Rehearsal for 1975

When Soyuz 16 landed safely on the snow-covered steppes of Kazakhstan last week after six days in orbit, Soviet space officials were exultant. The successful flight, they said, showed that their cosmonauts and spacecraft were capable of carrying out their assigned role in next July's historic orbital linkup of an American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz.

U.S. space officials could only hope that the Russians were right. Although the U.S. Apollo spacecraft has more than demonstrated its incredible capabilities on eight missions to the moon, the Soviets are still ironing the kinks out of Soyuz. The workhorse of the Russian manned space program underwent a radical overhaul after three cosmonauts were killed when a hatch seal failed in a 1971 flight. Even that redesign did not eliminate all the bugs. At the time of its previous test in August, Soyuz 15's thrusters failed during an attempted linkup with an unmanned Salyut space station.

But Soyuz 16 performed "without a hitch," say the Soviets. During their 96 swings around the earth, Cosmonauts Anatoli Filipchenko, 46, and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, 42, practiced exercises with a docking ring mounted on the ship's nose. With the ring, according to the Soviets, the crew could simulate some of the "docking maneuvers" that will be required in next year's linkup. (The description was somewhat misleading since the Russian ship will be the passive partner during the rendezvous; Apollo will do all the critical maneuvering.) The Russian spacemen also reduced cabin pressure to about 10 Ibs. per sq. in., or roughly midway between Apollo's 5 p.s.i. and the sea-level atmospheric pressure (14.7 p.s.i.) normally maintained in Soyuz. The same step will be taken during the joint mission before the cosmonauts transfer to the Apollo. Less difference in pressure will reduce the time they must spend in a decompression chamber between the ships.*

Brute Force. In public, American officials had nothing but praise for these Russian efforts. Their private comments, however, still reflected their concern about the relatively primitive Soviet hardware, the lack of quality controls and the Russian penchant for testing in flight rather than on the ground. "Plain, goddamned brute-force engineering," said one U.S. official.

Some Americans were also critical of the Soviets' continued insistence on secrecy; NASA has made a point of letting Russian officials tour the Apollo manufacturing facilities, but no American has been permitted to make a comparable inspection of the Soviet spacecraft during production. In fact, the U.S. astronauts will not see the Soviet ship they will visit in orbit until next May, barely two months before the actual liftoff.

Nonetheless, both the Americans and Russians are stressing the flight's importance to detente. During Moscow's TV coverage of the Soyuz 16 mission, commentators repeatedly pointed out that the flight was a dress rehearsal for next year's meeting in space with the Americans. When Soviet officials were interviewed, they even displayed a small U.S. flag alongside a Soviet flag of the same size on their desks. U.S. space officials also emphasized the mission's importance. They are trying to entice the Russians into other joint space ventures--if only to keep alive the badly curtailed U.S. manned space program. As one NASA official put it: "Keep in mind that the U.S. has no additional manned space activities on tap until the 1980s."

* To prevent the bends, the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream, which occurs when deep-sea divers ascend too rapidly.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.