Science: A Space Record for the U.S.S.R.

And another U.S. try to save the faltering Skylab

One day last week, shortly after the sun set over the Kremlin's ancient towers and onion domes, the Soviet Union passed another milestone in space travel. On their 46th day in orbit, Cosmonaut Commander Vladimir Kovalenok and Flight Engineer Alexander Ivanchenkov, who have been circling the earth aboard Salyut 6 since June 17, brought the total time that they and their comrades have logged in space to 22,504 hours. That put the Soviets ahead of the U.S. for the first time since 1965, when American crews were following each other into orbit with clockwork regularity in the intensive preparations for the first landing on the moon. The U.S. is not likely to regain its lead any time soon; no Americans will venture into the void again until the first orbital space shuttle flight in late 1979.

In Moscow, the state-controlled press has discreetly limited itself to factual accounts of the Salyut 6 flight, pointedly ignoring any comparisons with the U.S. space program. But for all the Soviet cool, the implications of the achievement were not lost on U.S. space observers; they noted that in number of flights and size of pay loads launched, the Russians' increasingly active space effort, both military and civilian, is now about four times as big as the U.S.'s whittled-down program. Said the Library of Congress's astute space watcher Charles Sheldon: "In quantity, if not in quality, the balance is definitely tilted toward the Russians."

Launched into earth orbit last September, Salyut 6, while not as large or as sophisticated as America's Skylab, is more technologically advanced than any Soviet predecessor. Like Skylab, it is equipped with two docking ports, making it capable of multiple linkups in orbit. Indeed, the Soviets have dramatically displayed their new skill with several three-ship linkups. These have included not only visits by other cosmonauts in smaller Soyuz spaceships but also dockings by the Soviets' new unmanned Progress spacecraft, which have brought fuel, food and other necessities in the first automatic resupplying operations attempted in space. In either case, the visiting ship edges into the space station's unused port. *Noting the capability such visits give the Russians for establishing permanent outposts in space, one Soviet cornmentator said: "Already one can visualize long-term cosmic 'settlements' made up of orbital stations and a ferry service, keeping up a steady flow of supplies and technical equipment."