STATE COMMISSION CHAIRMAN KIYENKO ON ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SATELLITE PROGRAMS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: UFO SPECIAL COLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005517530
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2011
• Case Number: F-2010-00651
• Publication Date: April 12, 1990

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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Status: [STAT]
Document Date: 12 Apr 90 Category: [CAT]
Report Type: JPRS Report Report Date:
Report Number: JPRS-USP-90-004 UDC Number:
Author(s): SELSKAYA ZHIZN correspondent V. Shcherban, under the
rubric "Today is the Space Program Day" : "The
Satellites Are Launched at Dawn..." ; first two
paragraphs are source introduction]
Headline: State Commission Chairman Kiyenko on Economic Impact of
Satellite Programs
Source Line: 90700080 Moscow SELSKAYA ZHIZN in Russian 12 Apr 90 p 3
Subslug: [Interview with Yuriy Pavlovich Kiyenko, deputy chairman of
the USSR Council of Ministers' Main Administration of
Geodesy and Cartography and chairman of the State
Commission for Launches and Use of Cosmos-series,
Resurs-type Satellites, by SELSKAYA ZHIZN correspondent V.
Shcherban, under the rubric "Today is the Space Program
Day " : "The Satellites Are Launched at Dawn..."; first
two paragraphs are source introduction]
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
1. [Interview with Yuriy Pavlovich Kiyenko, deputy chairman of the
USSR Council of Ministers' Main Administration of Geodesy and
Cartography and chairman of the State Commission for Launches and Use
of Cosmos-series, Resurs-type Satellites, by SELSKAYA ZHIZN
correspondent V. Shcherban, under the rubric "Today is the Space
Program Day " : "The Satellites Are Launched at Dawn..." ; first two
paragraphs are source introduction]
2. [Text] For 16 years, there was an impenetrable shroud of secrecy
surrounding him. All this time, his work was reported in the press
dryly: "... the next satellite in the series was launched." And if
they ever showed him on television, it was only from the back, and
that just a glimpse. The chairman of the State Commission for
Spacecraft Launches has always been a big secret. On the eve of the
Space Program Day, we met with him. Just before the interview, he
again called someone at the "top" and asked, "Then it's
OK?.." --and, after hanging up the receiver, he said, "Well then,
let's begin..."
3. Our interviewee is Yuriy Pavlovich Kiyenko, deputy chairman of
the USSR Council of Ministers' Main Administration for Geodesy and
Cartography and chairman of the State Commission for Launches and Use
of Cosmos-series and Resurs-type Satellites. He is over 50 years of
3"
Approved for Release
- n 6 UNCLASSIFIED ~ ~~
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age. A hale man of few words. During the year, he spends many a day
roaming the cosmodromes. The satellites he has launched have never
fallen back to earth or exploded, and they have sent billions of
pieces of information from orbit. He has written more than 100
scientific articles and is an Honored Scientist and Engineer.
4. [Shcherban] Yuriy Pavlovich, every now and then there are reports
in the newspapers about the satellite launches. And behind all of
them stands a mysterious figure--you. What kind of work does the
state commission chairman do?
5. [Kiyenko] It is somewhat odd that I am of interest to you. I am
neither a cosmonaut nor a general designer. I am a civilian. The
state commission chairman coordinates and supervises the operations
associated with the testing and use of space equipment. An enormous
number of people participate in those operations. The information
needed for making a decision about launching a space vehicle and for
supporting the work during the flight converges at the chairman's
desk. Accordingly, he alone bears all the responsibility for how a
launch will go and for the safety of the people...
6. [Shcherban] It is only recently that we have begun to learn the
truth about the launches of manned spacecraft. Along with the
successes in that area, there have also been failures: people have
died, and crews have returned from orbit with nothing... But there
has never been any such information about the launches of the robot
satellites. There has been total silence on that score.
7. [Kiyenko] It's no secret that work with space equipment is
dangerous. Very complicated situations come up. But I have never been
involved in a single instance in which someone has died or has
received a serious injury. So if you are expecting "sizzling"
facts, then, I'm afraid I'll disappoint you. Space robot
systems--unlike a human, who has one head, one heart, and two
hands--all have one, two or even three back-up systems. That is why
the space robots are more reliable. Man is needed in space for
testing new equipment and for conducting unique experiments. When all
the bugs have been worked out, then the automated equipment
successfully replaces man. Although, even I have had some emergency
situations come up. I have had to postpone launches when I didn't
received absolute assurance that systems would work efficiently or
when flight programs needed to be adjusted. Once, we discovered one
person missing among the evacuated participants in a launch. The
launch had to be put on hold. We organized a search party for the
missing person. He had been sleeping quite comfortably in a safe area
the whole time.
