From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Ciccarelli@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.space
Title: Oberg on Russian Shuttle
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.1956
Posted: Tue Jun 29 09:50:42 1982
Received: Wed Jun 30 01:39:11 1982

James Oberg, a follower of Soviet space efforts, spoke on National Public Radio's
Morning Edition program today.  His assessment of the recent "mysterious"
launch and Indian Ocean splashdown of a Soviet vehicle was that it was
probably *not* a shuttle.

He cited several reasons for his opinion; the main one was that the Soviets, by
launching more hardware ("a million pounds a year") into space, had achieved a
cheaper cost-per-pound than the USA.  Economics simply doesn't presently
require a shuttle to achieve their objectives, which he said centered around a
space station presence.  He further said the space station is important to them
because the reliability of their satellites is far lower than that of the U.S.; they
need the repair capability.

/John