10-Year Soviet Lead in Space Seen : Jane’s Describes Edge Over U.S. as ‘Almost Frightening’

The Soviets have an “almost frightening” 10-year lead in the practical utilization of space in the wake of January’s U.S. space shuttle disaster, and they have their own “well-advanced” space-based defense program, according to Jane’s 1986 Spaceflight Directory published today.

Jane’s, which publishes a full range of authoritative publications on military and space equipment, said the Soviets “are so far ahead of the U.S. in space experience that they are almost out of sight: the Soviet cosmonauts have clocked up more than 4,000 days in space, compared with the astronauts’ 1,587 (days).”

British scientist Reginald Turnill, editor of the 600-page volume, said in the introduction: “Worse, the U.S. experience is largely based on short flights, giving no more than three days at a time of uninterrupted materials processing and crystal growth experiments.”

Jane’s said the “Challenger (shuttle) disaster . . . (left) the U.S. faced with a bitter period of retrenchment, recrimination and reorganization. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is working on the basis that February, 1987, is likely to be the earliest that resumption of shuttle flights can be expected.”

‘Interplanetary Successes’

The Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, killing all seven crew members aboard.

“For all NASA’s brilliant interplanetary successes . . . (they) are now 10 years behind the Soviets in the practical utilization” of space, Jane’s said. “The Soviet lead in space is now almost frightening.”

Turnill said “excessive caution as much as excessive haste could have contributed to the Challenger disaster,” since the shuttle was on its Florida launching pad for several weeks “deteriorating in the worst of the winter weather,” before the “flawed” decision to launch was made.

In Los Angeles, former NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine told The Times on Monday he was not at all surprised by the conclusions of the Jane’s report, noting, “I had been waiting for that shoe to drop.

“There is no question whatever that the relative movement forward, the relative thrust in space, is getting quite out of whack,” said Paine, who is now a consultant. “The Soviets are conducting a very bold program, doing very sophisticated work in projects such as life support and closed ecology systems that have very long-range implications.”

Lack of Clear Objective

Paine was chairman of the National Commission on Space, which last month called for the United States to embark upon a long-range manned space exploration program.

He charged that the United States’ progress in space has for years suffered from the lack of a clear objective.

“We haven’t had an objective to crystallize out efforts since President Kennedy set the objective of the landing on the moon in the 1960s,” he said. “What we must remember is that he said the United States must be pre-eminent in space, and in order to demonstrate that, we would go to the moon.”

In the wake of the Challenger accident and the report of the National Commission on Space, Paine said he believes the United States is now about to undertake a serious consideration of a long-term space policy. Both the House and Senate will hold hearings next month on the Paine commission’s report.

“We have to first get over the Challenger investigation,” he said, “and that is almost behind us now.”

In a statement accompanying the Jane’s report, Turnill said the concept of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based defense plan known as “Star Wars,” “could be positive if it stopped the nuclear terrorists of the future” as well as small countries from launching a nuclear attack.

Elaborating in an interview with United Press International, he said: “The super space powers may in the end conclude that a joint space defense system would threaten neither, and protect both East and West against the growing likelihood of irresponsible random nuclear attack from temporarily hostile smaller nations.

“Today’s car-bomb terrorist will be operating in 10 years’ time with nuclear-tipped missiles. The Soviets and the West will need ‘Star Wars’ for such an occasion where it is necessary to deal with irresponsible nations, such as Libya, or terrorism,” he told UPI.

Turnill said, “Despite their protests, the Soviets too have their own well-advanced ‘Star Wars’ program.”

“The fact is that ‘Star Wars’ is a phony controversy. . . . Space has always been militarized, the process having begun before Sputnik 1 (in October, 1957), with the development of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and the spy satellites which quickly replaced their warheads,” he said.

On the military significance of the Soviet lead, the article noted that the Americans themselves have said the heavy-lift booster system for the Soviet shuttle could be used for launching heavy military payloads, including ballistic missile defense weapons, as well as for assembling very large modular space stations.