The Russians in Houston

The welcome was so warm that about the only thing missing was balalaika music. Astronaut Tom Stafford greeted the Soviet visitors to the Johnson Space Center in his newly acquired (albeit broken) Russian. Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov--who in 1965 became the first man to walk in space--promptly returned the linguistic compliment. Asked whether he anticipated any language difficulties when Stafford's Apollo spacecraft and his Soyuz rendezvous and dock in earth orbit in 1975, Leonov broke into a broad grin and said: "No problem English."

The camaraderie in Houston last week was more than simple friendliness between rival spacemen. The Soviet cosmonauts, marking an important milestone in international cooperation in space, were beginning their initial briefings by U.S. space officials on the Apollo spacecraft, including its life-support and communications systems. In fall, Stafford and his fellow crewmen, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand, will visit Zvezdnoy Gorodok (Star City), outside Moscow, for a reciprocal study of the Soviet spacecraft. Unless each side understands the other's ship, serious problems could occur when the spacecraft are maneuvering in earth orbit. But the cosmonauts--including Leonov and his sidekick, Engineer Valery Kubasov, who are the prime crewmen for the mission--seemed to be particularly interested in another American spacecraft. While touring a mock-up of the giant Skylab space station--which is significantly larger than the Soviet Salyut--they poked into every compartment within sight, flipped countless switches, and bombarded their hosts with endless questions.

Yet despite all the cordiality, there were signs of old tensions. The Russians were originally scheduled to spend six weeks in Houston, but they cut their visit to two weeks. Reason: had they stayed on, they would have been hard put to refuse an invitation to witness the launch of the second Skylab crew from Cape Kennedy, scheduled for July 28. The Russians have repeatedly shunned such invitations because protocol would have required them to invite American astronauts to one of their own lift-offs--something they have steadfastly declined to do.

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