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IllDRUGS:NEWTO EXPAND

INTELLIGENCESTAR IN ORBIT:SPACE COLONIES;ARTAND SCIENCERUSSIAN STYLEWORLD'SMAN:SMARTEST

NESSAND

JOIN THE HUNTWAR:STRATEGISTS

THE ULTIMATE WEAPONBUCK ROGERSANDNEW WORLD

FIRST LOOK AT THENEW-PENETRATING THEHARNESSING

GULF STREAM

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onnruiEDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONEEXECUTIVE EDITOR: FRANK KENDIGART DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINOEUROPEAN EDITOR: DR. BERNARD DIXON3IRI-.C OR O'" Al )VE"=T 3 \iG: EiEVE^LEY WARDALEEXECU":" VI- V CI--PRESIDENT. IRWI\ E. BILLMAN

CONTENTS PAGEFIRST WORD Opinion 6OMNIBUS Contributors 8COMMUNICATIONS Correspondenc 10FORUM Dialogue 12EARTH Environment 16SPACE Astronomy 18LIFE Biomedicine 20STARS Comment 24THE ARTS Media 26UFO UPDATE Report Harry Lebelson 32CONTINUUM Data Bank 35CYBERNETIC WAR Article Jonathan V Post 44DARK SANCTUARY Fiction Gregory Bentord 50MIND FOOD Article Sandy Shakocius and

Durk Pearson 54THE UNIVERSE BELOW Pictorial Douglas Faulkner 58GOD IS AN IRON Fiction Spider Robinson 66GULF DREAM Article Scot Morris 70RED STAR IN ORBIT Article James Oberg 76VISIONS OF THE COSMOS Pictorial F C. Durant III BOSELF-DISCOVERY Fiction Vladimir Savchenko 88RETURN TO LOCH NESS Article Michael Marten and

John Chesterman 92RICHARD FEYNMAN Interview Monte Davis 96THE LANGUAGE CLARIFIER Fiction Paul J. Nahin 100EXPLORATIONS Travel Trudy E. Bell 115SUNRISE Phenomena Ken Kay 142GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 144LAST WORDjjSF .IGS'- edS! 711), y voIuit.lCr.'-jiP.ii:

1-1H -t,

am I -M ailing olticGS. Publishe

Tnamas F Von:a ecroCover art for this month's Omniis a multi-image photographby California filmmaker andphotographer Larry Norager.In order to produce theimage-on-image effect,Norager utilized a 500-wattlaser projection to create TheUniverse Within.4 OMNI

8. Copyright 1979 by Omr

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Eighty years ago a Russianschoolteacher named KonstantinTsiolkovskiy said, "The Earth is

the cradlG of the mind, but one does notlive in the cradle forever. Humanitywill venture beyond the edge of theatmosphere and then will boldly move outand occupy all of the worlds and spacesaround the sun."The Russians have come a long way

since their astronautical humiliations of adecade ago and are now much closerthan most of us think to realizingTsiolkovskiy's dream. This month Omnipresents a rare and in-depth glimpse intothe world o! Soviet space exploration,beginning with an exclusive article onSoviet space colonies by James Oberg. In"Red Star in Orbit" (page 76). Oberg. aspecialist in Chinese/Soviet spaceprograms, closely examines Russia's newaggressive and concentrated spaceeffort, which is already laying foundationsfor such ambitious projects as robot tankerspaceships, pseudogravity. multimodularspace stations, and. possibly, nuclear-power space tugs. "By the mid-1980s,the Soviets will have built severalpermanently inhabited space settlementsin orbits around the earth and the moon,"writes Oberg. "Why not? They've nurturedand treasured that dream, and now they're,moving boldjy to harvest it,"

To illustrate the contemporary spaceactivities of the USSR, as well as futureconcepts of space exploration, Omnicontacted Frederick C. Durant III,a omni

assistant director of the National Air andSpace Museum and head ot theastronautics department. Durant's closeassociation with Andrei Sokolov, theleading space artist in the Soviet Union,gave Omni access to some of the mosttreasured and revered works of Sovietspace art to date. Sokolov's portfoliocontaining imaginative visions of distantplanets, alien life forms, and far-off stellarsystems begins on page 80.Rounding out Omni's "Soviet space

