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As with their unmanned missions, the Soviets have made a virtue of slow, steady progress in the manned program. While the U.S. jumped quickly from orbital flights to moon missions to the now defunct Skylab to the shuttle, cosmonauts have steadily plied earth orbits for nearly three decades. The Soviets perfected their launch techniques by using substantially the same rocket that sent Gagarin into orbit in 1961. While they lost the race to the moon for want of a large booster, they remedied the situation last May, when the 170 million-hp Energia rocket blasted off its pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, near Tyuratam in Soviet Central Asia.
The new rocket will make possible the deployment of larger, more sophisticated Soviet space stations. Says Bogodyazh: "There will be a Mir 2." Explains Alexander Dunayev, head of Glavkosmos: "Space stations weigh up to several dozen tons. What's needed are stations that weigh several hundred tons. We should soon learn to build big structures out there, not tens of meters but kilometers across, multifunctional platforms. Cosmonauts may well live there permanently. And from these structures, there may be flights to other planets." If so, then first on the agenda, undoubtedly, would be Mars.
The lure is strong. Mars is the only other known planet that may be habitable -- and thus the only realistic location for a space colony. That makes it a logical target for the Soviets, who are committed to establishing a permanent presence in space for both scientific and military reasons. Besides, the national prestige resulting from a visit to Mars would be immense.
The greatest problem: the physiological stress of a mission that could take up to three years. The Soviets learned early that humans are not built for a low-gravity environment. On a long-duration flight in 1970, which lasted 18 days, the cosmonauts did no physical conditioning. After they landed, it was almost three weeks before they could walk. Now it is well established that space travelers begin to lose muscle tone almost immediately and that calcium starts leaching from bones in low-gravity environments. Today, thanks to intensive research, Soviet space explorers returning to earth from 200-day- plus missions can walk unaided in three days and recover completely within three weeks.
The prescription: constant physical therapy. Each day, Mir cosmonauts put in an hour on an exercise bicycle and another on a treadmill. For 16 hours a day, they are required to wear a suit crisscrossed with a web of elastic cords so that any movement in any direction forces the cosmonauts to strain against the counterpressure. It is no pleasure. "They do it because their health depends on it," says Deputy Flight Director Blagov. "They cannot miss a single day. Without the work load, there may be calcium loss and decrease in leg muscles. The body takes away what it doesn't use." Sagdeyev is convinced that the health dangers of a Mars mission would be manageable. "The first year is O.K.," he says, "so two or three years are probably also O.K."