Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Former Soviet Space Program Director Roald Sagdeev on the Sputnik 1 Anniversary

Episode Date: October 4, 2004

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Sputnik and the dawn of the space age, this week on Planetary Radio. Happy anniversary, everyone. Forty-seven years ago, a metal ball trailing four WIP antennae was hurled into Earth orbit. The beeping transmitter aboard Sputnik 1 announced that humankind had begun to open the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan, back with Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the solar system and beyond. Our very special guest this week is Rold Zinurovich Sagdeyev, who directed the Soviet Space Research Institute for 15 years. Later, Bruce Betts joins the celebration during this week's edition of What's Up, including a new space trivia contest. Let's get underway with this review of the week's space headlines.

It's one down and one to go for Burt Rutan's Spaceship One. The suborbital space plane came closer to winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize after successfully completing the first of two required flights above 100 kilometers. There were some scary moments on the morning of September 29th when the craft did a series of unplanned barrel rolls, but pilot Mike Melville kept his cool. Tune in to Planetary Radio next week for our special coverage of the October 4 attempt. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft may seem to have arrived at Saturn only to head back into space.

No worries, the huge probe's first orbit is a whopper, taking it out where it can snap family photos of the ringed planet and most of its moons. photos of the ringed planet and most of its moons. It will stay much closer to Saturn from now on, with what is hoped to be a spectacular flyby of Titan late this month. High above another planet in our solar system, Mars Global Surveyor has pulled off another amazing feat of observation. In a super high resolution photo, you can just make out the roughly two-mile-long track of Mars Exploration rover Spirit, still making its way across the dusty landscape far below. You can read the details of these and other stories on our website, planetary.org. I'll be back with Raul Zagdeev right after Emily Lakdawalla shows us her true colors.

Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, what color is Mars really? Mars is often called the red planet, not because it is colored fire engine red, but because it is noticeably redder than just about anything else in the night sky. Anyone who's been following recent Mars missions will have seen pictures of Mars in a range of colors, from yellow ochre through brick red and even purplish shades. In actual fact, a human standing at a typical location on Mars would see a slightly reddish-dark brown surface.

The sky would be a light yellowish-pinkish color, except close to the Sun, where it would appear blue. The Sun would appear even brighter than it does on the Earth's surface, and the sunlight would have a strong yellowish cast. So why don't the pictures returned from Mars look like the right colors? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. It was an event that shook the confidence of most Americans and put our own nation on the fast track to the moon. In the Soviet Union, still trying to recover from the twin curses of World War II and Stalin, it looked like

a ray of hope for the future. It was the successful launch of humankind's first probe into orbit on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1 weighed just 187 pounds, but it was almost immediately followed by much larger and more sophisticated spacecraft. Less than four years later, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth. America would quickly surpass the Soviets in space, and especially in the race for the moon. But the USSR would continue to score impressive successes. Our guest was intimately involved in most of them during his 15 years as director of the Space Research Institute, beginning in 1973. He also played an important role in opening up Soviet space science to the world, advising Kremlin leaders.

Now a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Maryland, Dr. Rold Sagdeyev remains deeply devoted to worldwide efforts to explore space. Sagdeev remains deeply devoted to worldwide efforts to explore space. He had just returned from another trip to Moscow when we spoke to him as the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 mission approached. Dr. Sagdeev, thank you very much for joining us on what is a pretty special occasion, I suppose, really not just in the former Soviet Union, but the entire world, the anniversary of the beginning of the space age. Oh, thank you for inviting me to participate in this program. I wonder, where were you when the announcement was made by the Soviet government

that Sputnik 1 had ushered in the space age? You know, actually, I was only at that time, only recently, after graduating from the University of Moscow. In my first job, my job at that time had no relation to space program. And we should say you were a physicist for the first part of your professional academic career. Yes, that's what I was doing. Yes, that's what I was doing. My topic in physics was controlled thermonuclear reaction,

otherwise controlled fusion. Something we're still trying to achieve. You know, it is a sad reminder that we're still trying to achieve, and still we are not talking about the light in the end of the tunnel. Well, let's go back, there was even more amusement than excitement. Really? Because it came, you know, out of blue. Most people had no idea, and very difficult was to understand from official Russian press what actually happened. And I think it reflected also the mood of the government.

