landing
a. Background. —Several of the foregoing sections have touched at least obliquely on the manned lunar landing program. Also another section of this study developed an account of possible lunar-landing-related events up to 1969 when the Russians announced that immediate plans had been set aside. Now it is time to reexamine these issues in the light of past events and capabilities for what light they may throw on the future.
The report corresponding to this one which covered the years 1966-1970 concluded there was a Soviet manned lunar landing program. Some Westerners thought such a program had lost its steam as early as 1966, and hence the United States was not "racing" with Apollo after that time. The report findings, however, were that the net balance of evidence was the Russians were still desirous and even hopeful of being first to land men on the Moon right up to the time of the landing by Apollo 11. While a few Soviet statements of the period are carried in other sections of this report, a much longer and possibly compelling list was contained in the 1966-1970 report on pages 359-384. For the Russians to have been successful in this regard, there would have had to have been a conjunction of two types of events: A serious delay or accident in the Apollo program; and a number of near-flawless Soviet development fights. For example, the 1966-1970 report noted, the United States was willing to send men to lunar orbit on the third flight of a Saturn V, a vehicle never sent previously unmanned to the Moon, and men were landed on the third lunar vicinity flight of this vehicle. Had the Russians been willing to send men to the vicinity of the Moon on a third lunar flight of the G-l-e launch vehicle, following two fully successful unmanned flights, with these unmanned flights starting in late June or early July of 1969, then they might have reached at least orbit of the Moon with men as soon as the late fall of 1969 or winter of 1970, and perhaps even made a landing. But the report added the observation that of course the G-l-e had not been successful, and also noted that there was not enough evidence available to establish how the Russians would have executed in the engineering sense the culminating lunar landing mission.
Another section in this report has touched briefly on Soviet abilities to do rendezvous and docking, to make limited circumlunar flights with the D-l-e and Zond, and the rumors about the G-l-e very large launch vehicle. Recent studies by Western analysts writing primarily in Spaceflight, the organ of the British Interplanetary Society, are exploring in greater detail some of the possibilities which the Russians may have been working toward in the late 1960's and what lies ahead. It is the purpose of this section to review these suggestions for what insights into the next several years they give.
b. Requirements. —The ingredients of a successful manned lunar landing round trip are now known and have been met by the U.S. Apollo program. While the details may differ, as there are several engineering options, the basic logic of attaining a reasonable chance for success at minimum cost is fairly universal and would apply to a Soviet program as well as American.
(1) There must be a launch vehicle with appropriate upper stages capable of lifting sufficient weight and providing sufficient delta V to fly a habitable ship to the Moon, land, and then return crew and gear to Earth. If one vehicle is incapable of performing the entire mission lift, then there must be multiple launches and use of rendezvous and docking of components sent up separately.
(2) Options on rendezvous and docking, made necessary by the almost overwhelming sizing problems with a single launch, include considering Earth orbit rendezvous, lunar orbit rendezvous, lunar surface rendezvous, and even lunar in-transit rendezvous (once urged by a minority in this country).
(3) Whether done by direct flight or through rendezvous and docking, there is a place for specialized modules not only for propulsion but for manned support and other payload and control devices to and from the Moon, in lunar orbit, and for descent to the lunar surface and ascent again from the lunar surface.
(4) Assuming that rendezvous and docking of various propulsion and specialized modules are necessary, then a successful program requires a demonstrated ability to do such work accurately and in timely fashion in the places selected by the mission planners. As is known, Apollo used lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) successfully, but over the protests of an influential group of advisors who preferred Earth orbit rendezvous (EOR).
(5) With or without rendezvous and docking, the mission requires well developed tracking and high capacity communications systems, preferably functioning 24 hours a day and uninterrupted in line of sight by the rotation of the Earth. Not only must there be a large computational facility on Earth, able to work virtually on a real-time basis, but the lunar expedition should have a self-contained computing and navigational ability to work independently of reference to surface features of the Earth.
(6) Both for reasons of safety and for gaining maximum scientific advantage, there must be adequate mapping of the Moon to under-stand surface conditions, to select worthwhile targets for investigation, and to insure successful landings. A knowledge of lunar mascons is important to celestial mechanics calculations as well as being able to locate and maneuver precisely the ship or ships in three dimensional space near the Moon. It is also important to understand the interacting gravity forces of multiple natural bodies in space.
(7) There must be adequate life support systems both during the flight and on the lunar surface, with adequate cleansed air of the right constituents and pressure and with attention to contaminants and out-gassing. There must be potable water, food, waste management, proper temperature controls, and radiation protection, including recognition of the possibility of a solar flare during the mission. Also, attention must be paid to maintaining inner ear function for orientation and well-being, good muscle tone, body coordination, and accurate perceptions during the varied conditions of weightlessness, low gravity, and acceleration including high G load.
(8) There must be a thorough engineering study and practical reliability to handle the several problems of applying ship accelerations, making fine corrections of orbit and velocity, joining stages with secure locks and tight seals, managing boil-off of cryogenics, avoiding deterioration caused by corrosive fuels, achieving sure ignitions at only the right times, insuring even propellant burning and balanced chamber pressures, providing leeway for shortfalls in some engines, getting clean separations by explosive bolts, and having a thorough understanding of the interactions of ships, systems, and natural forces, in each of many kinds of maneuvers and operations.
(9) There are special problems of Earth return that go beyond Earth orbital flight. The returning ship must be in a narrow corridor, with the operators recognizing that too steep a return will burn up the ship while too shallow an approach will send the ship skipping out into space not to return with the crew still alive before consumables are exhausted. The best of returns involves problems of dissipating high heat loads, spreading deceleration to avoid peak G loads, and finally maneuvering to a suitable recovery area, with contingency survival plans to meet any conditions of ocean or land.
Undoubtedly any systems study of the entire mission elaborates these requirements into tens of thousands of pages of detail almost all of which are important to a successful mission. The public probably does not comprehend how far human organization and planning had to go to provide successful Apollo fights beyond the building of giant rockets and the selection and training of highly motivated astronauts.
c. Assessment of Soviet Capabilities. —James E. Oberg wrote an assessment which dealt with some of the requirements mentioned above. (8) His title reveals his conclusion. He pointed out that up to the middle of the 1960's, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had demonstrated accomplishment of any of the lunar requirements, except that the United States was coming along with a global tracking and communication network. During the second half of the 1960's, the United States obviously met all the requirements, since it was successful in a series of Apollo landings. During the same second half of the decade, the Russians began to demonstrate the establishment of essential elements as well. They demonstrated unmanned circumlunar flight with Earth recovery, but had not yet done lunar orbit with Earth return, and their lunar landing and return demonstration which came in 1970 was a proof of principle but only with a very small soil sample returned under very high G load conditions, not anything related to a manned flight. The tentative conclusion which Oberg reached, and which seems reasonable, is that the Russians had demonstrated a manned circumlunar capability through the Zond program, but lacked confidence the system was sufficiently man-rated to send a cosmonaut. Second, they might have demonstrated in 1969 an unmanned flight to lunar orbit and then Earth return of a ship capable of carrying a human crew, if the G-l-e vehicle had not failed in its launch. If done, a manned lunar orbit flight, roughly equivalent to Apollo 8 might have come by 1970. Third, work to develop a manned lunar landing capability was well along, but its timetable and operating mode are harder to determine.