package" is an excerpt from"Self-Discovery" (page 88), a novel bySoviet science- fiction writer VladimirSavchenko. Trained as an electricalengineer Savchenko began writingscience fiction in the late '50s. His abilitiesas a raconteur, combining speculativescience with a satirical view of scientificpolitics, has established him as one of theleading Soviet novelists.Though the chemical details of memoryand learning are still unknown, 20 years of

research have begun to reveal some of itssecrets. Medical researchers have foundmore than a dozen chemicals said topromote "intelligence" in man or animals.Most strengthen the memory and improvelearning ability. Some may even promotegenuine creativity. Authors SandyShakocius and Durk Pearson claim thatsuch "psychopharmaceuticals" areavailable nowsome of them right at yourlocal drugstore. In "Mind Food" (page 54),they'll tell you where you can find theseintelligence drugs and how to use them.

The monster of Loch Ness has beenpursued with everything from harpoons tbsubmarines armed with machine guns.Beethoven symphonies and Scottishtunes have been piped through giantunderwater speakers in hopes of luringthe beast. Now high technologyintroduces TAD (target alarm detector), awooden raft equipped with an array ofelectronically synchronized lights andcameras loaded with the fastest color filmin the world. "It's the most sophisticatedanimal trap ever devised," say journalistsJohn Chesterman and Michael Marten.Will TAD finally catch the elusive Nessie?See for yourself on page 92.

This month's fiction highlights Paul J,Nahin ("The Language Clarifier," page100). A professor of electrical andcomputer engineering, Nahin has beenwriting science fiction for over a decadeand, "after learning many things the hardway, began selling it about two years ago."A graduate of Stanford. Caltech. and theUniversity of California at Irvine, Nahinrecently won the Harry Rowe Mimno Awardfor speculative writing.

Joining Nahin in this issue are twomasters of science fiction, the in-comparable Spider Robinson andGregory Benford. Robinson ("God Is anIron," page 66), a folk singer andcomposer of his own music, recently wonthe Hugo Award for his novel Star Dance.Benford. a physicist from California, markshis second appearance in Omni with"Dark Sanctuary" (page 50). DO

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onnruiTHE CORPORATION

LETTER

coannnuruicMTiorus

i

Religious BirdsIn the interview with E. 0. Wilson [February1979], the statement is made that religionseems to be a uniquely human impulse.Some birds seem to have a ritual theyperform before ihey fan out over theirfeeding territory in the morning and againwhen they return to the flock at night. Is itnot possible that some of the forerunnersof man gathered in a safe refuge at nightand fanned out over a feeding area duringthe day?

If a daily bonding ritual has somesurvival value for birds, then perhapssome similar ritual provided the geneticbase for our religious needs.Eugene Marquis

James Park, CanadaOld Blue EyesWhile it's a well-known fact that blue-eyedpeople are notorious for their outrageousbehavior. E. 0. Wilson's statement "It's justone of those crazy things we got stuck

" with, like hair on the backs of our hands,or the difficulty blue-eyed people havewhen they go to the tropics" has left mewondering. Exactly what kind of "difficulty"do blue-eyed people encounter in thetropics?

It may seem strange that I am troubledby this minor point, but I have beenhaunted by similar statements in the past.including "Oak trees are struck bylightning more often than any other trees"and "Bananas do not grow from seeds." Iam at a loss as to why oak trees attractmore lightning and wonder if bananaplants spring from the earth byspontaneous generation.

So, what kind of difficulty do blue-eyedpeople have in the tropics9 Perhaps theybump into banana trees that are shootingup spontaneously from the earth or have ahard time dodging falling oak trees. . .

.

Jane Racinsk.-.:-Bratenahl, Ohio

PainI was offended by the photographsaccompanying the article 'An End to Pain"[February 1979] depicting a chimpanzeeundergoing electrode-stimulation tests.

Perhaps the photographers or. better yet,the scientists themselves should have oneof those contraptions attached to their ownheads.

Richard RosenNew Orleans, La.

Goodbye GravityGentlemen, I hope you emphasize the factthat your readers must read carefully everyline in your articles. To build yourantigravity machine [January 1979], Iassembled an automobile, using onlynegative matter.Somehow I must have skipped over thesentence "But we must be very carefulhow we handle it." I gave the car a push tosee if. as Dr. Forward said, it would come*toward me. I must have pushed too hard.for now I'm pinned against the wall. And Ican't get out by pushing it away from me!Help!

Addison W PlummerMcLean. Va.

