Groping in Space

The American manned space program is in disarray. No one knows when shuttles will fly again or what direction the program will take when they do. But the Soviet manned space program is scoring some of its biggest achievements since the day that Yuri Gagarin became the first human in orbit 25 years ago next month.

Over the weekend two Russian astronauts took up residence in the Earth’s first space station--a goal that the Soviets have been working toward for years. An American space station remains little more than a gleam in the eye of President Reagan, the space agency and hundreds of aerospace contractors. It is still years away, its fate made more uncertain than ever by the Challenger accident.

While American spaceflights have been relatively short--none longer than two weeks, and most much shorter than that--Russian astronauts have typically stayed in space for months at a time. One of the astronauts now in space, Vladimir A. Solovyov, holds the record for duration, having spent nine months aboard the earlier Salyut experimental space station on his last flight.

After the Apollo program, the United States put the bulk of its space resources into developing the shuttle, a reusable vehicle. The Russians put their efforts into developing their space station, which has now ushered in the era of a permanent presence in space. The new station, Mir-- Russian for “peace”--is 56 feet long and more than 13 feet wide. It contains six docking ports to which other modules can be attached, making the station expandable to meet specific needs.

And what are those needs? Typically, the Russians aren’t saying, though they did broadcast television pictures of the launching of the astronauts last week--a degree of openness that they had not reached before. No clear-cut rationale has been advanced for an American space station. There is research and there is manufacturing and there are nebulous assertions about the emergence of uses after the station is in orbit. If the Russians have clearer goals in mind, they aren’t saying.

The space race that fueled the rush to the moon in the 1960s has become dormant since then. The first Sputnik created public trauma in 1957, but the Mir has created hardly a whimper in the public mind. Still, the existence of a Soviet space station will add to the pressure on Congress to get on with a space station of our own.

Without a space station, what is there for the shuttles to do? With a space station, what is there for the station to do? An agonizing reappraisal is under way as a result of the Challenger accident. One of the outcomes may be a better view of the American future in space. It may even result in the goals driving the development of technology rather than the other way around.