Oberg based his conclusions on what we know about the performance of the A-2 and D-l-e launch vehicles and what NASA officials were saying about the new G-l-e vehicle. Soviet tracking support was greatly improved through the construction of large tracking, communications, and command ships with specially stabilized antenna platforms, and using the Molniya satellites to keep the ships in touch with the main Soviet space center. They also demonstrated a growing capability to guide and control at lunar distances, and to do rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit. They had flown long enough for an 18 day lunar mission if needed, and they had demonstrated a self-contained space suit free of life support umbilicals. They demonstrated an ability to return from lunar distance, cutting the G load, absorbing the heat load, and steering to home territory by skipping out of the atmosphere after a southern approach over the Indian Ocean. This list of accomplishments would not be convincing as a complete foundation for manned lunar landing, but it probably could have supported manned lunar orbit . Perhaps some of these listed Soviet capabilities were marginal, but they seemed to be checking off requirements in much the same fashion that NASA was constructing and testing its own building blocks.
Obviously the outstanding success of Apollo 8 took the edge off the Russian goal and they could not be first to do a circumlunar mission or lunar orbit. If there was a lunar landing program for the Russians to make it to the Moon sometime in the years 1970-1972, then the competitive aspect was blunted by the fact that Apollo 11 was successful and Soviet hopes for any near-time success must have been totally destroyed in the explosion of the first G-l-e as it was to be launched to the Moon. Suppose the Apollo 8 mission had had the experience of Apollo 13 when there was an explosion in the Service Module. Without the Lunar Module lifeboat, the Apollo 8 crew would have died before return to Earth, and there would have been no Apollo landing in 1969 or any other time soon, for reasons of practical politics if not engineering. Suppose any of a thousand things had aborted the Apollo 11 landing, killing the crew.
The Apollo Project would again have faced the threat of indefinite delay. If the G-l-e vehicle had worked in the 1969 time frame, and with Apollo at least temporarily hors de combat, then it seems possible that we would have seen an acceleration of testing of Soviet subsystems which if successful might have led to landing men in the early 1970's, the first to do so . While Oberg saw the G-1-e as capable of supporting manned lunar orbit and return, he did not make a detailed case for Soviet manned lunar landing. The Russians do not discuss in advance such programs in engineering terms; and having delayed or cancelled the postulated original landing program we cannot expect them now to help us interpret what they might have done.
D. Components and Alternatives —Curvet Western analysis does not provide a single answer that is satisfying and unique to explain how the Russians might have landed men on the Moon. Some of the debates on this topic are relatively recent, and these suggestions will be reviewed.
More analysts than not believe that Kosmos 379, 382, 398 and 434 were related to the Soviet manned lunar program, but they do not agree as to precisely what that role was. Even though current plans for flights of Soviet men to the Moon may have been dropped from the agenda in the summer of 1969, the program seems to have had a certain momentum. Hence after that time came the flights of Zond 7 and 8, and the four Kosmos flights just referred to, as well as strong rumors of continuing work with the G-l-e vehicle. Possibly related to the Moon were the flights of Soyuz 6, 7, and 8. Some would add to the list the work with Soyuz 9 and the early Salyut and its Soyuz ferries as well.
Sven Grahn of Stockholm identified the four Kosmos flights named in the paragraph above as possible lunar landing craft. (9) His assumptions were that the total delta V demonstrated by each of the four flights were as follows: 1.797 km/sec; 1.732 km/sec; 1.563 km/sec; and 1.628 km/sec. Working with an estimated weight in low Earth orbit of 7,000 kilograms for the three A-2-launched spacecraft, he suggested they were partially fueled lunar modules, made up of a descent stage (which the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) labeled a "platform" in its records), and an ascent stage (which the RAE called a "payload"). He noted that the Earth orbital carrier rocket stage was the usual 2.6 meters diameter by 7.5 meters long. The possible descent and ascent stages probably had the same 2.6 meter diameter and a combined length of 5 meters. His measurements of delta V for the three possible descent stages were: 0.265 km/sec; 0.254 km/sec; and 0.283 km/sec. This would represent partial fueling as that is not enough delta V to demonstrate a lunar landing. The ascent stages were tested at enough fuel load to give sufficient delta V for return to orbit, but may not have had their payload complete. They showed delta V's as follows: 1.532 km/sec; 1.309 km/sec; and 1.345 km/sec. He noted the dry weight of the American Lunar Module (LM) was about 5,000 kilograms. Hence if the Soviet equivalent had been flown without life support gear and landing legs, it is possible its weight could be held to 7,000 kilograms and still have been partly fueled.
Grahn then looked at the flight of Kosmos 382, which followed eight days after Kosmos 379. It was launched by a D class vehicle, and the Earth orbital carrier rocket remained attached to the payload for 5 days, during which time it made either two or three bums. This rocket was estimated as 4 meters in diameter and 12 meters long. After separation, the payload made other maneuvers. The RAE again listed a "platform" and a "payload". The RAE suggested the payload was a 5 meter sphere, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that the diameter of the two objects was closer to 4 meters, and that perhaps the "platform" was a service module and the "payload" a command module. Their combined length might have been about 10 meters, with that divided 6 for the service module and 4 for the command module. Perhaps the service module had solar panels.
Grahn continued that if the two types of hardware (A-2 launched and D-l launched) had been brought together, we might have seen a Soviet Command and Service Module (CSM) and a Soviet LM joined to make a total structure 16 meters long, with a maximum diameter of about 4 meters, not counting solar panels. This would compare with the NASA equivalent CSM-LM combination whose CSM diameter was 3.91 meters and whose combined overall length was 14 meters, not counting legs.
It may be recalled that in this study, it has been recognized that the several maneuvers of these ships were more than we were used to seeing with the A-2 or D-l launch vehicles, and hence their launch vehicles were tentatively classified as A-2-m, and D-l-m. It is not possible to resolve such issues of staging and propulsion to a certainty, and the Grahn thesis seems internally consistent, even though opening up other possible interpretations of labels for these particular launch vehicles.
It may also be recalled that earlier in this chapter it was pointed out that David Woods came to a different conclusion about these four flights. (10) His calculation of delta V for Kosmos 379 at 1.779 km/sec is very close to the 1.797 km/sec calculated by Grahn.
But his calculation for Kosmos 382 came out to 1.465 km/sec, under the 1.732 km/sec of Grahn. He saw them as full-duration firings of the Soyuz propulsion system, and he had already advanced the thesis that Soyuz itself was designed to fly from Earth to lunar orbit and back to Earth, because of its inherent high delta V when fully loaded.
As far as the lunar landing itself was concerned, Woods assumed the propellant loading equivalent delta V from lunar orbit to surface and back to lunar orbit to be 2.3 km/sec each way, while Grahn assumed it was 3.3 km/sec for both. As already pointed out, Kramer quoted earlier Apollo 11 estimates for the descent where the delta V amounted to 1.83 km/sec.
