Word: sagdeyev
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...institute. He began building a corps of young scientists and selecting projects based on their scientific value rather than the political standing of scientists. He fought for access to computers. Most important, and politically the riskiest, he introduced a potent measure of democracy into the Soviet program. "Before Sagdeyev," says Louis Friedman, executive director of the U.S. Planetary Society, "the Soviet space program was closed. Now they talk about their plans. They even argue in public. He has materially changed the way they do major projects." Declares Thomas Donahue, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences' space-science board...
...Sagdeyev's era might have been short-lived except for one thing: it produced results. Among the first breakthroughs were Venera 9 and 10, projects started by Sagdeyev's predecessor, Georgi Petrov. In 1975 the two probes transmitted the first photographs of Venus' hellish surface. Imagers on the next two probes failed, but Nos. 13 and 14 sent back color photos plus a wealth of information on atmospheric, surface and subsurface chemistry. Then in 1983 came a pair of missions that stunned Western space scientists. Venera 15 and 16, in Venus' orbit, transmitted high-resolution radar maps of the planet...
...Sagdeyev was already embarked on another project, one that could have ended his career. Called Vega, the mission was designed to approach and study Halley's comet. Sagdeyev chose to build Vega around the proven, off-the-shelf technology of the Venera probes. But he wanted the scientific instruments to be custom designed, even though the expertise was not available within the U.S.S.R. So he recruited scientists from nine countries, including the U.S., to join the project. That was unheard-of in security-conscious Soviet space circles. Recalls Sagdeyev: "Sometimes my opponents, in order to take over, were almost ready...
...Vega mission put the world on notice that the Soviet Union would not take a backseat to anyone in space science. Admits NASA's Briggs: "They closed a big gap." But Sagdeyev has made it clear that catching up was only the beginning. He has now directed his considerable intellect, political capital and diplomatic charm to another high-risk international mission. If all goes according to plan, the Phobos probes will take off next summer for Mars. When they reach the Red Planet some 200 days and 118 million miles later, they will orbit for a time, taking data...
Phobos will glide between 98 and 260 ft. above the moon's surface -- "something similar to a cruise missile," quips Sagdeyev -- and drop an instrument-bearing minilander to record data on the moon's soil. One experiment involves a laser that will emit short bursts of energy, each vaporizing a square millimeter of surface into a cloud that can be analyzed by the probe's spectrometer. "You can pick up such exploded material from many different places," says Sagdeyev. "In the end you have a chemical map of the surface of Phobos -- if you are lucky...