Word: spacecrafts
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When an Apollo spacecraft links up with a Soviet Soyuz above the earth this summer, Writer Martin Caidin, author of nearly 90 science and adventure stories, will have a greater feeling of involvement than most Americans. Caidin learned recently that the movie version of his popular 1964 space novel
...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...
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...
NASA's manned space program may be suffering from hard times, but the space agency's unmanned exploration of the solar system is continuing to report stunning successes. In the past few years, robot spacecraft have surveyed the planet Mars in exquisite detail, sent back the first closeup pictures of Venus and Mercury, and penetrated the powerful radiation belts surrounding the sun's largest satellite, Jupiter. Now, after sweeping even closer to Jupiter than did its predecessor, Pioneer 10, last December, Pioneer 11 is beginning the long trip to its next target: Saturn...
Kamikaze Mission. Pioneer ll's longevity will be threatened in September 1979, when it swoops between Saturn and the innermost of its three rings on what Wolfe admits could be a "kamikaze mission." The spacecraft could be knocked out of action in a collision with a chunk of the ring's icy debris, some of which may be up to half a mile across. Otherwise, it will pass as close as 1,850 miles from Saturn's cloud tops (compared with 26,725 miles from Jupiter's). It will then be whipped around Saturn...