It was a Khrushchev period in the Soviet Union. And only later on did we realize that even Khrushchev himself was probably amused more than excited. Really? Until several hours later, when all the Soviets witnessed such an extremely enthusiastic reaction from abroad. It sounds like this was more of a bombshell announcement here in the United States than it may have been at first in the Soviet Union.

You know, when Khrushchev, not long before the launch of the Sputnik, paid a visit to a secret exhibition of Soviet rocketry of that time, he was shown a number of different forthcoming space designs. Most of them were military, and the Sputnik itself was, in the end of the row, very modest. He barely paid even attention to it. And only after international reaction, the Kremlin understood that this is a new, tremendous propaganda tool. This is a new, tremendous propaganda tool. This eventually became, I suppose you could make the argument, that the early successes of the Soviet space program became the greatest propaganda coup that the Soviet Union ever had working in its favor.

You know, actually, it was impressive even for Soviets, for young people like me. So each of us at that time thought, look, what happened? Now we are ahead of the planet in space. Earlier, maybe a year or two earlier, Soviet propaganda told that the first peaceful nuclear power station in the world, a nuclear fission reactor, was built. So we thought now we are ahead in a nuclear, in a space, maybe very soon we are going to be one of the most developed nations. And so this must have generated great pride among Soviet scientists. You were a young scientist

at the time, but the Soviet people. Yes, it was obviously very important. And actually, it was a time when the people in the Soviet Union were looking in the future much more optimistically. They already knew that Stalin was a bad guy, the evil guy, and Khrushchev by that time already promised to take a completely different direction in the political life of the Soviet Union. It was only a month later that Sputnik 2 was launched,

several times heavier than Sputnik 1, and of course carried the first living creature on a rocket up into low Earth orbit. If any of you had any doubts about the Soviet role in space, that must have gone a long ways toward putting those doubts aside. By that time, of course, each of us, especially those who were working in the leading scientific enterprises, were trying to understand the inner dynamics of this Sputnik launch. What kind of people were behind all these projects? What kind of enterprises, institutions?

And then, of course, we understood, yes, we still live in the country which was completely surrounded by the secrecy. And, of course, much of the Soviet space program, particularly, I guess, the manned missions, remain shrouded in secrecy, although that was something that later on you became part of an effort to change. I mean, we can flash forward now a number of years. 1973 is when you became still at a fairly young age basically the head of the Soviet space program. You were director of the Space Research Institute in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

I wouldn't say it is the Soviet space program. It was one of the leading institutes, a kind of flagship of the space program. I see. And actually what happened at that time when I became a director of this institution, Apollo Soyuz project was about to come soon, in a couple of years, and everyone was talking about preparation for this joint flight of Apollo and Soyuz astronauts. When you came in, I believe, took on a significant role in the Apollo-Soyuz program. This, of course, following essentially the end of the

space race, because the United States reached the moon in 1969. It's only more recently come out, I guess, that the Soviet program had a great deal of difficulty in moving toward that goal of putting men on the moon. But am I correct that you did take a big role in Apollo-Soyuz? The institute where I was director was asked to be a kind of clearinghouse, the contact place between the Soviet program and NASA for this joint flight. We do need to take a quick break. I would like to get more into this period when you were director of the Space Research Institute in the former Soviet Union.

We are talking with Dr. Rold Sagdaev. He is Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. More honors from around the world than we could possibly take time to repeat during this short radio interview. But we will continue with Dr. Sagdeev right after this message. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's

great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in the Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS.

That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. PlanetarySociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Our guest this week on Planetary Radio is Dr. Rold Sagdayev.

He is now, and has for quite a time now, been an academician at the University of Maryland, where he is Distinguished Professor of Physics. But he did spend 15 years as director of the Space Research Institute. He was also an advisor at different times to Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Siervenadze, a science advisor and a longtime associate, we should also add, of the Planetary Society. I guess you joined our board of advisors back in 1982, 22 years ago. back in 1982, 22 years ago. Oh, yes. It was a time when I met Carl Sagan for the first time, and it eventually led to personal friendship

and to my participation in this type of plans he had, like planetary society. Did you find a kindred spirit in Carl? Very much. Actually, I met him a few years prior to the foundation of planetary society. I was actually visiting Cornell as a scientist for a few days. He was not there. And then his assistant told me that he is planning to fly to Washington

DC very I was going to spend few days and I was given photograph of Carl to identify him and have a meet him at the airport so that was very interesting and we had a first dinner together and, we were fantasizing about a lot of different ideas. One of them was to try to open one of the forthcoming Soviet robotic flights to Venus in 1978. This would be one of the Venera missions? One of the Venera missions of that period. Unfortunately, it didn't work at that time. Time was very short, but it worked very well a few more years.

