A Logical Step for Mankind

NASA and the Soviets reach for a permanent foothold in space

"The next logical step": that is what NASA planners are calling their dream of a permanent manned station in orbit. Such a development, they argue, would help bring about the era of cheap and easily accessible exploitation of space for science, technology development and commerce. Yet while NASA is still trying to garner support for its vision, the Soviets are already pushing ahead to build their own permanent space station.

Unlike the Americans, the Soviets have been single-minded and persistent in pursuit of this goal. Their most recent and notable achievements have been the coupling in March of the Salyut 7 orbital station with an unmanned Cosmos satellite and then in June with the manned Soyuz T-9 capsule to form a single orbiting complex. The linking of the Cosmos with Salyut 7 has doubled the amount of working space available to cosmonauts aboard the space station. In addition, the latest Cosmos has thruster jets that enable it to change the orbit of the whole complex, leading TASS to dub it a "space tugboat." It also has a bell-shaped descent module, a detachable section that can ferry materials and experiments back to earth--something that the Soviets previously could not do with the cramped Soyuz.

The new capabilities of the Salyut-Cosmos-Soyuz complex are currently being tested by the cosmonaut team of Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov, who joined Salyut on June 28. (A previous docking attempt by three other cosmonauts in April was aborted, because of a faulty guidance system.) As usual, the Soviets have been vague in defining the nature of experiments conducted by the pair, other than to admit that it includes orbital photography.

Western experts believe that the Soviets' eventual goal is to have a continuous manned presence in orbit, with rotating shifts of cosmonauts at a permanent space base. NASA Administrator James Beggs earlier this month warned that the U.S. was in danger of losing its pre-eminence in space unless it pressed forward with a program to build its own space station.

Such a plan is currently on the drawing boards at NASA. The space agency has not settled on any one design for a station, preferring to think through the idea further before submitting it to the Administration. An official on the Space Station Task Force has said, however, that NASA is contemplating a "modest but useful" station with room for six-to-eight crew members. Such a station, which would probably consist of several modules for manufacturing, conducting scientific experiments and other uses, could be in operation by 1991. Possible price tag: $8 billion to $9 billion.

For both the Soviets and the Americans, a permanent space station could provide innumerable benefits. Everything from zero-g manufacturing of near perfect crystals for electronics to routine expeditions to the moon and the other planets could move from the realm of expensive experiment into everyday reality. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.