Developments in Brief : Soviets Spiff Up Their Space Stations

Significant problems with cosmonauts flying in space for extended periods have forced Soviet space officials to pay extra attention to making space stations more livable and crews happier, NASA psychologist B. J. Bluth said.

“The crews were becoming fatigued, they were becoming irritated, they were making errors, they were becoming unreliable, they were screwing up the experiments, they were wrecking the equipment,” she said. “It wasn’t working well.”

The longest Soviet spaceflight to date has logged 237 days in orbit. In contrast, the longest American Skylab flight lasted 84 days. She said Skylab is much roomier than the Soviet Salyuts, although the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is designing a space station with modules smaller than Skylab to be assembled in orbit in 1994.

Bluth, speaking at a recent meeting of the American Psychological Assn., said the base module of the Soviet Union’s new Mir space station is about 14 feet in diameter and 40 feet long--not much bigger than an average motor home.

She said the Mir space station now in orbit is considerably less cluttered than the earlier Salyuts and has bright colors, private toilets, a full shower and individual quarters with windows.