Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!guest
From: guest@mcgill-vision.UUCP (Henry Cox)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: US, USSR shuttles a costly error...
Summary: Story found in newspaper
Message-ID: <1360@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 88 15:56:29 GMT
Reply-To: cox@spock.ee.mcgill.ca (Henry Cox)
Organization: McGill University, VLSI Design Lab
Lines: 44


[ From the Montreal Gazette, 22 November, 1988 ]

U.S., U.S.S.R. SHUTTLES A COSTLY ERROR: SOVIET

New York (AP) - The former head of the Soviet space research agency
says both the Soviet and U.S. space shuttle programs are costly
mistakes that will yield few scientific benefits until the next
century.

"It went up.  It came down.  But it had absolutely no scientific
value," was Roald Sagdeev's accessment of the 3 1/2 hour unmanned
flight last Tuesday of the Soviet shuttle.

Sagdeev said the inaugural launch of the Soviet shuttle - like the
1881 flight of the first U.S. shuttle - was an "outstanding
technological achievement."

He said, however, that the shuttle "is technology of the 21st
century.  Why should we pay 20th century money for it?"

Like many U.S. scientists, he fears the costly shuttles are drawing
money away from basic science and that manned flight is unnecessary
for most research.

"My personal view is that American experience with the shuttle
indicates that from the point of view of cost effeciency, the shuttle
is in deep trouble," said Sagdeev, a physicist who has followed
closely the U.S decision making process on the shuttle.

"It is much simpler and cheaper to fly a payload with any kind of
expendable vehicle."

In a recent interview, Sagdeev, 55, also confirmed that he has
resigned after 15 years as chief of the Soviet Space Research
Institute.

The agency deals with space exploration, astronomy and platetary
missions.

He said he left voluntarily because he felt no one person should
dominate an institure for such a long time.

Sagdeev was in New Yord to sing a major book contract.