(7 of 9)
Psychological problems too are likely on a long flight. To keep motivation sharp and productivity high, the Soviets pay plenty of attention to the space station's livability. The interior of Mir, for example, has been painted in two colors to provide the crew with a sense of floor and ceiling. On Mir, cosmonauts get two days off each week and have special radio hookups so they can talk with their families and with virtually any sports figure, scientist or celebrity they choose.
The Soviets have shared their knowledge about long-term spaceflight, mostly through informal contacts rather than formal publication. Says one NASA specialist: "We have a book summarizing these lessons. We've got their diets. We try to make our people very aware of what the Soviets have done, because our own experience is all short duration and our data base is very old."
Nonetheless, says Nicholas Johnson, author of the book Soviet Year in Space, "the Soviets still have much to learn before they can reasonably responsibly put together a Mars mission." They need, for example, a reliable propulsion system for their interplanetary space capsule; at least two of the later Salyut systems had propulsion failures. The Soviets are weak, Johnson says, in communications technology. "They know they do not have the best technology," he observes. But they are working on it.
Similar shortcomings plague the glasnost-proof, supersecret Soviet military space program. At any one time, say U.S. intelligence analysts, the U.S.S.R. is operating some 150 satellites, and perhaps as many as 120 are believed to be performing military missions. For hours each day, say intelligence analysts, Soviet Cosmos military satellites drift over the U.S., photographing missile silos and naval deployments. Other Soviet spacecraft lurk with sensitive electronic ears that can pick up telephone conversations in Washington, while Meteor weather satellites monitor conditions over key U.S. targets. Soviet infrared satellites watch for the telltale heat signaling a launch of U.S. ICBMs. At the military launch site in Plesetsk, 500 miles northeast of Moscow, crews stand ready to launch additional intelligence satellites at a moment's notice.
"They have a very active military space program in numerical terms," says the Brookings Institution's Paul Stares, author of the recently published book Space and National Security. "But simple numerical comparisons of space activity can be misleading. In every possible way, our satellites are superior to theirs." Since 1972, for example, the Soviets have been struggling to establish a continuous early-warning launch-detection satellite system. Since these satellites generally have short life-spans, says a Washington analyst, "the Soviets are forever launching those early-warning systems." As a result, the Soviet brass are less prone than their American counterparts to depend heavily on them. Says Johnson: "The military environment will not collapse without those satellites. They are there simply to enhance and increase the efficiency of Soviet ground-based systems."