At the time of the Kosmos 379 flight Perry calculated that the two maneuvers entailed delta V's of 0.4 and 1.4 km/sec respectively. (11) NORAD did not report a low initial orbit for Kosmos 382, but Perry noticed that the initial Equator crossing of that flight was too far east by 9 ° for the first NORAD-listed orbit to have been true. A month or so later, he realized that the delta V's for LOI and TEI of Apollo 11 totaled the same as the delta V's for Kosmos 379, and that the second delta V for Kosmos 382 was, as in the case of Kosmos 379, also 1 km/sec. The perigees of these flights were in opposite hemispheres, presumably because the first experiment involved perigee burns to make the orbit more elliptical and therefore perigee was placed in the region of the Tyuratam launch site. But the second experiment required an apogee burn to raise perigee, and hence the apogee was in the northern hemisphere where the burn could be controlled and monitored more easily.
In the case of Kosmos 382, Perry calculates that the initial parking orbit was 303 by 180 kilometers. Using a restart able upper stage of the D vehicle, the orbit was adjusted to the eccentric pattern reported by NORAD, probably with a delta V of 1.0 km/sec. The change from the initial NORAD-listed orbit to the intermediate orbit required a further delta V of 0.27 km/sec. For the final maneuver, Perry originally assumed a plane change of 4.3 °, the difference in inclination, but this assumed the change occurring at the Equator and gave a delta V or 1.0 km/sec. However, on realizing that the plane-change would take place at apogee, near the northern apex of the orbit, he showed that the necessary change in azimuth would be nearer 14 ° if carried out at 50 N latitude. This means a delta V of 1.6 km/sec, or even more, and comes very close to the Sven Grahn calculation.
More recently, Perry calculated two burns, each of a delta V of 2.4 km/sec, for Kosmos 737, the first geostationary Kosmos. (12) This suggests that the Kosmos 382 was most probably lunar-related rather than geostationary.
From these several estimates, it is evident that these Western analysts are making different assumptions so that they do not come out with universally agreed-upon figures which can be linked to any one explanation. But in general at least the flights of Kosmos 379, 398, and 434 probably generated enough delta V to be tests of the steps to move from an Earth-Moon trajectory (TLI) into lunar orbit (LOI) and from lunar orbit to Earth return (TEI), or alternatively, to the Soyuz manual phase of docking requires use of a periscope, occasioned by the mid-position of the command module, the periscope could as easily be swiveled around to point backwards as well as forwards, and he also noted that early Soyuz ships carried radar transponders facing both forward and aft. Cosmonaut Beregovoy is said to have started to describe the ability of Soyuz to dock at either end when President Keldysh of the Soviet Academy cut him off abruptly. Oberg added other bits of circumstantial evidence: The use of a self-contained space suit with back pack, instead of simpler life support umbilical s as used by the early American space suits, might have been an early commitment to lunar work where such self-containment would be necessary for surface exploration. Another item: Soviet cosmonauts are said to have begun helicopter training in 1967 —-just as the Apollo astronauts did if they were slated to land LM vehicles on the Moon.(15)
e. Unpublished Studies. — David Woods has continued his studies of Soviet lunar capabilities, and has prepared a new paper not yet published which amends, elaborates, and refines his earlier published efforts. He now sees all versions of the Soyuz, with or without the torus tank, as carrying nitric acid and hydrazine propellants. He suggests the torus has three tanks within it, never taking full advantage of its volume, and probably designed to be jettisoned during flight. (A Vick concept.) He suggests a void between two nitric acid tanks may have housed electronics. (A Houtman concept.)
His calculation is that the propellant capacity of the torus is 1,815 kilograms at full load and that of the four spherical tanks is 1,150 kilograms at full load. In the case of Kosmos 159, he suggested this full load was carried within the lifting capacity of the A-2 by leaving off both the command module and the orbital work compartment. Then, in the case of Zond 4-8, he suggests not only was the work compartment left off but also the torus tank. He has developed detailed weight and component tables for all the classes of the Soyuz seen to date, for the circumlunar early Zond (4-8), and for a postulated "heavy Zond" which would have restored the torus tank and given it a full propellant load for an all-up weight of 7,825 kilograms —somewhat beyond the estimated Earth orbital lift capacity of the A-2 or the translunar capacity of the D-l-e. He suggests that the lighter, demonstrated Zonds probably had a delta V of 625 meters/sec, not enough to go into lunar orbit and out (LOI and TEI), but enough to cut flight time and to refine the accuracy of the flight path, improving the precision of the flight around the Moon and of reentry into the atmosphere of Earth.
Woods suggests that the demonstrated Zond series were primarily to test the Earth return phase of future Moon flights. His impression is that the first three Proton satellite flights were engineering tests of the D-l vehicle, carrying an external mockup of the heavy Zond service module, and Proton 4 roughly a sphere close to 4.5 meters in diameter with a mockup of a docking collar to simulate a man-carrying capsule the G vehicle might carry in its future lunar use.
By applying a least-squares fit to a variety of available official Soviet weight summaries he derives the approximate dry weight of the escape stage of the D-l-e launch vehicle. It comes out as 2,185 kilograms. This indicated the D-l-e escape stage is hydrazine/nitric acid fueled, in order to attain the Isp ratings required for the current deep space Luna and Mars missions. The total Earth parking orbit weight of such a mission is projected to be approximately 23,240 kilograms. Then he sees tradeoffs between propellant weight and payload weight, depending upon the mission delta V requirements.
Woods repeats his estimate that any Soviet manned lunar lander would have to be carried to the Moon separately from the principal launch, but that the components should be possible to test in Earth orbit using the D class launch vehicle, even as the NASA program tested in Earth orbit components launched on Saturn IB which later were sent to the Moon by Saturn V. With the American experience as a guide, he has set the weight for the combined ascent and descent Soviet lunar landing vehicle at 20,000 kilograms. This compares with the LM of Apollo 11 at 15,059 kilograms. One reason for the larger weight is related to the inclusion of solar panels to unfurl at the lunar surface, and an airlock.
Woods sees the total lunar spacecraft as consisting of three modules, more than possibly could be carried by the D-l-e for a direct landing, and probably more than could be carried by the G-l-e as well, based upon available estimates of its capacity. Woods suggest (1) a 20,000-kilogram LM, made up of a fueled ascent vehicle of 5,812 kilograms and a fueled descent vehicle of 14,188 kilograms; (2) a habitat for use in lunar orbit, as well as flight to the Moon, with a weight of 2,000 kilograms; and (3) a heavy Zond for flight to the Moon, use in lunar orbit, and for return to Earth, that vehicle to weigh 7,825 kilograms. The mission would start with a G-l launch of the propulsion module; to it would dock a D-1-launched payload —the habitat and lunar lander. The final launch would be an A-2 heavy Zond with a 3-man crew. The propulsion module of 135,000 kilograms would function much like the American S-IVB stage and service module of Apollo. This propulsion package would drive the combined assembly to the Moon and place it in an initial orbit there. He saw the A-2 vehicle as capable of carrying a heavy Zond to Earth orbit by placing it within a smaller, more streamlined shroud than that used for Soyuz which has an orbital work compartment unlike the Zond. This shroud has appeared in Soviet photographs, so is known to exist.
