Though their huge unmanned Salyut (Salute) supercraft continued to circle the earth last week, the Russians failed to achieve their ambitious goal: a manned orbital space station. In fact, there was growing belief among Western space experts that the much-heralded mission of Salyut and Soyuz 10 never really recovered from a shaky start.
Despite initial Russian hints of a complex mission of long duration, U.S. scientists suspected shortly after Salyut was launched that something had gone wrong. The heavy cylindrical craft, intended as the hub of a space station, reached an orbit of only 140 by 130 miles. That meant that it...
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