Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!yunexus!maccs!gordan From: gordan@maccs.McMaster.CA (Cheerfully Anachronistic Turnip Venerator) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Empty Mir? Message-ID: <2444@maccs.McMaster.CA> Date: 17 Apr 89 02:30:46 GMT References: <2789@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Organization: Worldwide Phlogiston Cartel Lines: 109 In article <2789@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes: > >New Scientist (15/4/89, p.20) reports that an editorial in Pravda (the week >before) seems to be supporting people within Glavkosmos who want to push the >Soviet space programme towards concentration on remote-sensing satellites. So >there may be something to this. Anyone got access to the Pravda piece and >know how to read between the lines? The article in question is on page 3 of Pravda, 8 Apr 89, written by A. Pokrovskii (no affiliation given). The following is a summary and paraphrase of some of the main points. Sorry for the sloppy stream-of-consciousness style here, I'm too lazy to write this up more carefully. The article is critical of the secretiveness of Soviet space organizations. Just like in the bad old days, many state organizations use a policy of secrecy not only to safeguard legitimate state secrets, but also to cover up mistakes, bungling, and slackness. The space program alas, fall into the same category. Problems with computer programming are noted during the reentries and landing of both the Soviet-Afghan and Soviet-French missions. So the problem of Phobos-1 being lost due to its being sent an incorrect command was not an exceptional case. No comment was forthcoming on the part of the flight-control organizations in the face of previous Pravda articles on these flights (15 sept, 22 dec). Other examples of lack of openness on the part of Soviet space organizations: In a pre-launch interview Sergei Krikalev talked about a new module for Mir, which would contain, among other equipment, spacesuits for autonomous movement [MMUs?]. Now the flight is almost over, and it's as if no one has ever heard of this new module. Maybe there are technical difficulties, but if so the public ought to be informed. Mentions that before the launch of the French-Soviet mission, there was a press conference in Leninsk with French & Sov space representatives. The sign on the building where it was held was changed from "Officer's Garrison" to "House of Culture". Why? Who were we trying to fool? Ourselves? This secretiveness will not go unpunished. Recently, with regret, but understanding he was coming from, read words of playwright Viktor Rozov, sharply critical of "billions of rubles" spent on the Phobos probes. And he's not the only one. Some candidates for the house of people's deputies included a point in their election campaigns about cutting space exploration expenses. Well-known author Chingiz Aitmanov, already elected a deputy, says we must think over these "astronomical expenditures". What a contrast to the sincere outbursts of enthusiasm and pride after Gagarin's flight. What's happening to our space program? It's broken up into many different bureaucratic organizations and administrations, each pulling for its own interests. Hard to get straight answers as a result, hard to pin down responsibility, hard to find out where the money is being spent, or even how much. Still remember how "Interkosmos" president B. Petrov hemmed and hawed uncomfortably at a 1975 press conference when asked by American journalists how much the Soviet Union had spent on the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Not much has changed over 13 years, judging by the performance of O. Shishkin at a press conference about Energiya. Not enough benefits trickling down into the Soviet economy. Particularly, remote-sensing photos & other data not benefiting forest, farming, fisheries management... a lot of data just sitting in archives, monopolized by "Priroda" organization. Soviet space program should place an emphasis on international cooperation in "global ecological monitoring", as recommended at the UN. None of the current Soviet space organizations is capable of doing this on its own; they must be united under competent leadership. Very sharp criticism of Buran. Much was said and written about it, but after the unmanned test flight it got stuck in the hangars at Baikonur. Is it not to be considered a reliable component of the same tried-and-true system of orbital stations and expendable rockets? Are there technical problems with it? As before, we can only guess, no information is leaking out to us from those hangars. But even so it is clear that billions of rubles so much needed by the economy are sitting idle for a long time. After problems with Phobos-2, deeper analysis of the situation and examination of problems organized by 12 specialized groups of engineers and scholars. Here we go again with committees and subcommittees. Convenient to spread the blame around. No clear vision of future development of soviet space program, of how to apply its results to benefit the economy. And, apparently, it makes sense to the deputies of the