While the total Earth orbital weight would be 164,825 kilograms after three launches, the step of trans-lunar injection (TLI) would reduce the gross weight to 60.4 metric tons, within the 60-70-metric ton range cited by Soviet Cosmonaut leader General Kamanin in 1967 in his prediction of what kinds of weights he saw as routine for flight to the Moon within five years of 1967. A second burn of the propulsion module would brake it into lunar orbit (LOI), where the propulsion module would be cast off. The heavy Zond would lower the periapsis to 20 kilometers. Two of the three men would move into the lander, permitting it to follow the kind of descent profile already tested by the Luna flights. Solar cell deployment on the surface might support a one- to two-week stay. If resupply became necessary, platforms of the standardized type used in the Luna 15-23 series could be used for such logistics support. If the ascent vehicle failed to function when it was time to return to lunar orbit, it is even possible that a Luna launched by a D-class vehicle could carry a light-weight emergency escape system. The United States considered a system which would have weighed about 700 kilograms, and this weight was less than the 840 kilograms landed on the Moon by Luna 21. This would require a transfer of propellant from the inoperative regular ascent vehicle to the emergency ascent vehicle. Obviously, it would not be easy to position the rescue ship with sufficient accuracy to permit the transfer of propellant.
Once return to lunar orbit was achieved, and docking with the orbiting habitat and heavy Zond accomplished, the crew would transfer into the heavy Zond, and cast loose the other two modules. The fuel in the torus tank of the heavy Zond would propel them toward Earth (TEI). On approach via the Antarctic, a skip reentry would be made by the command module over the Indian Ocean to cut G load. and on second reentry over Kazakhstan, this module would descend on its parachute to the surface.
Woods also suggests that in the summer of 1969, there may have been a last ditch attempt by the Russians to upstage Apollo 11. He suggested that perhaps the G-l-e first flight attempt which failed was carrying a 19,500 kilogram modified Proton converted to a laboratory, a 10,000 kilogram propulsion module, with a 105,500 kilogram propellant load to send the station toward lunar orbit. Then an A-2 might have launched a manned Zond to do an Earth orbit rendezvous with the lunar assembly before it was fired into translunar injection (TLI). That particular effort, if it was attempted, failed with the G-l-e failure.
But even though the race to be first to orbit the Moon or to land on the Moon was lost by the Russians, the subroutines of the Soviet effort continued for a time, such as the group flight and rendezvous of Soyuz 6, 7, and 8, which may have been simulating (unsuccessfully) the close formation and the assembly of a lunar spacecraft; propulsion module, lander/habitat, Zond (the Soyuz 6 tested welding techniques). Kosmos 379, 398, and 434 may have simulated full duration firings of the multiple start engines required for the lunar mission. The role of Kosmos 382 during the series is unclear since its delta V of 1,500 meters/sec does not relate to any specific lunar mission requirement. It will be noted again that Woods prefers a different interpretation of the four Kosmos flights from that proposed by Grahn and implicitly selected by Kramer. Soyuz 9 ran the duration test in its 18 day flight.
Charles Vick is also working on calculations for possible Soviet manned lunar missions, and his numbers, also unpublished, are not yet down on paper in quite as complete form as the current Woods calculations, so that they are harder to assess. In general, however lie assumes a somewhat higher lifting capacity than Woods for the G-I-e as well as some stretch in the A-2, and in this way comes up with a smaller number of rendezvous operations which simplifies some parts of the mission. He sees the capacity of the G-l-e as 150,000 kilograms to Earth orbit and 70,000 kilograms to translunar injection (TLI).
With this much lifting capacity, he would expect the Russians to make a pair of launches. One would be either a heavy Zond (8 029 kilograms) or a modified heavy Soyuz (8,936 or 9,843 kilograms) carrying a human crew; the other would be an all-up assembly of a lunar landing module (20,000 kilograms), a lightened Salyut (16,100 kilograms), and a service/propulsion module (20,700 kilograms) for a total weight in the range of 64,864 to 66,678 kilograms, within his estimated margin of the G-l-e. The Vick thesis calls for only two launches and two rendezvous operations: An all-up launch by the G-l-e to Earth orbit except for the manned Soyuz or Zond; one Earth orbit rendezvous to add the cosmonauts in their Soyuz or Zond; lunar orbit, with a lander going to the surface; and then one lunar orbit rendezvous after the surface stay, in order to prepare for the return to Earth in the heavy Zond or Soyuz. The contrast in simplicity is considerable by assuming a greater capacity for the two launch vehicles. If that capacity is not there, the Woods kind of approach with a larger number of rendezvous would be required. (Subsequent to the writing of this paragraph, Vick revised most of his numbers again, but essentially his approach is unchanged.)
F. Total Requirements for Soviet Manned Lunar Landing. —The foregoing pages have listed many of the major ingredients required for a complete and successful round trip by cosmonauts to the Moon. Soviet interest in such a mission has been evident from their own statements over many years. The appearance of many building blocks and many technologies and techniques also was accumulating the where with all in the latter part of the 1960's and early 1970's. Among the many suggestions of Western analysts, it is now possible to build scenarios as to how some of these basic building blocks might have been used to support such missions.
The real questions which remain probably revolve around questions of adequate materials, computational ability, quality control, reliability, and sufficient successful practice to make the inherent risks acceptable. This is where the real doubt lies. If the D-l-e vehicle had worked well consistently so that it could have been man-rated by 1968, and if the G-l-e vehicle had worked with the reliability of Saturn V, then the Russian timetable might not have been rewritten to put manned lunar landings on the back burner, so to speak. With four or five more years to think about this controversy since writing the 1966-1970 report, it still looks as if the Soviet interest in manned lunar landings in at least some parts of their space establishment was alive until the summer of 1969. It should be stressed, however, that the failures of the big launch vehicles to perform as hoped was not the sole stumbling block to successful missions to the Moon. Rather, these troubles were more broadly symptomatic of marginal performance in a number of aspects of Soviet space flight, which, considered in the context of the rigorous demands of the manned lunar mission, were crucial to success.
One of the most difficult tasks of making international comparisons of space programs is distinguishing between the essential and the refinements which bring the admiration of scientists or engineers. Even in the case of the American program with the passage of time one begins to forget the trauma of making systems studies and reliability estimates of the Apollo program. The late Dr. Nicholas Golovin associated with the staff of PSAC (President's Scientific Advisory Committee) was really convinced that the LOR approach adopted by NASA was so risky that if it were politically possible to keep making manned lunar attempts, some very large number of crews would be killed in multiple failures for each successful round trip. As one talks with experienced American engineers and scientists who have come-in contact with Soviet hardware and systems, it seems by informal survey that the majority consider the Soviet materiel and procedures quite inadequate by our standards.
