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A space specialist at the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Soviet Union has
launched a fierce attack on the handling of the Soviet space programme,
describing it as an ‘unnecessary race for prestige’ and suggesting that
its ‘glaring mistakes’ are an excessive burden on the economy.

The criticisms are made by V. Olesyuk, a flight control specialist,
in an article in the trade union daily, Trud, and are the latest in a spate
of complaints. These have ranged from the mishandling of the crash-down
of the Salyut space station (This Week, 2 February 1991), which critics
argue could have been avoided, to media revelations that personnel at Baikonur
are suffering the same shortages as the rest of Soviet society.

One of Olesyuk’s principal complaints is over money. He contrasts the
huge sums spent on the space programme with the impoverished state of the
economy. He claims the much praised ‘benefits’ to the economy, such as technological
advances and remote-sensing surveys, have failed to materialise.

Olesyuk raises four particular criticisms of the Mir programme. Many
of the intended astrophysical observations are impossible when cosmonauts
are moving around the spacecraft, he says, because of recoil and vibrations.
The same is true for preparation of semiconductor crystals unobtainable
under normal gravity.

Olesyuk alleges that the spacecraft is suffering from severe power shortage,
restricting the number of experiments that can be performed. Finally, although
the craft was designed to carry between 6 and 10 cosmonauts, the constraints
of the Soyuz-TM transporter – which ferries astronauts up to Mir – mean
that only two can ever be on board at the same time.

One answer to the transport problem would be the Buran shuttle, the
Soviet version of America’s shuttle. Originally a defence ministry project,
Buran is due to rendezvous with Mir in 1994. Its designer, Yurii Semenov,
says it will be able to carry out a major ‘revision’ of the function of
Mir. However, the Energiya Association, which developed the shuttle is itself
in financial difficulties. As part of its ‘conversion’ to civilian production,
Energiya took on a contract from the Japanese Pax corporation to launch
a satellite and to carry the Pax logo on its rockets. Last week, Pax went
bankrupt. Energiya could lose the $4.5 million Pax already owes it.