All in His HeadConcerning the statement in DennisOverbye's article on Stephen Hawking[February 1979] that Beethoven neverwrote an entire symphony in his head. Forthat matter, he never tried to write a singlepiece in his head. Not that he couldn't, butBeethoven's method of composition waswholly different. He rarely created acomposition to which he could not haveattributed countless revisions. Hissketchbooks quickly reveal this interestingfact to us.The man to whom Mr. Overbye was

probably referring was Mozart.Manuscripl evidence exists thatdemonstrates that Mozart almostinvariably thought out a complete workbefore writing or trying it out on his clavier.In fact, he was known to write entiresymphonies in his heada feat that hasbeen compared to Milton's dictatingParadise Lost to his daughters orHawking's memorization of the longstrings of equations that give life to hisideas.

Enrique SanchezMiami. Fla.

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DIALOGUEFQRURTIta which the readers, editors, andcorrespondents discuss topics arising outot Omni and theories and speculation ofgeneral interest are brought forth- Theviews published are not necessarily thoseof the editors . Letters for publicationshould be mailed to Omni Forum, OmniMagazine, 909 Third Avenue, New York,NY. 10022.

I find I must comment on the February Artscolumn regarding Isaac Asimov [p. 28],You state that "he will not willingly-fly." Areyou pulling my leg?Some of the best space illustrations Ihave ever painted have been conjured upin my mind after reading a passage fromone of the numerous works of IsaacAsimov I find his detail to be some of themost moving ever wilten. giving onereason to believe Asimov himself mustsurely have flown through all the galaxy.Now I am being asked to believe he is"afraid" to fly-

Please tell me that Asimov prefers othermodes of transportation oecause they aremore romantic or something; I can hardlybelieve he must be forced to fly.

Richard L. IsaksonForest Grove, Oreg.

Dr. Asimov replies: I love to fly, but only inmy imagination.I take exception to Ben Bova'sgeneralization in the February Omni that"most writers spend most of their lives notwriting. Almost every one of the greatmasterworks was produced over a veryshort period of time." Was James Joyceconsulted for this statement? OrKazantzakis? The only quick masterpieceI've heard of was Handel's Messiah, whichwas composed only after a lengthy periodof deliberation.The writers I've known pull double-duty:

to 1 exist and to turn out their manuscripts.To hear sjjch calumny from a man ofBova's fine reputation cuts me to thequick. I hope he reconsiders.

Keith A. DrakeKalamazoo, Mich.

Patented AntigravityWhile Doc Forward's "Goodbye Gravity"[January 1979] does massage the notionthat we may blunder onto the secret ofantigmvily sometime between nextTuesday and the end of time, it is ratherlame in that it does not so much asmention work underwayand evenpatentedby gentle folk who have notforgotten how to roll up the shirt sleevesand put their gravitrons where theirmouths are, so to speak.

For those who wish to depart the "iffy"and hesitant domains of salariedacademics. I suggest you write to thePatent Office. They describe "electro-kinetic" devices lhal act in a certainmanner that defies gravity.And while your quantum-mechanicaleyebrows are up. consider EnglishmanJ.R.R. Searl, who boasts of havingdeveloped the technology necessary toachieve gravitic repulsion and does soregularly.

Take, a moment to consider thesepioneers, bearing in mind before youdismiss them as "silly" that the sameadjective applies to anyone who pretendsto possess a respectable theory forthe control of a force no one has everexplained.

Allan J. GriseSanta Monica, Calif.

Twelve Is Not EnoughI saw your February issue; it had a wealthof future-oriented articles and a goodmany future-looking people in there, too.But I was brought up short by the remarksof interviewee Carla Bley in the jazz articlein the Music section.To paraphrase her attitude; Nothing

should be composed that a piano can'tplay in its 12-tone tempered scale.

Pianos definitely aren't the instrumentsof tomorrow. What other glued-togetherwooden machinery is in use today? Pianosbelong to the nineteenth century, andwhile they spurred progress in music then,they thwart it now. Most of the ordinaryscales' possibilities have been mined toexhaustion.'

There is now a non-1 2-tone movement.

with new music and new instruments, bothacoustic and electronic. These newinstruments and scales have new moods,hitherto unheardthe serenity of 31 -tone,the zonk of 19-tone, the hard brilliance of17-tone.

Ivor DarreSan Diego. Calif

Natural RejectionI thoroughly enjoy reading Omni. In fact, iis the only magazine I read aside frombiological journals.