8. [Shcherban] What's the result of delaying a launch for a minute?
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9. [Kiyenko] In such an extremely complicated matter, the slightest
interruption leads to an unbalancing of the system. Which means that
there is a lesser degree of probability that we can produce the
needed results. A whole set of research operations must be performed
to determine the launch time. The entire collective really gets
"thrown off" whenever there is any kind of delay during a launch.
10. (Shcherban] Every time spacecraft are launched, the specialists
assert that it will facilitate the development of the national
economy. What kind of return have your spacecraft given to the
national economy?
11. [Kiyenko] It is difficult to state precise sums in rubles, since
the application of space technology is multifaceted. Well, for
example, to make a map or to study the ecological situation in a
given region, an airplane can be used, or a satellite. The
space-derived information will be 3-4 times cheaper than that derived
by airplane. But how many millions is the recent discovery from orbit
of the causes of the Aral Sea catastrophe worth? These days, the
Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources and the agricultural
industry are rightly being named as the primary culprits in the
drying up of the Aral. But it turns out that they are not the only
ones at fault. In the middle reaches of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya
rivers, the earth's crust is sinking. And at the mouths of ose
rivers, it is rising.
12. The difference in elevation between the mouth and the middle
reaches changes by 10-15 millimeters a year. Nature is building a
dam naturally at a rate of 1.5 meters a century! Underground aquifers
have enormous reserves of fresh and slightly mineralized water. If
the Aral Sea today has 450 cubic kilometers of water, the underground
geological lenses beneath the middle reaches of the rivers have
accumulated something on the order of 20,000 cubic kilometers. This
will help solve the region's ecological problem! It will means
billions of rubles saved!
13. And what about satellite prospecting for oil, gas and coal?
Drilling just one dry well means millions of rubles down the drain.
And what about controlling desertification? It was established from
orbit that, in Kalmykia, 40,000-45,000 hectares of land per year are
becoming unusable because the land is being covered with sand, and
the reason for that--overgrazing by cattle. And what about the number
of underground water deposits that have been found? Satellites have
identified hundreds of thousands of hectares of eroded soil. If it
weren't for them and the measures taken thanks to them, you and I
would have no bread at all...
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14. [Shcherban] I would love to share your optimism. But here among
the people far from space a somewhat different opinion has formed
regarding its development. It's no accident that demands have been
voiced at the Congress of People's Deputies for a reduction in the
allocations for space... There was no sausage or butter in the
pre-space era, and there's still none. Even though more and more
satellites are being launched. Might it not make sense to reconfigure
them and to concentrate on solving the problems of today? I believe
that people would vote for that with both hands.
15. [Kiyenko] Well, first of all, the launches of space vehicles are
not increasing. Just the opposite. And that's not because we are
becoming convinced of the flights' ineffectiveness. The reduction is
happening because they are becoming more effective and are lasting
longer...
16. Let's imagine for a just moment that we abandoned the use of
satellites and that we plunked down those millions for the purchase
of meat. We would reduce substantially the effectiveness of the
operations for investigating the country's natural economic
potential. At present, space-derived information forms the basis of
operations involving the search for raw materials and the study and
inventory of the country's forests. That information is important for
the study of agricultural resources and se mic hazards ..and for the
analysis of the engineering and geological conditions in areas that
have nuclear electric power plants... I could continue the list ad
infinitum. We would lose much, much more than we would gain if we
abandoned the space programs.
17. It's another matter that the data from space-derived information
is underused. And that use, basically, only for the development of
industry. Agriculture is receiving only a miserly portion of the
space pie. And yet, information that is of value to agriculture is
being passed on regularly to the agricultural industry. For example,
a comprehensive study of natural resources was recently conducted in
the Central Asian republics. In arid places, we found lands with good
forage resources, and we mapped them out.
18. [Shcherban] Mapped them out? No matter how many kolkhoz and
sovkhoz representatives I questioned at the local level about how
they are using the materials of space surveys, they just shrugged
their shoulders: they hadn't heard a thing about it. Most of them
don't even know what it is.
