Cooperation in the Cosmos

IT the 1980s, and the first manned spacecraft from earth has finally landed on Mars after a five-month journey. The television camera shows two figures poised on the bottom rung of the spacecraft's ladder, ready to set foot on Martian soil. Simultaneously the two men take the women tous step and in rapid succession make their historic statements -- one in Eng lish, the other in Russian. Indeed, bilingualism is symbolic of the entire mis sion. For man's first voyage to Mars is a dramatic undertaking involving both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Improbable as it now seems, a joint mission to Mars by the two rivals in space may well be one of the long-range results of last week's summit agreement on space cooperation. Says NASA Administrator James Fletcher: "I think that the first mission of U.S. and Rus sian astronauts hardly will be the last."

For the first joint U.S.-Soviet space venture, the Russians had originally proposed an ambitious series of rendezvous and docking maneuvers by three spacecraft, including their 20-ton Salyut space laboratory. But just a few weeks ago, the Soviets suggested a less complex linkup of only two ships. They explained that any larger enterprise might prove to be too unmanageable in space. Even in its scaled-down version, however, the project will be an impressive undertaking.

Tentatively scheduled for May or June 1975, the mission will begin with the launch of a two-stage Apollo Sat urn rocket from Cape Kennedy into a low (110 nautical miles) orbit above the earth. At a greater tilt to the equator than the orbits used during the U.S. moon shots, it will carry Apollo directly over the Soviets' Tyuratam cosmo drome in central Asia. From there, the Russians will loft a two-man Soyuz spacecraft into a slightly higher orbit of 145 miles. Apollo will then begin a sequence of maneuvers, lasting another day or so, to raise its elevation and bring it within sight of Soyuz. When the ships are finally linked up, the astronauts and cosmonauts will begin their joint activities, including an exchange of crewmen (although one man will always remain behind in his home ship). Before they pull away from each other about two days later, the two ships will make several attempts to rejoin briefly, rehearsing a procedure that may one day be used to rescue the crew members of a distressed space vehicle by transferring them to a ship of another nation. In fact, developing rescue capability is a primary concern of both countries.

Though the mission involves no really new maneuvers, there are technical problems to be overcome. Soviet and American spaceships have different electronic equipment, for example, and communicate over different radio frequencies; compatible gear will have to be developed. To coordinate communications further, an American flight controller will probably have to be on duty at the Soviet mission control in Tyuratam while a Russian stands by in Houston. The crews will also train together in both countries. Beyond that, the U.S. and Russia must make their craft capable of docking. The solution will be to equip them with compatible latch-rimmed rings. Clasped together like interlocking fingers, the first three pairs of latches to meet will provide a preliminary hookup, or "soft" dock. The eight other pairs will assure a final "hard" connection. Indeed, U.S. space officials are hoping that such a mechanism will be standard on all future spacecraft of both nations, including the proposed U.S. space shuttle.

Perhaps the most important new piece of equipment required for the mission will be a so-called docking module. To be built by the U.S. at an estimated cost of $50 million and carried aloft in the second stage of the Saturn booster, the cylinder--10 ft. long and 5 ft. in diameter--will be pulled from the booster by the Apollo command ship. In position between Apollo and Soyuz during the docking, it will act as an essential decompression chamber for men passing from Soyuz's "normal" atmosphere of 70% nitrogen and 30% oxygen (at sea-level pressure of 14.7 Ibs. p.s.i.) to Apollo's low-pressure (5 Ibs. p.s.i.) atmosphere of pure oxygen.* If they did not stop in the chamber on the way from Soyuz into Apollo, spacemen would get the bends--the sometimes fatal buildup of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that afflicts deep-sea divers when they ascend too rapidly from the high-pressure depths.

Pride. Finally, there is the delicate problem of steering the mission past the national pride and sensitivities of both sides. That responsibility will rest heavily with the directors of the project. For the Russians, the man in charge will be Konstantin Bushuyev, a 58-year-old aerospace engineer whose involvement in Russian rocketry predates Sputnik. For the U.S., the project director is 35-year-old Glynn Lunney, until now chief of the flight director's office in Houston and best remembered for his calmly professional performance in Mission Control during the near-disastrous flight of Apollo 13. Neither side has made its final selection of crewmen, but the U.S. front runners include: Tom Stafford, a veteran of Gemini 6 and 9 and Apollo 10; Donald ("Deke") Slayton, the hard-driving 48-year-old chief of flightcrew operations for the Manned Spacecraft Center; and Jack Swigert, a veteran of Apollo 13.

The cost of the mission may run as high as $300 million for the U.S., but that is lower than the price tag for an all-U.S. venture of the same magnitude. The mission will also provide indirect benefits for the U.S. space program. With only one more lunar landing and three Skylab missions scheduled, NASA has been desperately looking for new manned space enterprises that will be popular with the public--and earn financial support from Congress. Thus by agreeing to join with their erstwhile rivals in a flight that is bound to stir the imaginations of both U.S. and Soviet citizens, the Russians may well have given new life to the U.S. manned space program. The Soviets also stand to gain: cooperation should save them money and give them access to American know-how in electronics, computer technology and other areas in which the U.S. enjoys a substantial lead. The new partnership should revive interest in more ambitious projects now deemed too costly for a single nation. As one ranking NASA official put it last week: "I would rather get to Mars with Russian help than not get there at all."

* The U.S. chose a pure oxygen environment because it requires less plumbing, saves weight and is easier to manage.

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