Aviation Week did an extensive review of Soyuz before ASTP and more or less reached the conclusion that Soyuz was technologically less advanced than Gemini, let alone Apollo. Even if one accepts this as given, it still becomes necessary to recognize the Soviet program is an ongoing one that year after year is piling up more useful experience and more successes. As far as human safety is concerned, whether it is a matter of the small statistical sample, or a misinterpretation of what is essential, the Russian record on loss of human life is not essentially different from the American. Our three men burned up on the pad before they could even be launched. Their four men died in the terminal phases of two flights. But the near misses on both sides which managed to avert ultimate tragedy while bringing great credit to redundancy and human ingenuity are constant reminders of the narrow margins between survival and death. One thinks of the April 5, 1975 Anomaly in the Soyuz launch, the high spin of Gemini 8 and its Agena target and emergency landing off Okinawa, the explosion in Apollo 13 "on the way to the Moon, the poisoning of the Apollo crew during recovery after the ASTP mission, the sinking of the Grissom Mercury capsule, and scores of lesser known events in both the U.S. and Soviet manned programs.
To bring this back to the Soviet manned lunar program: Some Western analysts flatly say no Soviet hardware has demonstrated the degree of refinement required to support lunar missions, and yet there have been successful Soviet unmanned flights of considerable challenge, including the Zonds, the several kinds of Luna flights, the operations to Venus, the long term operations of Salyut.
The conclusion of this section is that the Russians were serious about sending men to the Moon in flyby, in lunar orbit, and to the surface and return. They probably wanted to make the circumlunar flyby by November 1967, and slippage obsoleted the program by 1970. They may still have hoped to reach lunar orbit with men by 1969 or 1970, and this became out of the question as a result of the fly-by delays plus the G-l-e failure of 1969. Lunar landing, except for emptying the pipeline of test components, was set aside indefinitely in 1969.
This move to back burner (not abandonment) was not caused alone by the American successes or by the G-l-e failure. But the cumulative and interactive features of a successful Apollo program when coupled with Soviet inadequacies of reliable launch vehicles, and absence of a real indication that all the other necessary steps of computation, guidance, docking, could also be expected to be achieved with clear success before Apollo ran its course probably were sufficient to settle the matter in July or August of 1969. Probably there were some elements in the Soviet space hierarchy who saw what difficulties were coming well before that date, and there were others whose determination and enthusiasm continued past the official cutoff.
The question now is, will the Russians pick up the pieces and reapply their 1960's approach to manned lunar landing, making such flights any time in the next five years? Or will they await the coming of permanent orbital facilities, and later assemble the parts of a manned expedition to the Moon in Earth orbit, moving on a scale beyond that of Apollo, such as establishing a longer stay time in lunar orbit and a resupplied surface expedition? Both possibilities exist, but the former possibility of a renewed Soviet Apollo-type mission continues to recede with each year that passes without overt signs of the building blocks, the precursor analogs, and other clues that normally are the shadows cast ahead by major events.
In December 1974, there was some approach made to India about basing sea rescue forces there, reminiscent of the lunar Zond period, but such questions could be no more than a general contingency move related to emergency return from Earth orbit.
For the moment the conclusion is that a Soviet Apollo is not likely to appear in the next three years, but it might. The second conclusion is that for the longer run, the Soviet commitment to manned activities in deep space is sufficiently strong that within the decade there will probably be a Soviet landing on the Moon that will be a generation beyond the Apollo flights in the ambitiousness of the exploration goals.
7. Manned Planetary Flight
Having given considerable attention to the ephemeral manned lunar landing program, with the uncertainties as to when it will become substantial and then accomplished, it becomes less urgent to describe in detail how the Russians might conduct interplanetary flights.
The first question is, are the Russians interested in sending a manned expedition to the planets? The answer almost assuredly is positive; they 'are. In their public official statements, especially as quoted in the 1966-1970 report corresponding to this study, they named such manned flights as the prime ultimate goal of the Soviet space effort.
Although the timetables are no longer realistic, there were statements that they would reach the surface of the Moon in the 1970 time frame, and would reach Mars before the end of the 1970's. Almost all these estimates, if not couched in specific years, moved the planetary events about ten years away, and hence with delays in the Moon program where many techniques might be proven and refined, the planetary operations also are receding.
There is something more to the Soviet plans than a vague desire, even though it is unlikely there is a firm timetable. One indication of possible interest is the long term effort to develop closed loop or partly closed loop life support systems. Men have been tested in an Earth-based simulated space ship for a full year with recycling of some of their logistic supplies of air and water. Both on the Earth and in space there has been serious work with chlorella and other ingredients of a closed ecological system. The heavy Soviet commitment of planetary explorer craft is consistent with doing the reconnaissance and testing which would precede manned visits.
Important, even vital, as long term reliability of space systems must be if cosmonauts are to be sent off to the planets on voyages that might last two to four years, also very significant is the appearance of a Soviet reusable shuttle to Earth orbit. If a shuttle were to become operational in the early 1980's, then an expedition to Mars might come by the end of that decade and in any case if Soviet interest is sustained, before the turn of the century. The corresponding study to this which covered the years 1966-1970 suggested the most likely manned planetary effort -would be an expedition of 20 or so cosmonauts to Mars in the 1990's. Even with the current delay in manned lunar landings, that still seems possible.
Saunders Kramer saw 'a practice flight to Venus orbit, followed by landings on Mars. He suggested the minimum size expedition would be a payload of 450,000 kilograms and 10 men and women, with a more likely figure about 2,250,000 kilograms of payload and 30 men and women. He is a little more optimistic as to the timing, suggesting a date as early as 1986. (16)
The reason for stressing the importance of the space shuttle is evident if one considers use of conventional chemical expendable rockets as a logistics support for assembly of such an expedition. We know the D-l-e will put approximately 20,000 kilograms in Earth orbit or send about 4,600 kilograms toward Mars in a reasonably good launch year.
To send a full scale Mars expedition with no waste for losses or for assembly costs would require about 489 launches of this vehicle. If each launch cost the equivalent of $50 million dollars, then launch costs alone would run about $24.5 billion.
In similar fashion, if the G-l-e vehicle were used and lifted 135 metric tons to Earth orbit or sent 31 metric tons to Mars, it would take perhaps 73 launches at the equivalent of $200 million each for a total cost in our terms of about $14.6 billion. This is still very steep for one country, since launch costs are only part of the story.
Suppose a space shuttle were used, whether American or Soviet. If the first generation American Shuttle carries about 25,000 kilograms to Earth orbit (with added staging to send 6,000 kilograms toward Mars), then it would take about 375 such launches at a minimum to put up a 2.250,000-kilogram expedition, and 'at $10 million a launch, that would come to about $3.75 billion. If a second generation Shuttle appears with both main stages reusable, as NASA once planned and as rumors say the Russians are developing, the costs change for the better. Then the cost to reach orbit is more like $5 million a flight, and the cost for a 2,250,000 kilogram expedition to be lifted to orbit is about $1.875 billion.
It should be emphasized that the cost to Earth orbit, while the greatest single logistics element, must still be supported by the cost of deep space escape stages, and all the paraphernalia of living quarters, power stations, landing and takeoff ships, and experiments, contained in the 2,250,000 kilograms of payload and maneuvering tugs and deep space propulsion.
