L5 News, April 1976
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In an effort to appease the budget (space stations housing up to two L-5 NEWS watchdogs, both within Congress and hundred people) and, possibly, to space OMB, however, the Committee kept the colonies. A Newsletter from the L-5 Society overall NASA budget within the $3.69 Several Soviet scientists have stated Number 8 * April * 1976 billion figure by dropping some other that many of the experiments being programs that OMB had allowed. carried out within the Salyut space MSFC SYMPOSIUM ON Most significant is a cut of $8 million station program are aimed at developing SPACE INDUSTRIALIZATION from Development Test and Mission new techniques for large permanent Operation (DTMO). These funds are part orbital bases. A two-day symposium on “Space of the Shuttle R&D budget. The Shuttle In an interview with the Soviet news- Industrialization” will be held at the is essential for the construction of the paper, Izvestia, August 1975, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, 200-person orbiting facility, planned to Academician V. Glushko stated that Alabama, May 26-27. be completed in 1983-85 (given “There can be no doubt that in the future To be sponsored jointly by the appropriate funding), at which solar the crews of orbital stations will be Alabama Section of the American power satellite construction techniques international and space exploration will Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics will be developed. A strong case could be become a matter involving that whole (AIAA) and the Marshall Center, the 1 made that funding power satellite planet.“ symposium will cover four primary research by diverting Shuttle funds is Another statement by Academician topics: Space Habitation, Space counterproductive. Glushko was, in reference to the Salyut 4 Transportation, Space Processing, and When the NASA Authorization Bill space station, “Today we have an orbital Space Power. reaches the Appropriations Committee, it station to conduct research; tomorrow it Participation will include NASA is likely that the unbudgeted solar power will have production purposes. Today the centers and organizations, other research funds will be rejected, station is handled by two or three men; government agencies, industry and considering the penny-pinching mood of tomorrow tens or hundreds of people will universities, Invitations to present papers Congress. What is even more likely is that work there. Today this is only a station; on the current status of the topic areas is the DTMO cut will also stand, even tomorrow it will be a satellite city with expected to draw national as well as local 2 though its funds had been allowed by everything such as a city has on earth.“ response. OMB, leaving NASA with even less money Another leading scientist, Academician The general purpose of the symposium on which to operate in FY ‘77. Boris Petrov, said in an interview with is to disseminate the latest information Trud that it will eventually be possible to on planning of expanded space operations build superlarge, multipurpose complexes following the advent of the Space Shuttle designed for a crew of fifty to one to all segments of the scientific and hundred persons. Also he envisioned the technical community. use of standard units that could be James A. Downey III, deputy director assembled in space using space tugs. He of MSFC’s Program Development also foresaw the need to provide artificial directorate, will be the chairman for the gravity in the large orbital stations of event. the future.3 The two-day event will be held in the The construction of large orbital Morris Auditorium of Marshall Center’s stations will require cheap methods of headquarters building (Bldg. 4200). There launching payloads into near-earth orbit, will be no fee for attendance and which invites the use of reusable rockets registration will begin at 8 A.M. on May like, for instance, NASA’s Space Shuttle. 26. Do the Soviets have any plans for a For more information, call Christine reusable rocket? Duncan, 205-453-0034 or write Marshall In an article in the Moscow journal, Space Flight Center, AL 35812. Nauka i Zhizn, cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov said that “The development of THE SCENE IN WASHINGTON a spaceplane is quite feasible . The In 1972, President Nixon advised REMEMBER THE BUDGET time is not far off when such a plane will NASA officials to lie low, keep quiet, and SPACE COLONIZATION make its first flight.” He described this plan on a constant level budget. They AND THE SOVIET UNION spaceplane and suggested that the most were told to expect to squeeze by on acceptable design was for an unpiloted Phillip J. Parker somewhere between $3.85-3.9 billion by first stage and a piloted second stage, with 1977, the year in which the Space Shuttle Although the Soviet Union has not with as many units as possible being budget would peak. categorically stated