future Supreme Soviet to include this problems in their sphere of interests. Remember, the above is just a (very) loose paraphrase. None of the phrasing above should be even remotely construed as a quote. Reading it over, the original article is not nowhere near as blunt or direct as the above summary makes it out to be. The article does not appear to be an editorial, just an ordinary article. What hidden agenda, if any, the author may have is not clear. Note, just because it was published in Pravda doesn't mean (especially these days) that it's "official" policy. The Soviets are passionate readers and love to carry on debates in the pages of periodicals; it's likely that a reply politely begging to differ will soon be published in the pages of this same (or some other) publication. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!LL-VLSI.ARPA!glenn From: glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Mir problem identified - difficulty with the power system Message-ID: <8904131812.AA01836@ll-vlsi.arpa> Date: 13 Apr 89 18:12:14 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 63 More details have come out about the problem on board the USSR's Mir/Kvant space station. Bill Lane at Boston University has reported to me that on Apr. 12th the Soviet evening TV news had Valeri Ryumin (head of cosmonaut training, and former cosmonaut with 326 days in orbit on 3 flights) detailing the main difficulty, a problem in the station power system. The electricity coming out the solar cells shows the correct levels but at the batteries there has been a continuous decline in the power available to run the station and charge the storage unites. This is not a life threatening problem, and they wish the crew to make more measurements. However, it was stated that they needed to bring the crew down to talk to them after April 27th. This is strange: one would think that it would be better to let the crew stay up and work on the problem, shipping up the repair materials they require by Progress tanker (crews have repaired the previous Salyut 7 station even without training for the work that they did). General Vladimir Dzhanibekov (5 time cosmonaut) has been put in charge of a committee to study the situation and report what repairs can be done. There is a certain irony here; in June '85 Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh flew up in Soyuz T-13 to try and save the crippled Salyut 7 space station. Again this was a power problem, with them needing to repair the batteries of the station and directly connect them to the solar cells. One can see the committee's report being present and then him being told to go up there and save the station again. There have been some reports, especially a wire service article originating from the Los Angles Times, that the station was being closed down for economic reasons. It is true that the next expansion module has been delayed to the fall, so that would say the crew would be just holding the fort until that time. On the other hand, Pay Load Systems Inc. was just about to do their crystal growth experiments on Mir. If you are trying to establish yourself in the business you would not close down the station just when the first paying customer comes up. My contacts there said they new this delay was coming for the past week, but had no details. Also the Financial Times (London) reported on Apr. 3 that the British have just bought a Mir visit for 1991 at the cost of 15 million pounds ($25 million). The contract was to be signed during General Secretary Gorbachev's visit to the UK (though the BBC short wave announced it was signed on Apr. 12th). A company called Britain in Space was created to run this project and the money as donated from private sources. Note, this is a private not a government contract. Considering that the Austrians and French already have contracts for such missions to Mir, while a Japanese journalist contract is about to be signed, the argument that the Soviet program is being scaled back to reduce costs seems rather strange. At the same time as the LA article appeared the report on Radio Moscow was stating how space activities had returned 1.5 billion roubles (about $400 million) to their economy so far this year in the commercial area alone. All of this suggests that there are difficulties on Mir and the Soviets have decided to remove the crew. This is most sensible if the power problems means the crew could be in danger, while not allowing worthwhile activities to occur. Combined with the delay in the expansion modules, which certainly will not be launched if there are difficulties on the station, the crew is coming down, leaving the station unmanned for the next few months. It does not seem that suddenly the Russians have come to the conclusion that manned activities do not pay, as these western press report would have us believe. Mean while the US House Appropriations Committee is voting on the transfer of $600 million in 1988 year funds from the NASA space station budget to the Veterans Administration. There certainly are those that want to convince the public that manned activities should be abandoned. Glenn Chapman MIT Lincoln Lab