Russians Reach Venus

Abstract

0 ON MARCH 1, a Russian spaceship landed on Venus. But was it supposed to? And when it landed was it clean, or did it bring with it tiny germs from earth that could ruin the planet for biological investigators? And for that matter, some scientists have asked, did it really land at all? Signals from the spacecraft cut off before the possible impact time, and one theory is that the Soviet Union was merely salvaging what it could from an attempted fly-by that crashed. Assuming that it actually did land (reportedly carrying a Soviet flag), then, if the landing was unintentional, the only real question is whether or not the spacecraft contaminated the planet. Similarly. there would be little to gain from a vehicle that was supposed to orbit the moon crashing into it instead. The danger of contamination bv foreign microorganisms is a very real problem. A spaceship from earth, unless it had been carefully sterilized by exposure to heat, or gas, or both, could set loose on another planet any number of tiny creatures that the planet's natural defenses were not equipped to handle. An official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has estimated that a single bacterium with a reproduction time of 30 days, if turned loose on Mars could equal the bacteria population of earth in a mere eight years. If the Soviet Venus landing was deliberate, however, the implications are of a different sort. Besides the biological question, there is the ever-present matter of where the U.S. now stands in the space race. Since the landing was apparently not a soft one, the only credit due the Russians is for good marksmanship. Nevertheless, this is important, since the difficulties of hitting the target multiply enormously over greater distances. When the U.S. Mariner 4 flew by Mars at a distance of less than 6,000 miles, it had a lot more latitude in which it could complete its mission successfully than if it had had to hit the planet, which is little more than 4.000 miles in diameter. Does the feat put the Russians any closer to ithe moon? Well, the Soviet news agency, Tass, said the precise rendezvous of the probe with the planet was achieved as a result of a midcourse correction of the flight trajectory. Such corrections will be equally critical on lunar flights, both U.S. and Soviet. But the Mariner flight required such changes, as did the Ranger lunar flights that took pictures and then crashed (both goals intended). Another Russian space feat eight days 165 earlier, however, does indicate a difference in national space policies. On February 22, two dogs named Veterok (Breeze) and Ugolyok (Little Coal Nut) were launched into orbit aboard Cosmos 110. Television pictures of the dogs were sent back to earth. But what does this mean? The age of dogs and monkeys going into space was supposedly over years ago. And that is exactly the point. Before several cosmonauts had shown variations in blood pressure and other physiological functions the Soviets presumably had no thoughts of sending dogs aloft again. However, difficulties with humans set Russian space scientists to improvising, and the result was an orbiting animal laboratory. Such flexibility as this-adding a special-purpose flight in mid-programis unlikely to be seen in the U.S. lunar effort, which is already blueprinted all the way to the moon with the exception of an occasional change in flight plan or the addition or subtraction of a practice flight. * Science News, 89:165 March 12, 1966