Jul 28 1975
From The Space Library
Soviet engineers had been working on a "spaceplane" to carry cosmonauts to and from orbit as part of a long-term project to establish a major space platform in the 1980s, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Western observers had expected the reusable spacecraft to be launched by an expendable booster, but CSM reported that the rumored aim was to fly it from the back of a ramjet-powered boost vehicle that would return to base. The project was thought to be linked with development of a large multiman modular space station that the Soviets expected to assemble in orbit before 1980. CSM reported that U.S. Air Force reconnaissance satellites had noted preparations at the Baykonur Cosmodrome to retest the huge SLX-14 booster, scheduled to launch the station. The SLX-14 had been delayed for 5 yr by a series of mishaps: Two launch complexes had been built for the SLX-14, one of which burned during a 1969 fueling test. Intelligence reports indicated it had been rebuilt.
In an August 1975 issue of Sputnik magazine, reprinted from the Soviet Nauka I Zhin, U.S.S.R. Chief of Cosmonaut Training Vladimir A. Shatalov confirmed Soviet interest in a reusable space vehicle.
Although "the future of cosmonautics is largely connected with long term orbital stations," he said, the fact that carrier rockets were extremely expensive and could be used only once was "becoming a serious brake on the development of cosmonautics and relevant research." Neither the airplane nor the spaceship had proven capable of flying into orbit and then reentering. But there is every reason to believe that in the not-so-distant future aviation and cosmonautics would "draw appreciably closer together." Shatalov said Soviet and U.S. scientists had already made important high-altitude and highspeed experiments. Shatalov visualized "a new-type spaceship" consisting of a smaller one launched from a larger one after reaching required speed. The carrier craft would return to a landing field, and the smaller craft would orbit, accomplish its mission, and then land. "Creation of an apparatus with greater orbital maneuverability would ... make it possible ... to deliver satellites on orbits in the spacecraft's freight compartment, serve and repair them in space and bring back to earth samples of explorations and observations and even the satellites themselves if they go out of order." Although "creation of this new type of space apparatus" posed a host of technical problems, "modern science and technology can solve them" and "the time was not far off when such a plane would make its maiden flight." (Gatland, CSM, 28 July 75, 11; Sputnik, "Plane for Outer Space," Aug 75, 68-71)
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