No Pictures, Please

In Russia for the final round of joint training exercises for July's space linkup of an Apollo and a Soyuz spacecraft, U.S. Astronauts Tom Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand visited a site never before seen by Americans: the secrecy-shrouded Soviet space-launch center, located in low, rolling hills some 1,300 miles southeast of Moscow near the city of Leninsk in Kazakhstan.

Last week in Moscow, the astronauts expressed confidence that the joint mission would take place. They noted that the Soviets had two Soyuz craft ready at the space center, one a stand-by that would be launched if the first had technical difficulties. The astronauts also discovered some basic differences between the U.S. and Soviet launch techniques. Unlike U.S. rockets, which are restrained on the ground until close to maximum thrust is developed, Russian launch vehicles leave the pad as soon as they have achieved the minimum thrust needed for liftoff. Also Soviet rockets are aimed to go into orbit from a launch pad that can be revolved into the proper position, while U.S. rockets are electronically guided into orbit after they are airborne.

The Americans also found that their hosts, Cosmonauts Aleksei Leonov and Valery Kubasov, enjoy more luxurious living quarters than U.S. astronauts use at Cape Canaveral. For now, the world will have to be content with the astronauts' verbal descriptions of the little they saw at the space center. The Russians scheduled the visitors' arrival and departure to occur after dark, and requested that they leave their cameras in their hotel rooms.

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