In 1986, when Carl Sagan came to Moscow to my institute during the encounter of our spacecraft with Halley's Comet, he was talking to live nightline program of Ted Koppel. For that period, it was absolutely unprecedented, complete openness. Until that moment, Soviet press would report about something that happened in space post-factum. After it would be known that it was successful, and people say, okay, you can report about it now. Well, Glasnost, Perestroika, you were a major believer in the importance of these new policies, and I guess you were in a position to help put them in place.

Yeah, it was a very exciting period, actually, and a period which all of us in Moscow, especially in my circle of scientists, engineers, are very hopeful about the changes in Soviet Union. Years have gone by, and I think that too many Americans are not really aware of the extent of Soviet successes in space. Certainly everybody knows what happened when Sputnik 1 was announced and the influence that had, particularly on science and science education in this country.

But there were so many successes following that. You mentioned the Venera series. You had the first mission to soft land on that not very friendly, not very hospitable planet Venus. Yes, absolutely. And actually, there was a moment when, following the first successful landing on the surface of Venus, we kept launching the probes to Venus virtually every 18 months.

Every time a launch window opened? Yes, every astronomical window. every astronomical window. You mentioned that mission to Halley's Comet as well. What are the other great successes that you point to from that period of Soviet space development? I would go a bit to earlier times. During the Lunar Race, the Soviet program had several successful robotic missions to the moon.

It started first with a flyby, then the orbiter sending a picture of the invisible side of the moon, then lander to the surface of the moon, then lander bringing a moon rover, a couple of them buried on the surface, surviving for about three months each, then sample return from the moon, robotic, which meant that we were delivering a little rocket capable to dig a little bit of lunar, lunar soil, and fly back to the Earth. Altogether, this robotic lunar series has about 20 different launches.

Much to be proud of for then the Soviets, now for the Russian people. We are almost out of time, but you mentioned before we started to talk that you've just returned from Russia, where I guess plans are underway to celebrate this 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. Russians now celebrate events related to space twice a year.

One celebration is on April 12th. Yuri's night is celebrated by young people, some young people in this country. It is called, the government declared the day of Cosmonautics. And then independently, each year we celebrate the launch of Sputnik on October the 4th.

And in my memory, the most important celebration was in 1987, when it was the first celebration during Perestroika time, which was given such a special importance. We have invited space figures from the rest of the world. Carl Sagan came, Lou Friedman. So we had a large group from Planetary Society.

We had officials from NASA, from different other organizations. And so this is obviously still a point of pride and very justifiably for the Russian people. You know, it is still an issue debated. Some people say people you know it is a still uh... uh... issue or debated some people say you know this is what uh... actually delayed uh... entrance of

for soviet union or russia into the free market society at that school of flex the muscle in space but some people think it did it is uh... really very important that uh... the uh... gave a chance to our scientists, engineers, to be first in space. And certainly provided the impetus to the United States to get its act together, shall we say, and led, I think it's fair to say, to many of the achievements that have been made not only by this nation,

but many other nations around the world. Dr. Sagdeev, I wish we had more time. I hope we can work out a way sometime to have a longer conversation, maybe on one of your visits to Pasadena. Yeah, I will be there, yes, absolutely. Our guest has been Dr. Rold Sagdeev. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, but for 15 years he was the director of the Space Research Institute

within the Soviet Academy of Sciences. I'll be back with Bruce Betts and this week's What's Up, right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. How come scientists produce Mars images that aren't the right colors? The answer is that the human eye simply does not work the same way that spacecraft cameras do. Human color vision requires three different kinds of light-detecting cone cells in our eyes, red, green, and blue.

Blue cone cells respond to violet and blue light. Green cone cells respond to blue, green, yellow, and orange light. And so-called red cone cells actually respond to green, yellow, orange, and red light. When we see colors, our brains are performing a complicated comparison of how our cone cells respond to the light that strikes them. But spacecraft cameras have only one kind of detector, not three. They capture black and white, not color, images. In order to make a color image, a spacecraft has to take three separate black and white photos

through red, green, and blue filters. And then the three pictures are combined back on Earth to make a color image. But the red, green, and blue filters usually allow only a narrow range of colors to pass through them. So the color image doesn't accurately represent the range of colors to pass through them. So the color image doesn't accurately represent the range of colors that the human eye can detect. So any color image taken by a spacecraft only approximates what we would see with our own eyes. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio.