19. [Kiyenko] Well, I don't know whom you talked to there... Is it
really necessary to get the space-survey results to the farm
managers? It's the land-use surveyors in the oblasts and the
republics who should be familiar with them. But you are right in
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saying that the farm managers are not very interested in the space
information. Moreover, there is a certain pessimism in their attitude
toward it. Why? The main reason lies in the ineffectiveness of the
existing mechanism for introducing what is new. The system operates
in such a fashion that people are not interested in what is new,
because, after its introduction, they receive a smaller wage.
20. The space program must be viewed as a locomotive which is
pulling behind itself a long train of basic and applied sciences. If
all the achievements we have brought back from space were introduced
today, then there is no doubt that an enormous economic impact would
be felt in many sectors of the national economy.
21. [Shcherban] Each new launch of a spacecraft, it is asserted,
produces wounds in the ozone layer which do not heal for a long time.
And if you consider the fact that we are launching hundreds of space
facilities, then that very layer reminds me personally of a sieve.
Does the chairman of the state commission have his deputy for ecology
close at hand? And, in general, is any one determining the effect of
the space launches on the environment?
22. [Kiyenko] The rockets which we use to place the Cosmos and
Resurs satellites into orbit are ecologically clean. And they do no
harm to the ozone layer. They discharge a smaller amount of
combustion products than do the automobiles of an average-sized city.
And, in general, it one can't that a rocket punches a hole in the
ozone layer. No one has ever even recorded such phenomena above the
cosmodromes. And, with regards to the deputy... During launches of
space vehicles for the study of natural resources, I have close at
hand specialists from the Priroda State Center, who, believe me, know
what's what in ecology matters.
23. [Shcherban] As chairman of the state commission, you know better
than anyone else what the bill is for spacecraft launches. Couldn't
you cite a couple of figures from this document?
24. [Kiyenko] Resurs-F, when it completed its program, produced an
economic impact of 20 million [rubles]. That exceeded the. cost of
the vehicle, the rocket, and the launch many times over.
25. [Shcherban] Many of our readers are convinced that the entire
space armada circling our globe serves, to a large extent, the
interests of the military-industrial complex. In the final analysis,
majors and colonels aren't launched into space so they can observe
from orbit how the winter sown crops have sprouted, are they? For
what purpose, it is being asked, have we achieved the world's highest
resolution with our cameras--down to 5 meters--which can be used to
view the wheat crops in detail from space...
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26. [Kiyenko] The satellites which are being placed into orbit under
the supervision of our state commission are intended solely for
solving national economy problems. It is peaceful technology. And by
the way, thatspace armada, as you call it, is more like a small
flotilla in comparison with the one which is working for all the
other sectors. We cannot even satisfy the demands of our consumers.
Throughout the country, more than 1,100 organizations use space
survey materials to solve approximately 300 national economy
problems. At customers' requests, we are passing on as much as a
million pieces of space information. We are supplying it to more than
60 countries around the world for hard currency. And it's only
because of the shortage of space equipment that we can't saturate the
domestic and foreign markets with its products.
27. If we want to have enough sausage and enough butter, then we
should talk about increasing that armada. Indeed, the demand is
therei Just-one space photograph costs anywhere from $1,000 and
$4,500. And as for the majors and colonels, I will say this: their
training, skills, and reactions and the way they think are perfectly
suited for ensuring that the expensive space missions are completed
successfully.
28. [Shcherban] It sometimes happens that satellite fragments which
have not completely burned up fall to Earth. They are quite often
taken for UFOs. Such falls, so our readers assert, have recently
become more frequent. Incidentally, one such burned fragment, a
spherical object, recently fell on a cornfield in Voronezh Oblast.
Fortunately, no one was hit. Can you guarantee that some unburned
chunk of space metal won't ever crash through the roof of someone's
house somewhere?
29. [Kiyenko] I'd call that a loaded question. Yes, I do know of
instances when remnants of spacecraft have returned to the ground
against our wishes. They are, beyond all doubt, anomalies. Such
instances have been written up both in our country and abroad. But in
any specific instance, it must be determined what country the
fragment belongs to. Our equipment has been designed so that nothing
is supposed fall back to Earth and, if something does fall, that it
does so in completely unpopulated areas.
30. [Shcherban] Incidentally, regarding unpopulated areas, from
where are your satellites launched?
31. [Kiyenko] We prefer to operate from the Northern Cosmodrome in
Arkhangelsk Oblast. During powered flight, the rocket flies over
unpopulated areas: taiga, tundra, marshes, and the Arctic Ocean.
Frequently, the launches take place at dawn.
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32. If only you knew how beautiful the cosmodrome is at that time of
day...