Go to Mars, but Go Together : Soviet Partnership Would Pay Off--and Help Us Catch Up

In early February, cosmonaut Georgi Grechko came to Washington and spoke frankly about the United States and the Soviet Union exploring the planets together. “We’d like you to go to Mars with us,” he said, “but we’re going anyway.”

Grechko was not making an idle boast. The Soviets have announced that by this July they will send a rocket probe to the Martian moon of Phobos. They will follow up with a series of unmanned orbiters and landers, leading to a soft-landing on Mars--possibly by 1996--by a robotic “rover” that will explore and examine the Martian surface.

This bold initiative reflects the fact that the Soviet Union is now leading the United States in non-military space achievement. Americans may well claim superior scientific and technological capabilities, but capabilities should not be confused with performance.

Over the last decade, the Soviets have launched five times as many satellites as the United States. While America has been struggling to get the space shuttle flying again and to start a space station program, the Soviet space station Mir has been orbiting the Earth and breaking space flight records. With the United States grounded in the wake of the Challenger disaster, Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko flew for 326 days, and a Mir telescope observed a once-in-500-years supernova explosion.

To American eyes accustomed to the sleek, high-tech look of a Pepsi commercial, Soviet space hardware appears outdated. When we toured Soviet space facilities last October, we were struck by how the computer monitors resembled the Dumont TV consoles of our childhood.

Yet the Soviets are getting the job done, and America is not. The last American flight to Venus was in 1978. Since then, four highly successful Soviet spacecraft have landed on that planet, and two of their radar satellites mapped its surface. Their two Vega missions to Halley’s Comet stopped by Venus and dropped off balloons carrying instruments to make scientific measurements in the Venusian atmosphere. Moreover, their Vega encounters with Halley demonstrated a very high level of spacecraft instrument technology.

For budgetary reasons, NASA did not send a spacecraft to meet Halley’s Comet in 1986. However, NASA did join an international effort (Soviet, Western European and Japanese) to gather data. Prof. John Simpson of the University of Chicago even arranged for the Soviet craft to carry his experimental apparatus--with favorable results. Such international cooperation could provide a model for Mars.

In February, President Reagan made it official American policy to explore Mars. He directed NASA to develop technologies for Mars missions. Now America has a choice: race the Soviets or cooperate.

Racing does not seem to be a very good option, since the Soviets are so far ahead and we are in an era of budget deficits and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. Even if funds were available, it might be impossible to catch up--at any price.

The United States could instead make a virtue out of necessity and accept the Soviet offer to go together to Mars--in full partnership with the Soviets and other space-faring nations. Indeed, joint space exploration offers a wonderful opportunity. Roald Sagdeev, head of the Soviet Space Research Institute, has proposed that the United States provide the “rover” vehicle; in turn, the Soviets would build the return rocket. In addition, Sagdeev wants the Europeans and Japanese to furnish much of the instrumentation.

Such collaborative action would continue through an eventual human landing in the next 25 years. It would be technicallyrewarding, scientifically productive and cost-effective.

Above all, international cooperation would mean that Mars would be explored, not by one superpower alone, but by the nations of planet Earth. That would be a giant step forward for mankind.

A small step would be for President Reagan to propose to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that the United States and Soviet Union plan joint exploration of Mars. The President could suggest that American and Soviet engineers and scientists get together to design and schedule a first cooperative mission--the Mars rover sample return. This planning effort would take 18 months to two years. There would be no obligation and little cost involved. At the end of that time, a decision could be made to go ahead--or not to.

Joint planning could open the way for a new international approach to space and that in turn could have a profound effect down here on Earth.