Time again for What's Up on Planetary Radio with Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. Bruce, welcome back and happy Sputnik anniversary. Hey, happy Sputnik-iversary to you as well, Matt. Well, spasiba. Pajolsta. Let's talk about what's up there in the sky. You can see some nice planets in the pre-dawn sky. Nothing out there in the evening right now, but a lot of stars, but no planets.

In the pre-dawn sky, you can see Venus as the brightest star-like object in the east before dawn. Far above it, to the right, you will find Saturn, much dimmer, and you can see the star Regulus right near Venus and Venus separating away from it by about one degree every night right now. They were less than a degree apart on October 3rd and are getting farther and farther apart, so look for them too. On to this week in space history. Of course, I have to mention it, though. You just referred to it, Matt.

On October 4th, 1957, Sputnik was launched, the first satellite in space. October 7th, 1959, so two years later, roughly, Luna 3, the Soviet Luna 3 mission, returned the first images of the lunar far side that we had never seen before. Quite a series of early accomplishments by that Soviet space program. Yes, indeedy-do. And now on to Random Space Fact! We just discussed when Sputnik 1 was launched, and a lot of people are aware of that, October 4, 1957. But did you know when it came crashing back in, incinerating in the Earth's atmosphere?

You mean it's not still there? No, not still there. It dipped back down into the atmosphere, reentered on January 3rd, 1958. Not a long stay. Not a long stay in orbit. No. Just a smidge under three months. That's all right.

Made its history and made its mark in history and that was it. Beep, beep, beep. Yes, indeed. All right, let's go on to the trivia contest, shall we? Please. We asked about a variety of SETI projects under Dan Wertheimer, our guest a couple weeks ago, that he has entitled Serendip, one of the most impressive acronyms out there, something I have a strange fondness for, people who can create true acronyms in this case, out of, what is that, an eight-character word?

It's a heck of an acronym. So we asked you, what does Serendip stand for? How do we do, Matt? I hear we had a lot of interest. You know, we, I think, had more response to this trivia question than we have ever had in the history of the show. And from everywhere, Minnesota, California, Illinois, Louisiana, leaving the country, Canada, Iran, Turkey, Australia, even New Jersey. Wow, that is amazing. So you want to know who won?

I do. Well, here is our winner for this week, chosen randomly from all the correct answers. Felix Alomar. Felix Alomar of Carolina, or Carolina, Puerto Rico, is our winner this week. And he came back with, yes, the correct acronym. Search for extraterrestrial radio emissions from nearby developed intelligent populations. Wow. Serendip.

That's a mouthful. So, Felix, you've won yourself a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Congratulations. If you out there would like to win your very own Planetary Radio t-shirt, then please answer the following question. We know Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting satellite. What was the name of the first U.S. satellite? I'll give you a comparatively

easy one out there. What was the first U.S. satellite? To enter, go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to email us with your entry. And when do they need to get that entry in by, Matt? By Monday, October 11. Monday, October 11 at noon

Pacific time to be a part of this brand new trivia contest. And let's break the record again. I mean, this ought to be a part of this brand new trivia contest. And let's break the record again. I mean, this ought to be a pretty easy one for people to look up, I would think. So get it in, folks, and you might just get that T-shirt in the mail a week or two later. And that will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of your life. And you know what? I think fairly soon we may be going from the grayish t-shirts to blue

t-shirts, Planetary Radio t-shirts. So I'm excited. So get your gray one now. Or if you have a gray one, time to go for a blue one. I don't know that we're giving them away yet, but we'll let you know. It's true. All right. We about done there, Matt? We are done. All right. Well, everyone, go

out there, look up in the night sky, and think about magnetic fields and what it's like to live inside one. Thank you, and good night. Magnetic fields forever. From Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, who joins us each week here for What's Up! with an exclamation point. Join us next time for our special coverage of the second Ansari XPRIZE flight of Spaceship One. I'll be reporting from the Mojave Spaceport in the California desert.

Questions or comments about our show? Drop us a line. Planetary Radio at planetary.org. That's Planetary Radio, no space or hyphen, at planetary.org. Have a great week, everyone.