Glushko and other Soviet authorities have mentioned that there is an important place for nuclear and for electric propulsion in any future manned expeditions to the planets, but with a space shuttle, even conventional chemical propulsion enters the realm of the feasible. One hesitates to put a figure on the out-of-pocket cost for mounting a Mars expedition, but if one assumes a program, whether American or Soviet, will already have other reasons "to develop a reusable shuttle, a versatile space tug, and a universal space station module (all to serve many Earth orbital purposes of economic, military, and scientific purposes) then even the total costs of developing a Mars expedition become, far different from the kind of
$100 billion figure which has been common to the literature. People tend to overlook how much of the Apollo costs were associated with building a basic U.S. space capability rather than just going to the Moon per se. One might think of a Mars expedition of the type discussed as much closer to the order of magnitude of $10 billion rather than the $25-35 billion of Apollo or the $100 billion postulated so often for Mars. And these calculations accept the point made by Kramer that there would be little point in sending a small crew in a small ship to a destination as far away as Mars. While Apollo supported a crew of three sent toward the Moon with a weight of around 45 metric tons, this kind of Mars expedition with perhaps 30 members and 2,250 tons of ships and equipment would have a wide range of experiments, multiple landers, unmanned and manned, redundant quarters and equipment to enhance their survival en a voyage lasting years. The time span entailed is shaped not just by the months required to travel between the two planets, but the necessity to fly when the planets are positioned to make the flight in each direction compatible with both the weight of propellant required and the time for effecting the transfer orbits.
In summary, the Soviet lunar landing program probably lost its time table in 1969, but perhaps all the component parts were under development or actually flying so that with successful flight-testing a landing was not too remote. But so many ingredients have been missing from a manned planetary mission that no time table could be set realistically today. However, with the ultimate goal in mind, a sustained effort is under way to learn more about the near planets, and to master the techniques of sustaining human life in effective condition for the kind of long stay times required for planetary flight. If the propulsion elements described above do appear and work well, then a lead time of less than a decade might permit serious building of such an enterprise. Today, the trend seems to be toward thinking about international co-operation should such an expedition be considered. But no one can predict where space detente will be around 1990, and it is premature in the political and technical realities now to be talking specific plans.
8. Colonies on the Moon and Planets
Even the lay public as a result of exposure to "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Space 1999" in movies and television are aware that the time will come when mankind will probably have lunar colonies. One of the best "documentaries" is a Soviet science film about lunar exploration and operation of future human cities on the Moon. The historical part of this film is non-political in that it gives reasonably balanced attention to both Soviet and U.S. exploration of the Moon, but the part dealing with the future cities seems to be exclusively Russian.
For the nearer term, the debate is between small scientific bases on the Moon versus a long-life manned station in lunar orbit which might send down occasional landers. It is possible that by the end of the twentieth century there will be on the Moon the equivalent of an Antarctic base. If so, the capital and operating costs will remain heavy for a period until the base can reach the point of being closer to self-sustaining by use of indigenous supplies.
It is too early to talk in concrete terms about permanent settlements on Mars or on satellites of the giant planets. If one were able to look ahead the extrapolations in some cases would fall short of what some people predict, but other quite unexpected developments are quite possible. We have only to look at the surprises and rapid developments which have already come to human accomplishments which were not foreseen by any but perhaps a few dreamers. If propulsion breakthroughs in gaseous core nuclear reactors or in fusion power come along transport costs could fall additional orders of magnitude, and travel time throughout the Solar System might fall from many months (and years') to only days. If ability to generate energy in useful forms continues to grow, men in future centuries may be able to "terra-form" Mars, Venus, and some planetoids into useful and attractive places for human residence.
Such predictions have to assume that somehow mankind will avoid a world conflagration, deliberate or accidental, which potentially hangs over us with the growth in the power and number of nuclear weapons. Perhaps if some day the separate ambitions of national states and the problems of different ideologies should subside, the situation may become one of mankind as a whole struggling to sustain and enhance survival and the quality of life against the natural forces of the universe. Of course, nothing would be so calculated to close ranks than to have the international effort to detect and to contact extra-terrestrial civilizations meet with success.
While the Russians might like to think of the Solar System becoming a Soviet lake and settlements on other celestial bodies allied with the Soviet system, this is far from a practical concern today, so long as there is not too great a disparity in the space capabilities of the Soviet Union and of other parts of the world.
9. Interstellar Travel
Talk of interstellar travel in both the Soviet Union and in the Western World is now limited to professional societies and individual scientists and engineers and is not a factor in governmental thinking.
It was not very long ago that eminent, scientists were going on public record that ICBM's were impossible and that no rocket would ever reach the Moon. Although one can adopt premises which exclude the practical possibility of interstellar travel, thinking has already progressed to the point where there are ways of getting to other stars without breaking the laws of nature or waiting for magic space warps and teleportation. Interstellar travel will not be analyzed in the context of this study because of the early stage of thinking, but deserves brief mention because the thinking in both the Western World and the Soviet Union is being done, and in the decades ahead may reach the level of translation into policy issues.
C. PACE AND TIMING
It is far easier to describe with some confidence the directions and the content of the Soviet space program than to be accurate in gauging the timing of such events. We recognize in the performance to date a mixture of elements or qualities which almost seem contradictory. On the one hand, there are many Soviet forecasts and promises of what they plan to do, and yet delivery on these promises seems to come very slowly to the impatient outside observer. Soviet manned flights during the period of the NASA Gemini and Apollo programs did not keep pace with the United States in number of flights or the level of achievement. Yet today they have an on-going program, unfolding fairly steadily, even though lacking for the moment its manned deep space elements. Even with this slow movement, the total level of Soviet activity is running higher than the U.S. program did at its peak in 1966. Obviously the Russians stay very busy, even though most of the activity no longer rates much mention in ordinary newspapers in the West, leaving the public unaware of this progress. Despite the prosaic nature of much of this activity by today's standards, the Russians are still capable of surprising the public in any year with bold new steps. Their authorities seem to relish these surprises and if asked when certain developments are likely to come the stock answer is "when we are ready", which is not of much help to the forecaster.
Sometimes the cycle of Soviet development seems faster than that in the United States, but in high technology this is not always the case. It almost seems the Soviet lack of depth in advanced materials, some aspects of propulsion, in computer capacity, perhaps in some other aspects of electronics stretches out development inordinately. The Soviet supersonic transport (SST) appeared very quickly after Concorde and seemed to borrow some of its design features, but introduction into revenue service has stretched out as has been true of the Concorde also. The fact the D class launch vehicle has not been used for a manned launch ten years after its introduction when it seemed a natural for such use, points to troubles. The G class vehicle already has gone close to eight years past the time it might have been expected to make a successful first flight, and the time is not remote when the protect will be more than 15 years old since its probable inception.
Perhaps the important and enduring element is the seriousness and steadiness with which the Russians are adding to their space facilities and their space operations, building versatility and experience in depth. If they maintain the pace as they show every sign of doing, by the end of the century their space enterprises cannot help but be very formidable in the scientific, economic, and military sense. In the life-span of nations this pace toward opening the Solar System and applying technology to gain the benefits of space is close to revolutionary. The Soviet program is not a sham. It may be used from time to time for psychological and political purposes, but its real strength is the earnestness of the pursuit of long run capabilities.
