POST-FLIGHT REACTIONS

Only hours after the mission the Central Committee of the Communist Party sent the obligatory congratulatory message to the Energiya-Buran team.

“The launching of the Buran craft… and its successful return to Earth open up a qualitatively new stage in the Soviet space research program and substantially extend our opportunities for space exploration. From now on, Soviet cosmo­nautics possesses not only the means of placing large payloads into various orbits, but also the ability to return them to Earth. The use of the new space transportation system in conjunction with expendable carrier rockets and with permanent manned orbital complexes makes it possible to concentrate the prin­cipal efforts and means on those areas of space exploration that will ensure the maximum economic return to the national economy and will advance science towards higher frontiers… The new success of Soviet cosmonautics has once again convincingly demonstrated to the whole world the high level of our home­land’s scientific and technical potential.’’

The message may not have sounded so convincing to the Energiya-Buran officials who had heard the private comments of Mikhail Gorbachov during his visit to the Baykonur cosmodrome in May 1987 (see Chapter 6). Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy didn’t spare Gorbachov in one of his final interviews many years later:

“ … we already felt that there probably wouldn’t be any more flights… Buran had flown. You’d think that… the General Secretary of the CPSU, responsible for the country, its prestige, should show some interest. But when that General Secretary… was told that Buran had landed, he just said: “OK, fine’’. He displayed absolutely no understanding, interest in the country’s… successes and achievements in the field of technology and science.. .Gorbachov .. .was notable for an exceptional ability to display inability. I later called him, tried to meet him to explain things, but to no avail’’ [58].

The Soviet press generally hailed the flight in a style typical of the pre-glasnost days, although that would gradually change in the following months as the space program in general increasingly became a target for public criticism. However, even amid the initial flush of excitement over the successful completion of the mission, there were voices of dissent, surprisingly from the space community itself. Just days after the flight, Roald Sagdeyev, the head of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) and a science adviser to Gorbachov, termed the Soviet shuttle “an outstanding techno­

logical achievement but a costly mistake.” Sagdeyev, who was visiting the United States with dissident scientist Andrey Sakharov, said: “It went up and it came down. But it had absolutely no scientific value. My personal view is that American experi­ence with the Shuttle indicates that from the point of view of cost efficiency, the shuttle is in deep trouble. It is much simpler and cheaper to fly a payload with any kind of expendable vehicle … We have put too much emphasis on manned flight at the expense of unmanned efforts that produced more scientific information at lower cost” [59].

International reaction to the flight was largely positive, with many observers admiring the pinpoint precision of Buran’s automatic landing system. “[The flight] shows that the Russians’ boldness and ambition is matched by their ingenuity,’’ said Soviet space expert James Oberg in an interview for Time magazine. “It blows us out of our last space-operations monopoly’’ [60].

Inevitably omnipresent in the Western reactions were comments on the similarity of Energiya-Buran to the US Space Shuttle. US specialists generally questioned the official Soviet explanation that the laws of aerodynamics require similar designs, pointing out that American engineers considered several quite distinct designs, including some markedly different wing and fuselage shapes, before settling on the one adopted in the early 1970s. Nicholas Johnson, another respected American observer of the Soviet space program, said:

“The fact that the Soviets picked a design identical to ours can’t be coincidental. There’s no doubt they took advantage of a vast amount of engineering devel­opment that went into ours. I don’t think stealing was necessary. A lot of the information was unclassified and open, if you knew where to look for it’’ [61].

In an editorial only days after the flight, Aviation Week downplayed the significance of the similarity between the two systems, focusing instead on the implications the mission had for America’s place on the international space scene:

“There is validity in the contention by Western observers that much of the technology embodied in the Buran has been gleaned from the data base gener­ated by the U. S.’s development of the space shuttle. But concentrating on that issue misses the point and gives small comfort to U. S. officials concerned with maintaining a position of space leadership. The advanced materials, computers, software, aerodynamics and propulsion in the Soviet shuttle system and ability of the Soviet team to integrate multiple fault-tolerant computers and manage them effectively is something they have never before demonstrated … The USSR has joined the reusable shuttle club and will not be turned back. The Soviets can be expected to aggressively exploit their shuttle’s potential. Major applications they see are to build a large permanently manned space station and then prepare a springboard for a manned mission to Mars… The Buran/ Energiya mission is to be hailed as a success. It also should be taken as another reminder that an aggressive, broadly based space program is an integral

part of the Soviet Union’s national policy. It cannot be considered any less than that by the U. S.’’ [62].

Little did anyone know at the time that Buran was destined to remain on the ground forever.