Soviet Man-on-Mars Effort Predicted

WASHINGTON — The Soviet Union has a clear lead over the United States in putting people into space, and appears to be laying the groundwork for a manned flight to Mars after the year 2000, a congressional space expert said Wednesday.

The United States, however, maintains a long-held lead in space technology, space sciences and space applications, said Marcia Smith, a specialist on Soviet space activities for the Congressional Research Service.

She attributed the Soviet superiority in orbital operations to a “low-tech” but steady approach to space station development.

“The Soviet lead in manned space operations developed not because of the Challenger tragedy but because of policy decisions made in the U.S. in the mid-70s--to launch no manned space missions between the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the first flight of the space shuttle in 1981,” she said.

Smith, who was executive director of the National Commission on Space in 1985 and 1986, talked about Soviet space operations at a news conference sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.