Detente in Space

After failing at least three times in attempts to complete a Skylab-type orbital mission, the Russians were not about to take any unnecessary risks in their latest effort. As Cosmonauts Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin, both 44, whirled around the earth aboard their Salyut 3 space station, ground control sternly refused to let them listen to the semifinal match between Poland and Brazil in the World Cup championship. The excitement, the controllers feared, might stir up the cosmonauts' pulse beats and blood pressure. But after a while, Soccer Nut Popovich could bear the suspense no longer. "How did they play? What's the score?" he demanded. Told that the Soviet Union's East bloc allies had eked out a 1-0 victory, Popovich exulted: "Bravo! Good guys, those Poles."

U.S. space officials had equal reason to cheer—not for the Poles but for what (so far) seemed like a successful Soviet space mission. Launched just before the Nixon-Brezhnev summit, Salyut 3 was subsequently boarded July 4 by the two cosmonauts for what appeared to be a two-week stay. The Americans were most interested in the Soyuz spacecraft that the cosmonauts used to reach the orbiting space station. Soyuz is the same type of ferry craft that the Russians will launch next July in a space-age milestone: the linkup of a U.S. and a Soviet spaceship in the first international manned space mission.

Both sides are eagerly preparing for that pioneering venture. Taking a break from the joint training exercises at Star City, the Soviet cosmonaut center outside Moscow, Apollo Commander Thomas Stafford last week said: "I am fully confident of success." His Soviet counterpart, Alexei Leonov, more than echoed his optimism: "Everything is going efficiently and on schedule."

For a time, U.S. officials had their doubts (and some still do), mainly because of the problem-plagued Soyuz, which one expert bluntly described as "primitive as hell." Cramped and crudely engineered, in the opinion of the Americans, it carries too little fuel for its thruster rockets; by contrast, the Apollo's computer-controlled thrusters have an excess of power. A more serious U.S. objection is that the Soyuz is controlled almost entirely from the ground; the cosmonauts have limited means of coping with emergencies on their own.

As a result, the major burden of the flight will fall on the U.S. ship. Apollo will lift off from Cape Kennedy 7½ hours after Soyuz takes off from the Soviet launch center in Kazakhstan. Once in orbit, Stafford and Copilots Deke Slayton and Vance Brand will begin a round-the-world pursuit of the Soviet ship. Eventually they will dock with it, using a U.S.-built docking system to link the ships together. After the hookup, the Apollo will have to stabilize both craft in orbit since Soyuz is not up to the task.