D. SOVIET PHILOSOPHY TOWARD THEIR SPACE PROGRAM
A judgment on coming trends in the Soviet space program has to be cast not only in terms of engineering capabilities and prophecies, but in terms of the overall feel which one gains from reading and listening to Soviet statements about space activities over a period of time. This section offers a subjective judgment of the impression the Russians have created.
1. National Pride
The Russians in the past recognized their own shortcomings in economic and technological growth, and long have made a point of the necessity to catch up and to surpass the most developed nations. Their successes in space have been a matter of great national pride to many segments of the population. And although over time, there is less excitement with further advances, the Russians know that they have demonstrated both to themselves as well as to the world that they need not take second place to anyone in a very broad field of modern science and technology when they can and have mounted one major space enterprise after another these past 18 years.
They have shaped their public information policies in ways to enhance this feeling of success, and have minimized disclosure of just how hard any nation must work to achieve good results and gain reliability on the demanding frontiers of advanced technology in the most hostile of operating environments. They do not deliberately reveal space failures, although some become evident anyway. But the advertised successes are real enough, and the pride which follows has been earned.
Accordingly, even though disenchantment eventually may set in to some degree, there is no early sign that this is sufficient to offset the positive benefits to the Russian spirit which have come from their space enterprises. Therefore, it is likely they will continue their heavy commitment to space work insofar as pride is a factor.
2. National Prestige
Soviet prestige has grown in the world as a result of their space successes. Other nations increasingly have looked to Moscow as a place to send graduate students and scholars for added training. Exports of Soviet industrial machinery, aircraft, locomotives, and scientific equipment have been enhanced and aided by the aura of quality and glamour rubbed off from supposed association with the Soviet space program. Although one does not know how to document it, the point has been argued that the flight of Sputnik 1 resulted in an increase of Soviet exports in excess of the cost of developing the Sputnik. Perhaps further space expenditures continue to be defrayed in part by such economic benefits.
The darker side of this new Soviet prestige is that a greater credibility has been afforded to Soviet claims of an invincible strategic rocket force for military purposes. In some past years, Soviet marshals as well as Khrushchev have been able to practice rocket diplomacy, threatening utter destruction to potential enemies, and drawing parallels between the accuracy of rockets hitting the Moon and the dropping of warheads on enemy targets at great distance.
Even if we have not progressed to the point of a nuclear and space standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, to the extent that the space program continues to make the Soviet nuclear deterrent believable, as if does now, there will continue to be reason for the Russians to maintain their commitment to space.
The argument is made that the country which first conquers cancer or ends poverty will gain far greater prestige, particularly with the poorer nations of the world, than will any number of space flights which may be barely meaningful to the underdeveloped nations in terms of direct benefits which they might gain from space flight. The argument may be perfectly valid, but there is no sign that the Russians see the choice of whether to go into space as an either-or proposition.
Neither cancer nor poverty can be cured by government fiat, and there are other problems which also deserve attention and are not necessarily competitive with the space program.
Because the United States made a very costly effort to create its Apollo capability, which has it own problems of limited follow-on, it was no small Soviet achievement to acquire enough space prestige that they could become a partner in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. That exercise is seen by some Americans as a soft-headed U.S. give away in the interest of detente, and by other Americans as a useful step toward future cooperation in which both sides gain.
3. The Engineering Logic of Developing Space Applications
The Soviet Government has at its many levels, including the highest, men whose professional training has been in engineering and science. The specialists from the space field can make their case for concrete benefits from space development and have some confidence that their arguments will be quickly understood, tested, and accepted in terms of engineering logic. There probably is less risk that appeals at the highest level will be -judged in terms of more normative views or manipulated in relation to public works log-rolling or control of voting blocs. They also have a procedural advantage in that they probably do not have to fund projects on an annual budget basis, which risks continuity of work. They are more likely linked to five-year plans as the basic decision unit, and even longer term commitments can be made without the same threat of reversal with an early election. The political power in the U.S.S.R. is self-perpetuating in the sense that when new officials are to be elected, they are nominated by the people in power, and the vote is largely to ratify these decisions.
The Russian authorities have become convinced that use of space technology in support of work in meteorology, communications, navigation, and Earth resources is fully defensible in terms of the enhanced productivity of the national economy which will result. Even in the complete absence of national pride and prestige considerations, this work would still be well worth doing in terms of the economic benefits, some short term, others long term, and the investment is considered a wise use of capital.
One may argue whether a better engineering solution to Earth resources work lies in small, automated spacecraft or in large manned stations taking synoptic readings and bringing human judgment to bear in space rather than through remote controls on the ground. But this is a peripheral argument. Both approaches will work, and the decision becomes a broader systems problem which relates to total goals sought. The forecasts of practical applications to communications, weather, navigation, and Earth resources work in connection with space stations are almost always linked to plans for manned observatories looking outward and manned assembly stations to prepare ships for manned flight to the Moon and the planets.
Another area of space engineering applications is to military uses, and here, too it seems clear that such work has been judged highly practical and immediate in the benefits returned. It is hard to imagine that the fragile world structure could have been held together through all the crises of recent years if the two major nuclear powers had not had a de facto open skies policy to keep each extensively informed about the rate of weapons progress and military deployment through space observations. President Johnson made this abundantly clear in his famous Nashville speech of 1967, and Konstantinov, the Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, made an equally explicit statement to this effect in his visit to Yugoslavia in 1968. It is these necessary military support services flights which make up the year in and year out steady work of the major space programs.
For the future, there continue to be new opportunities to enhance the military usefulness of space all in ways which are non-aggressive and in complete accord with existing treaties limiting the military use of space. The Russians can be expected to continue to exploit these opportunities. Finally, both space powers are cautious or realistic enough to know that, short of universal disarmament, the greatest threats to stability in international affairs would come from some new imbalance resulting from a one-sided technical breakthrough in military weapons and strategy. Hence, the Russians can be expected to press vigorously on these frontiers as much in self protection as in seeking their own advantage to insure the strength of their position in the world. This spurs development, lest they be left behind.
Additionally, Soviet space technology has already included two military developments the United States has not undertaken: The Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS), and the Inspector/Destructor Satellite series. Whether there will be more threatening moves beyond mere military support flights remains to be seen. A spaceborne missile defense system is one potential application which is tied to future developments both in reusable space shuttle craft and in laser weapons. To date, this system has not become a reality, because the shuttle has not been built. Late in 1975, disclosures came that there was some evidence that ground-based lasers were probing U.S. military satellites in high orbit. An alternative explanation was that gas pipeline fires had been sensed. It is too early to assess this development with precision, but it could be the beginning of an ominous change destabilizing the previous relationship of live and let live in space.
4. Interest in Science and Discovery
The Russians have been practical in recognizing the political merits of a strong space program and most of their effort of recent years has been concentrated on applied tasks to support the national economy and especially to support their military services. But Russia for all its relative backwardness has a long tradition of interest in basic science which has carried over into the Soviet state. The U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences covers the range from practical to most basic research efforts, and this same spread is present in their space program. The Academy envoys a special position of power which exceeds the more peripheral and advisory role of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Hence, we can expect that there will be continuing support for study of basic geophysical, solar, and cosmological phenomena in space, as well as study of biology and medicine. Lunar and planetary studies will probably continue to hold government support.
