SOVIETS STUDY MARS PROBE, USE OF ROBOTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201760006-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: April 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201760006-3
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1990s Expected to Be 'Time of Real Resufts IF
Soviets Study Mars Probe, Use of Robots
MOSCOW-The Soviet space
program, steadily expanding, has
pioneered in marathon flights and
virtually permanent orbiting labo-
ratories that are prototypes for
space factories of the future.
Widespread use of robots in
space, to reduce the risk and strain
of long journeys on humans, is
being contemplated by Soviet sci-
entists.
Preparations are beginning for
an unmanned probe of Mars, and
the possibility of Soviet-American
cooperation on a manned flight to
that planet has not been ruled out.
Roald Z. Sagdeyev, director of
the Space Research Institute in
Moscow, which runs the Soviet
civilian space program, said: "I
think the 1990s will be a time of
real results." He said the program
"is steadily growing" and noted
that the budget for his institute has
expanded fourfold in the last dec-
ade.
Emphasis on Secrecy
It is impossible to get total
spending figures for space research
in the Soviet Union, much less
information on military aspects of
work in the cosmos. These are state
secrets. The emphasis on secrecy is
so great that the city of Leninsk,
with a population of 50,000 or more,
is not even listed on maps because
it provides service to the nearby
cosmonaut launching center at
Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Even so, Aviation Week and
Space Technology magazine esti-
mated that the Soviet Union in 1982
spent $18 billion on its military and
civilian space programs. By con-
trast, the U.S. Defense Department
and National Aeronautics and
Space Administration together re-
ported spending $12.7 billion in the
same year.
The Soviet Union launched 98
missions with 126 spacecraft in
1982, compared to 18 missions for
the United States, the magazine
said. It acknowledged that estimat-
ing Soviet outlays was an "inexact
science" at best.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency recently reported that "the
Soviet space program is not only
overwhelmingly military in nature,
but the civilian and scientific as-
pects are entirely subordinate to
the military functions."
More recently, the Pentagon's
regular report. "Soviet Military
Power," said the Soviet Union had
an anti-satellite system that was a
space weapon and also two
ground-based lasers that are capa-
ble of attacking satellites in orbit.
'Earth Surface Surveys'
Sagdeyev, a mild-mannered
physicist, provided some rebuttal
to these statements in a recent
interview.
. "We established a moratorium
on anti-satellite testing and de-
ployment in August, 1983, and as
far as I know it is still in effect," he
said. "I don't believe that any
country now could have lasers that
would hit satellites from the
ground. This is now excluded."
He also rejected another Penta-
gon charge, that "earth surface
surveys" made by special cameras
on recent Soviet flights were made
for military purposes and were not.
made public. He displayed a book
with pnotos from 1982 space flights
and said they were listed in a
catalogue and could be obtained by
other countries on application.
As for an increase in the launch-
ing of satellites for military purpos-
es, Sagdeyev said: "I think it is
agreed that this type of military
reconnaissance is playing an im-
portant stabilizing role (in the
verification of arms control trea-
ties)."
Sagdeyev was more forthright
about the civilian space missions,
which have become more visible in
recent years. Soviet television, for
example, carried live broadcasts of
the launching of a spacecraft car-
rying an Indian cosmonaut last
year. And it showed the landing of
three other cosmonauts at the end
of a record-long flight last fall.
That flight, lasting 8/ months,
provided valuable data on the ef-
fects of weightlessness during a
prolonged mission, Sagdeyev said.
"Now we perceive it's possible
for a man to stay up in space for
almost one year, and I think it's not
the end," he said. "There are no
irreversible ill effects."
But the three cosmonauts who
set the record were unable to stand
or walk when they returned to
Earth because their bodies were
not used to the pull of gravity.
They had reported extreme fatigue
in the final days of their marathon
mission, but they appeared to have
recovered at a news conference
three weeks after their return.
Sagdeyev said it is "very expen-
sive" to provide life-support sys-
tems for cosmonauts, and that
studies are under way to consider
methods of automating many
spacecraft tasks.
Probe of Mars
"Some critical operations will
require human intelligence, but I'm
sure most operations could be done
by robots," he said.
The year 2000 is the "earliest
possible" that specialized space
factories could process biochemi-
cals or pharmaceuticals on a large
scale, he said. An early step, he
added, may be orbiting an astro-
nomical observatory that would be
docked to a space station for use by
cosmonauts.
Sagdeyev said the Soviet Union
has begun a preparatory study for
an unmanned probe to Mars that he
envisions as an international proj-
ect.
One goal, he said, is long-term
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201760006-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201760006-3
observation of Mars' surface tc
detect changes since the first space
probes were launched. Another
obiective is close observation of
Phoebus, one of the moons in orbit
around Mars.
When asked about the Pentagon
booklet's statement that the Soviet
Union is considering a manned
flight to Mars in 1992 on the 75th
anniversary of the Bolshevik Rev-
olution, Sagdeyev smiled and said:
"I think it is an exaggeration.
Nobody is really thinking of such a
mission in concrete terms. It would
be a very expensive mission. I think
this type of mission, if it ever
should materialize, should be a
major international enterprise."
He said that if the United States
should want to cooperate with the
Soviet Union on a mission to Mars,
Moscow would be interested.
The Soviet Union began the
Space Age in 1957 with the launch
of Sputnik-a Russian word for
traveling companion-which
beamed a radio signal back to
Earth.
Yuri A. Gagarin in 1961 became
the first man to orbit the Earth, on
a voyage lasting less than two
hours. Since then, Soviet cosmo-
nauts have logged 3,691 man-days
in space, nearly triple the Ameri-
can total.
There have been failures as welt.
Tn' first flight of a Sovuz space-
craft in Apr:.. 1967, ended with the
death of c. monaut Vladimir M.
Komarov, when the spacecraft's
parachute snarled during re-entry
and crashed in the Ural Mountains.
In September, 1983, three cos-
monauts escaped uninjured when
their Soyuz booste' rocket explod-
ed beneath them on the launch pad.
A breakdown in a computer
guidance system led to near-disas-
ter on a Soviet-French flight in
1982. The French participant, Jean
Loup Chretien, said later in Paris
that the spacecraft was tumbling
"like a stone rolling over," and only
quick manual operation prevented
a catastrophe as the crew prepared
to dock with a space station.
In all, five missions have been
shortened because of difficulties
with guidance systems, including
one flight that lasted only 48 hours
when it was unable to dock with
the orbiting space laboratory.
Twice, Soviet nuclear-powered
satellites have crashed to Earth. In
1978, bits of a reactor fell on
Canada's Northwest Territory. In
1983, in a similar accident, parts of
a Soviet satellite fell into the
atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201760006-3