that it will undertake reusable. NASA has had to pull in its belt even space colonization, there are many Soviet space scientists are carrying out tighter than expected. This year, NASA is references in the Soviet press which imply a number of important experiments that getting by on $3.562 billion, and the that this may be a long term goal for will have application in large orbital Office of Management and Budget (OMB) them. stations and, perhaps, space colonies. has allowed only $3.697 billion for Fiscal Russia’s current program, the Salyut- Many of the concepts for space colonies Year 1977 -- an increase so small it does Soyuz space station, is aimed at so far proposed have envisaged the not compensate for inflation. developing techniques for the operation production of “artificial” gravity. On The FY ‘77 budget contains no funds of what Soviet scientists term “orbital November 25, 1975, the Soviet Union with which to continue NASA’s solar stations.” The Salyut space station (of launched the Cosmos 782 biosatellite, and power satellite research. However, as the which Russia has launched four in recent one of the experiments carried aboard was March L-5 News reported, the NASA years) is smaller than the American Sky- a small centrifuge for testing the effect of Authorization Bill for FY ‘77, put lab but appears to be manufactured along artificial gravity on small land tortoises. together by the House Science and the lines of Europe’s Spacelab, i.e., on a The results from this successful Technology Committee, added $5 million modular production basis. experiment should be significant for for solar power stations. Another $3.5 The Salyut space station has a number future development programs, as the million was added for ground-based solar of interesting experiments that will have earlier Cosmos 605 satellite carried land energy applications. application to the so-called “Spacebases” tortoises in a weightless condition and the Copyright 1976 L-5 Society All rights reserved. See p. 6. two sets of results can be compared and supporting space farm, and having close constructing space hardware in a new experiments devised for further links with the earth and other space cooperative venture. Space colonies testing of ideas for artificial gravity. stations through the use of spaceplanes established by such cooperation would be Another space colony concept which and space tugs. capable of developing solar energy and the Soviet Union has taken the first These “mini-colonies” will be the transmitting it to earth in usable and steps in developing has been the growing forerunners of the larger space colonies economic quantities. of food for orbital base crews. During the that members of the L-5 Society foresee Here are the arguments: Salyut space program, successive crews at the libration points. 1) Arms expenditures by the U.S. and planted and grew several “crops” in the Comments made by many of the the U.S.S.R. have been escalating since “Oasis” experiment. These included peas Soviet Union’s leading space system the end of World War I I. These nations and onions. Of 20 peas planted in Oasis, designers and administrators indicate that have not been able to agree to stop the by the first Salyut 4 crew, only four they wish to see the development of race or even to slow it perceptibly. The sprouted. The second crew planted 28 space to be undertaken on an race could be slowed by diverting the peas and a greater number sprouted. In international level for the benefit of energies of our respective military another container, microscopic alga humanity. This wish, which is also the industrial complexes away from using our chlorella was grown. hope of many people in the USA and limited earth resources to build military Soviet scientist Alexander Kamin Europe, has already begun to be realized hardware for destruction, and direct them pointed out that these “cosmic factories” through the joint USA-USSR Apollo- instead toward producing hardware with producing albumen and oxygen can be Soyuz project and the USA-Europe a potential for the acquisition of energy described as “models of the future space Shuttle-Spacelab program. usable on earth. 4 industry.“ Will the next step be an orbital 2) A joint space venture financed At the Institute of Medico-Biological complex in the early 1980s involving equally from U.S. and U.S.S.R. military Problems of the USSR Ministry of Health, the American Shuttle, Europe’s Spacelab, budgets would not impair the respective problems of life support during prolonged and the Russian Salyut? This would be military security of either side vis-a-vis space missions are being studied, the forerunner of humanity’s first inter- each other. including closed ecological systems of the national space colony! 3) A number of reputable economists type that will be required for space believe that public economic indicators colonies.5 USSR Novosti news service bulletins: are now of such reliability that Russian 1.