eugene@ames-lm.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (06/06/84)
Today, we had a Director's Colloquia on the Soviet Space Program.
I am sorry, but I should have taken a note pad. I asked the speaker
for a copy of slides, and will repost a summary if there is enough
interest. The speaker was Marcia Smith of the Library of Congress
who gives Congressional briefings. Don't call her, she doesn't assist the
public, you will be refused.
Ms. Smith covered ths history of the program from 1957 to the future.
The program is divided in civilian and military (30/70%) programs like
the US program. These are further broken into five "US classification"
missions: unmanned applications, manned (and unmanned) uses [military and non-
military].
At this point, slides would better help. There was a Cyrllic breakdown
of mission names with Kosmos being used as generic satellite names and
numbers, military missions, and failures. There was a discussion of the Soviet
use of near Earth missions [they use satellites for communications,
earth resources, navigation, etc.., interesting analysis: older space
technology->using film instead of electronics for imaging in civilian and
military applications], missions to Mars [few successes], Moon, and Venus
[lots of success: 16 missions with two inflight and two more planned including
the Halley Flyby with Venus lander], an analysis of the manned program
[failures with cosmonaut losses] and military uses [ocean survillance
program, FOBS, and ASAT programs].
A map illustrated their three launch Centers which by coincidence
correspond to NASA's three launch sites as far as functions go.
The USSR has several problems with their geographic location. The furthest
Southern launch site is at lat. 46 deg. N. Their first communications
satellites used a highly elliptic orbit because of the fuel costs in
launching a geosynchronous satellite (not done till 1974). Instead their
communications satellites are useful for 8 hours before switching.
They have an Eastern-Bloc equivalent to our international satellite agreements.
They are just now discovering natural resource sensing like our Landsat
program. Their data is publically available from their natural resource
agency. Again, they typically use film rather than digital media.
Their biological satellite program has launched plants and fish into orbit.
It is somewhat behind the US space program, they only in 1982 reproduced
seed-to-seed experiments.
An analysis of the manned program shows various phases of development
from "moon program" to the current space station developments and future
"shuttle and space plane [two separate]" programs. Marcia (the speaker)
detailed accidents such as the recent pad fire which resulted in the
escape tower being used. On moon missions there have been three successful
sample returns and it is important to point out they had two rovers,
one of which worked for a year.
Their agreement with other nations on communications satellites has
allowed them to send people from 9 other nations into space.
Notable was the French man who was a "spatia-naut" rather than either
of the other designations. This might be a trend for future countries.
The Soviets have EXTENSIVE experience because of their space station with
problems such as inflight refueling, repair and construction including
installing new solar panels on their station. One new set of
panels are GaAs technology rather than Si! This is an area where we
(the US) lag considerably.
The Soviets have two manned reusable reentry programs: a scaled down
space shuttle and what the Pentagon terms "space plane" which has appeared
in AW&ST courtesy of the Aust. DOD. It was first learned [by the way]
in 1978 because a California listener to Radio Moscow called into the show
and asked if the USSR had a Shuttle program. They not only confirmed
they had such a program but gave complete specifications regarding
size, shape, etc..
Military space: talk centered on ocean monitoring capabilities (for sea ice,
too), FOBS (which apparently was included in the SALT II treaty), and ASAT.
A slide was also shown depicting a Soviet laser/directed energy beam
site for tests.
Russian space technology as a whole: if you count the numbers, it appears
the Soviets are launching 7x's as much as the US is. This is only because
their technology is in some way behind and in other ways, a different
approach. They certainly have experience (more man-hours longed in space).
There are possibilities for manned missions to Mars, the moon (although
the USSR in US News and Report denies this). They also need to get a
large booster technology to work. Part of this is predicated on the
use of relatively lower power engines. It was surprising to note that
the Chinese have demostrated an Oxygen-Hydrogen engine whereas the USSR
has not.
I have left a lot out. I could post satellite designations after I get slides.
If specific questions are posted to the net, I will try an answer them
as best I can. Please don't send individual questions on this, as I would
prefer to answer each question a small number of times (Remember Emily
Post of the net?). All sources are from the open literature. Several
audience members have visited Soviet space sites and confirmed an openness
to talk. (Again this is the Civilian space program.)
The only questions I asked (of the speaker) were greeted by "cannot comment
[military reasons]." I will be leaving for SLC from Friday for Usenix so give
me a week and a half to get back and respond to questions.
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Res. Ctr.
emiya@ames-vmsb
{hplabs,hao,research,dual}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene