New Scientist 20th February 1975. Vol 65 No 937.

Tucked away towards the back of issue 937 is a piece by Richard Lewis about the plans for a joint USA-USSR space project known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project ( ASTP ) which involved launching American and Russian space capsules and docking them together in Earth orbit. The plan was to launch a Soyuz capsule from Baikonur spaceport and an Apollo command/service module from Kennedy Space Center seven and a half hours later. Because Apollo and Soyuz capsules had incompatible docking systems and different cabin atmospheres, it was necessary to design an adapter module that would enable the two spacecraft to dock. Soyuz used an Oxygen and Nitrogen atmosphere at 10lb/square inch, whereas Apollo used pure oxygen at 5lb/square inch, so the module had to function as a decompression chamber as well as an docking facility.

The one-off mission was lacking any significant scientific objective.“ While the event has a certain news value as an exhibition of detente, it has become technological irrelevant because of the development of the space shuttle, the new aerospace plan, which makes both space ships obsolete.” As a largely symbolic mission intended to pave the way to future space co-operation, it was expected that the most significant moments would be televised images of American and Soviet Astronaut/cosmonauts shaking hands in space.

In 1975 the Space Shuttle was expected to be operational in 1979, but development problems delayed the launch to 1981. The Space Shuttle was eventually launched into orbit on 12 April 1981, exactly twenty yeas after Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight on Vostock 1. The choice of the Space Shuttle flight launch date was either a tribute to the historic Soviet launch, or an attempt to demonstrate superiority over the Russian space programme (not quite in the spirit of the 1975 ASTP mission).

The Apollo capsule was available because the Apollo 18,19 and 20 missions had been cancelled by 1971, partly as a public attempt at appeasing public disquiet over the cost of manned space flight and partly because the risk of disaster. However, political expediency dictated that the $243 million cost, including $45 million for the development of the single-use adapter module, justified the ASTP mission just four years later.

In February 1975, Richard Lewis was intrigued by the ages of the ASTP astronauts. “Middle aged males around the world can take heart in the fact that the average age of the five pilots (three in Apollo, two in Soyuz) is a substantial 44 years. Donald K. Slayton, one of the Apollo pilots, is 51. The “baby” of the joint mission is 40-year-old Valeri Nikolayavich Kubasov, flight engineer of the Soyuz spacecraft.”

50 years later, it is acceptable for astronauts to be even older than this, as long as they meet fitness standards. Also, it is no longer assumed that astronauts have to be male.

“Green light for Soviet space?” on page 438 of issue 937 attempted to discern the

The unused Soviet LK module

intentions of the Soviet space programme. Dr Sarah White and Professor Grigori Tokaty outlined the military background to the early Russian space programme. Commenting on the late start to their civilian rocket development, necessitated by their need to match the American strategic advantage provided by long-range bombers based in Europe, White and Tokaty also cited the deaths of important rocket scientists ( Korolyov, Isaaev, Yangel and Babakin) as a factor in the failure to match the rapidly developed Apollo project, they erroneously repeated the propaganda line that the U.S.S.R. had never been interested in the moon-race. In 1975 was not widely known that a Russian lunar module had been developed and tested, without astronauts, but the catastrophic failures of the very large N1 rockets made missions to the Moon impossible.

After Apollo 11 won the 'moon race' in 1969 the U.S.S.R. concentrated their efforts on space stations. Salyut 1 was built quickly with low quality engineering. The first crew to visit the orbiting module died when the docking mechanism damaged the hatch of the Soyuz capsule, resulting in a fatal decompression. Although unaware of the extent of the abandoned secret Soviet Moon plans, the article is sceptical about another technical development.

“ There is, however, still some confusion over what really went wrong with Soyuz-15 last August, when it failed to dock with Salyut-3 and returned to Earth after just two days in space. General Shatalov, the Soviet cosmonaut chief, claimed it was testing an automatic docking system being developed for Soyuz's “tanker” spacecraft (these will rendezvous with manned or unmanned Salyut stations to replenish their supplies and prolong their useful life in orbit). The system apparently worked to within 30 or 50 metres of the Salyut, but then each time something started to go wrong. According to Shatalov, the crew continued to use the automatic system so as to collect as much information on its malfunctioning as possible. Western space officials are dubious that this is the whole story.”

50 years later, automatic supply missions to the International Space Station are routine and the Soviet Union did pioneer this technology, but the idea, at the end of the article, that orbiting modules would need to be welded together in the future seems slightly odd. There then follows another article by Academician Boris Paton – director of the Institute of Electrical Welding attached to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev – Welding in space comes down to Earth. In the abridged version of an article that first appeared in Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, 1974/no 11, Boris Paton described metal welding experiments conducted in weightless conditions on aircraft that lead to the design of a Vulcan welding unit that could achieve metal cutting and welding with “electron beam, compressed ray, and fused electrode “ in space. Paton expressed the hope that the developments would eventually be useful on Earth.

BBC Nationwide 21st February 1975

New Scientist 2nd January 1975. Vol 65 No 930.

The cover price of 20p (£1-52 after 50 years of inflation) is not the only difference between 1975 and today. The majority of articles in the publication are not written by journalists, but by experts working for institutions or within industry. Writers include a professor of biochemistry at McMaster University, the director of hardware and quality assurance at International Computers Ltd, a research fellow at Middlesex University, a research assistant at at UCL and a researcher at Exeter University.  A profile of the Soviet environmentalist Alexander Vinogradov was written by Boris Belitzky, a science journalist at Radio Moscow.

While the access to writers who were directly involved in research might be advantageous for a publication, the possibility of an article suffering from a partial view would have had to have been countered by the ten-strong editorial team. Another interesting difference between today and fifty years ago is that now every hospital trust and university has a communications department which would be involved in the contacts between staff and editors. Half a century ago hospitals and universities were much more under the control of doctors and academics.

The Comment section of issue 930 is a half-page piece by the editor Bernard Dixon about the energy crisis and economic turmoil caused by inflation and scarcities. Before global warming was identified as a threat, the drastic oil price increases of 1973 as well as the perceived future shortages of oil and pollution by toxic combustion products were the main reasons to to seek energy efficiency. In his editorial Dixon announced "New Scientist will be holding a conference in London to examine the technical and political possibilities for greater self-sufficiency for Britain, in food, energy and raw materials". Half a century later new houses are being built in the U.K. without solar panels and with heat insulation standards that are the lowest in Europe. Many solar panels are imported from China.

Today we are concerned by the addition of Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere and the resulting global warming, but the energy crisis of the 1970s was seen mostly in terms of the need to extend the post-war boom in industrial production. The lack of awareness of climate change is illustrated by two items in issue 930.

Firstly a job advertisement from the Open University Energy Research Group for a job vacancy for a research officer (£2400 -£2900 pa) to assist with research into "a selection of novel sources of liquid fuels such as oil shales, liquid hydrogen and oil from coal."

Secondly, the 'patents review' section has a review of German proposal (BP 1 371 269) to create drinking water in the Sahara and in Arabia by using natural gas. "The gas escaping from oil wells is frequently burnt off because it is uneconomical to collect, store and transport." The German patent states that water created by burning the hydrogen in in natural gas could be collected and purified into drinking water. Almost as an afterthought the item mentions that the energy from burning the gas could be used for local electricity generation.

New Scientist carried advertisements in the 1970s. Just inside the cover is a full page advertisement for Hoechst inflatable buildings, to be used mostly as warehousing. The value of the pound was falling at a disturbing rate. Inflation was 19% in 1974 and would reach an all time peak of 25% in 1975.  Using the slogan "how we beat inflation by inflation" the copy offers inflatable air halls as a quick and easy way to avoid the increasing cost of building materials. Apparently the price of the electricity needed to keep these structures inflated was not a problem in 1975. The fabric used was Hoechst's brand Trevira. "PVC coated fabrics made from this are waterproof and rotproof, but most important, airproof. So all you have to do is inflate, and there's your building."

Ironically, the 'technology review' section has an item about the challenge of setting safe exposure levels to vinyl chloride, used in the manufacture of PVC. the new standard in the U.K. was to be 50 parts per million compared with the U.S. standard of 1 part per million. Exposure to vinyl chloride gas has been associated with liver cancer.

In a strange echo of more recent times, an item about the use of roof beams made from high alumina cement (HAC) in 1170 schools raised the issues of how testing and remedial action was to be paid for.  At the time of printing 433 schools had not been tested and 241 were affected or closed. "The Inner London Education Authority is in a fortunate position because it has the back-up of the Greater London Council's (GLC) Scientific Branch which has the necessary equipment to test for conversion in samples of beams. Other local authorities have to contract out the testing to independent consultants. At £20/test ( £151-97 at 2024 prices ) the cost of this work can be considerable." The perceived need to save taxpayers money by building low quality school buildings is more than reminiscent of today's reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAC) fiasco. 

The GLC was abolished in 1986, but even if it still existed it is difficult to imagine that, after 45 years of privatisation, a local authority would be allowed to have their own Scientific Branch. A pervading assumption behind most of the output of New Scientist in the 1970s was that government had a responsibility to oversea many aspects of science and technology - that governments should actually govern by providing itself with the resources needed to make peoples lives better. Inside the back cover of issue 930 is a full page advertisment for the National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC) which invested by direct funding by the taxpayer in new inventions and designs that would contribute to the British economy. After mergers with other departments the organisation was privatised in 1995. Today countries such as India still have a commitment to direct government involvement in the development of technology.

The letters page of New Scientist is interesting. In issue 930 J.H. Burton from Cheshire wrote in response to John Tinker's article "The end of the English landscape". The issue of farming, conservation and landscape is a huge subject that cannot be covered here, but I admire Mr Burton's admonishment of Jon Tinker's use of extrapolation from statistics of current trends. "To illustrate the dangers of extrapolation it is only necessary to consider that, according to figures published by the Federal Populations Commission, by the year 2020 all the population of the U.S. will live in California, own power boats and suffer from venereal disease."

Point taken.