5. Willingness to Subordinate Immediate Consumer Gains
Although some of the choices between putting the national economic product to work for consumers and for various capital and public interest projects differ from country to country, often the variances are governed as much by the economic and material conditions as by publicized ideology. For example, the United States builds much of its philosophy and practice around supplying goods for private consumption, and looks to participative private ownership of the means of production through large corporations with widely-held stock. At the same time a large share of its total enterprise involves public financing of common services, including defense, welfare, provision of roads, and other public works. Also, many of the earnings of its private corporations are not paid out as dividends but are reinvested to further expansion of those enterprises. In Japan, the rate of reinvestment, as an alternative to direct private consumption, is very high indeed and accounts for much of the fueling of the remarkable Japanese economic growth machine both in advanced technology and in straightforward expansion. But even so, consumers in Japan have been close to universally equipped with color television sets, power washing machines, and refrigerators. Japan, like the United States, has also acquired a considerable amount of pollution and urban blight.
In the Soviet Union there has been an explicit subordination of consumer welfare in the present order to build "Communism" —very much what used to be scornfully called "pie in the sky" by Western labor agitators of an earlier age. Heavy industry has long enjoyed a priority over expansion of consumer goods and housing. When there are shortfalls in five-year plans, they have tended more often to be in consumer goals than they have been in heavy industry. At the same time, the lot of the Soviet consumer has been substantially improved over the 1930's, the World War II period, and the earlier post-war years. Consumers know they are better off, and most of them do not realize they are behind the improvements of their own client states in Eastern Europe. But if their expectations rise sufficiently, the previous pace of capital investment, including work in space, might be risked in some degree.
Philosophically, however, there may still be a willingness to recognize a certain amount of psychic income provided to individuals from community expenditures as well as from direct private consumption. Just as the poor peasant in some countries may take pride in beautiful cathedrals, the Russian on a waiting list for a washing machine, a refrigerator, or a car, may still gain some meaningful benefits from handsome rapid transit systems, from extravaganzas in Red Square on May Day, and from the prominent accounts in Pravda and Izvestiya or on color postage stamps that show how the Soviet Union is exploring the cosmos. Already accepting the concept of personal denial in the present for Communist pie-in-the-sky later on, the space program as a long term investment may have better luck in the Soviet Union than it will in a Western society that wants personal goods and services in the immediate present and whose economists apply ten percent discount rates to future benefits from space which make it "objectively" illogical to put capital into space systems that are the least bit imaginative or long term.
6. Marxist-Leninist Religion
The present, regime of the Soviet " Union is avowedly atheistic in philosophy, and traditional religions in that nation now do not have an easy time. Some people say that if God did not exist, he would have had to be invented. One can argue that when old deistic religions are out of favor in a nation, that the human spirit requires a secular religion. One form of such religion has been the personality cult unabashedly applied to dead leaders like Lenin, and from time to time to living persons as well. . . .
On a more philosophical plane, the materialist view in present Soviet society (with a smattering of vocal dissenters who face considerable harassment) is that man is capable of controlling his fate and improving- his well-being, using science as a major tool in his long run advancement. There is a recurring theme over the years that perfected Soviet man will triumph, and his seed and society will populate the Solar System. It may be that further exploration will demonstrate the difficulties of placing colonies on the Moon and the planets, but this point has not been reached. And if the faith in science is sufficiently deeply held, then we may find that despite difficulties the Russian people and government will persevere in their pursuit of a broad space program, expecting future discoveries in science and future improvements in power generation will permit them to do the necessary terraforming of planets, moons, and planetoids to make a fact of then colonization plans.
Hence opinions about Soviet intentions to explore the planets with men should not be judged alone in terms of American standards of early cost effectiveness and high financial risk, but be related to the almost religious overtones, and willingness to sacrifice to a degree the present generation in the interest of some very long term goals.
7. Final Conclusions
The Soviet space program remains a strong, on-going enterprise. One cannot be certain about the future of any program. But as of now, there is every indication of a continuing commitment to maintain a high level of activity and investment in a long-term orderly development of space science and technology, and its use in Earth orbit, at the Moon, and at the near planets now (and later the whole Solar System) for many purposes. This report does not prescribe an American response, which could include a mixture of reactions: Ignoring the Soviet actions and making our decisions on their individual merits; bowing out and leaving the field to the Russians; matching them in the competitive sense and working harder for primacy; or negotiating various accommodations, divisions, and cooperative ventures. If this report has supplied a description and an interpretation of the Soviet program, then the implications of these data and reactions of our policy makers still are to be determined.
References:(A) SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS, 1971-75, OVERVIEW, FACILITIES AND HARDWARE MANNED AND UNMANNED FLIGHT PROGRAMS, BIOASTRONAUTICS CIVIL AND MILITARY APPLICATIONS PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE PLANS, STAFF REPORT , THE COMMITTEE ON AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE .SCIENCES, UNITED STATES SENATE, BY THE SCIENCE POLICY RESEARCH DIVISION CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, VOLUME – I, AUGUST 30, 1976, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1976,
1. Hofstatter, Rudolf, In Flug Revue und Flugwelt, No. 6, 1975, pp. 107-108.
2. Kramer, Saunders B, Soviet space activity: The next ten years, Spacefllght, London , July 1975,pp.242-251.
3. See particularly in Spaceflight. London , the following: Woods, David R.. The Soyuz propulsion system. August 1974. pp. 300-302: Kramer, Saunders B. Soviet propulsion systems. January 1975. pp. 31-40; Gibbons. Ralph F.. The Salyut family. April 1975): p. p. 159; Ashworth. Stephen. Origin of Soyuz. April 1975. pp. 159-160; and Oberg. James E., The hidden history of the Soyuz project, Angust/September 1975, pp. 282-289.
4. Grahn, Sven, Salyut Variations. Spacefllght, London , March 1975, p. 118. This was a follow-on to his earlier article. Future Salyut Missions, Spacefllght, London , October 1974, pp. 392-393.
5. See Oberg, James E, The legacy of Apollo-Soyuz, Analog, New York , August 1975, pp. 27-36.
6. Kramer, Saunders B., op. cit, p. 250.
7. Oberg, James E. The hidden history of the Soyuz project, Spacefllght, London , August/ September 1975, P.248.
8. Oberg, James E., Russia meant to win the Moon race, Spaceflight, London , May 1975, pp-163-171, 200.
9. Grahn, Sven, A Soviet lunar spaceship, Spacefllght, London , October 1973, pp. 398-400.
10. Woods, David R., The Soyuz propulsion system, Spacefllght, London , August 1974, pp.300-302.
11. Perry, G. E., Flight International, London , 98, 923, December 10, 1970
12. Perry, Q. E., Flight International, London , 105, 439, April 4, 1974 .
15. Colllns, Michael , Carrying the fire, New York : Parrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 280.
16. Kramer, Saunders B. Soviet space activity, the next ten years, Spacefllght London, July 1973,pp.242-251.
.* The late Dr. Sheldon is chief. Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress.
