THE POSTCOUP BLUES

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM LOOKS MORE UNCERTAIN THAN EVER

The ultimate nightmare of space travel is being stranded in space due to a
mechanical, medical, or orbital dynamics problem. But when the first spaceman
actually became "stranded" this year, the cause was entirely terrestrial: His
country had run out of money.

Sergey Krikalev is the flight engineer aboard the Mir space station. When he
kissed his new wife good-bye last May before blasting off for Mir, he expected
to see her again in October, when he and his mission commander would be relieved
by the next crew.

Each relief launch is subsidized by a foreign guest cosmonaut, who pays dearly
in hard currency to spend a few days at Mir. Even so, Soviet space planners
realized by midsummer that they couldn't pay for a planned November flight,
which would carry a guest from the Kazakh republic-the home of the Baikonur
space centerto appease independence-minded officials there.

So the two launches were combined into one carrying a cosmonaut to relieve
Krikalev's commander, an Austrian, and a Kazakh guest. Thus the seat intended
for Krikalev's replacement was occupied, and he was "asked" to stay in space
until March, when the next relief mission arrives.

The cosmonaut's predicament resulted directly from the ongoing political and
economic crisis in the former USSR. With the collapse of the Soviet economy,
"luxury" items such as space exploration have become prime targets for cutbacks.
The public mood has swung solidly against "space extravaganzas" at a time when
basic consumer goods, such as razors, soap. even medicine and food, are scarce.

While still a maverick populist, Boris Yeltsin campaigned for election on a
reformist platform that included major cut-backs in space exploration. Once
elected president of the Russian republic, he favored only space projects with
clear-cut earthside applications.

Similarly, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, as early as 1987, ordered space
officials to cut back on exploration and research. He also cut the space budget
10 percent per year for three years in a row,

The political upheavals in August enhanced the power of many of the Yeltsin
antispace officials. Furthermore, several coup leaders, such as Oleg D.
Baklanov and Vitaly K. Doguzhiyev, held influential positions in the rocket
industry. The housecleaning that followed the failed coup attempt saw the
resignation of other officials in the space and missile industry, such as Oleg
Shishkin, head of the aerospace ministry, who had toured NASA space facilities
only a month before. Space officials feared the worst, perhaps even the
cancellation of the Buran shuttle and the shutdown of Mir.

However, the defeat of the military plotters also indicates that the worst may
be over. Massive cuts may now at last be possible in the armaments industry,
whose hard-line officials had resisted earlier budget-trimming attempts. With
those officials gone, their pet projects are falling under the budget ax. Space
funding, especially for applications programs, could be spared further
reductions due to the sudden vulnerability of the much juicier military budget.

Meanwhile, cosmonaut Krikalev remains in orbit, stranded by the collapse of the
program that launched him. The Mir, Earth's first multimodular space station,
remains unfinished, its oldest sections already wearing out before the final
sections can be launched. Housekeeping and repair chores occupy nearly all of
the crew's time.

Yet the cosmonauts grimly hold on. Abandoning Mir now, even temporarily, could
bring about the end of the cosmonaut program for years. The Soviets once billed
Mir as a beachhead into the universe, a "highway to the cosmos." But for Sergey
Krikalev and his colleagues, it has become a last-ditch stand, their one
remaining chance to preserve a space presence untilsomehow, someday-their
society can once again commit to reaching toward space.