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Science: Success for Soyuz

2 minute read
TIME

Though the Russians lost the race for the moon, they have continued a vigorous space program. So far this year they have launched 14 unmanned satellites, including one shot in April that left eight separate instrumented packages circling the earth. Now, after several years of U.S. supremacy in manned spaceflight, Soviet cosmonauts have scored another first of their own.

Last week, as Soyuz 9 completed its 220th swing around the earth, Cosmo nauts Andrian Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov broke the endurance mark for space travel set in 1965 by As tronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman aboard Gemini 7 (13 days, 18 hr.

and 35 min.). At week’s end the two So viet spacemen landed safely after almost 1 8 days in orbit.

Chess Match. One of the major aims of the Russians’ record-breaking ride was to find out how the body reacts to prolonged periods of weightlessness, a question that has particularly troubled Soviet space doctors. In fact, it was the Russians who first showed that orbiting cosmonauts lose calcium from their bones during longer flights. Last week the Russians reported a hitherto unknown physiological problem apparently attributable to zero gravity. After only 24 hours in space, both cosmonauts suffered a deterioration in vision; their eye muscles coordinated poorly, and they had difficulty perceiving colors.

Nikolayev and Sevastyanov seemed little handicapped by the problem. From about 150 miles above the earth, they took an optical fix on Lake Viedma, high in the Andes of southern Argentina. Ground trackers performed equally well. Using new radio navigational gear, they were able to track Soyuz to within about a yard of its actual path. Indeed, the flight went so well that the cosmonauts took time out from their 16-hour work days—exercises, photographic experiments, spacecraft check-outs —to battle ground crews in a longdistance chess match (which ended in a draw on the 36th move).

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