However, I reserve some criticisms forcertain biological speculations offered byDr. I. J. Good in the January issue LseeInterview], In brief, he has done adisservice to evolutionary theory by *suggesting that natural selection and his"natural rejection" could both operate atthe same time, in parallel. This thinking isan example of the confusion of thelinguistic form and the logical form of thetheory of natural selection.

In the most common linguistic form, it isoften said that selection "favors" someadaptive trait. In the logical form, suchprogressive adaptation is explained as aprocess of selective elimination of poorlyadaptive traits, via the lower reproductivefitness of poorly adapted individuals.Thus in nature there is never "selection

for" but only "selection against." Theformer is only a linguistic form for theresults of the latter process.

Richard F NormaDepartment of Bioiog

McGill UniversitMontreal, P.Q.. Canad

Martian DilemmaThe '"'Odds Against Life" item in theJanuary Continuum inadvertentlydismisses one of the major controversiesin modern biology, or exobiology WhetherViking detected life on Mars is by nomeans a settled issue. However, a closerlook at what did happen will show that theodds are for life existing on Mars, ratherthan not.As I reported in New Scientist (October

12. 1978), the Labelled Release (LR)experiment produced radiochemical

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evidence o' metabolism in the soilsamples. On Earih. this would certainlyhave been considered prima facieevidence of biological activity. On Mars, itwas questioner: largely because acorollary experiment, a survey by the gaschromatograph mass spectrometer, failedto find organic molecules in soil samples.Of the two other biology experiments, oneremains ambiguous as to the existence oflife, the other, negative.

Viking thus leaves us with a first-classmystery. Either it turned up evidence of lifeor'it discovered some mysterious,inorganic reaction that simulates it. So far.NASA has been content to leave thequestion in limbo.The findings of the LR experiment are

quite explicit. Tests run in half a dozen!abo ratories have fai cd to yield aninorganic explanation of LR results.Although the mystery of what Viking foundon Mars could easily be exploited to pumpfor funding another go at Mars, the spaceagency has shown a curious reluctance todo so. The reason: Viking is a hard act tofollow. No one quite knows what to do next,short of urging a manned expedition,currentlyataboo subject in the NASAbureaucracy.

Richard S. LewisIndialantic. Fla.

Oil-Drop LevitationIn "Goodbye Gravity" [January 1979], DrForward mentions how gravity could beovercome and puts forth several methods.They all. however, require agreat amountof mass. Nowhere does Dr. Forwardmention anything about electricity. Yet if Iam correct. Robert Millikan used that forcein 1909 to counteract the gravitationalforce while performing his famous oil-dropexperiment. He used two electrical plates,each of opposite charge, to eliminategravity, so to speak, and vary both theupward and the downward velocities ofthe oil drop.

I realize, of course, that an oil drop is anincredibly tiny object and therefore has avery small mass, but I maintain that ifeliminating gravity can be done for an oildrop, it can be done for a tractor.

In "The First Starship." also in theJanuary issue. Owen Davies proposes amethod of propulsion using a huge laserand a gigantic sail. Now I had read thatthe law of inverse squares demands thatthe amount of energy in the laser shoulddecrease by the inverse square of thedistance. What this implies is that a laserprojected over a great distance would loseenergy rapidly, making it impractical foreven an orbital weapon, much less a giantrod. to push an interstellar probe sixlight-years to Barnard's star. Am I wrong?

Kevin Z.O'Brian _ Fort Wayne. Ind.Dr. Forward rep ies: Yes. MHiikan did useelectricity to levitate an oil drop back in1909. You can also levitate bits ofpaper or14 OMNI

the hair on your head by combing your hairon a dry day. I would even be willing toadmit that., if we tried hard enough, wecould levitate a tractor with electricity.However, this electrical icvualion has somedeficiencies. First, the technique requiresthat each thing to be levitatedhave certainspecific properties that the levitating fieldcan work on (that it be charged for electriclevitation). and the amount of that propertyhas to be adjusted according to theamount of mass to be levitated. However.for dense-matter gravitational levitation,the response of all bodies in the levitatingfield is the same, and they don't have to bemodified or touched in any way.

If we were to attempt to levitate you byusing a large-scale version of the Millikanoil-drop apparatus, most of the liftingforces would come where the chargeswould collect; at your hands, feet, and hair,while your middle would droop down. Youwould feel as if you were trussed to a pole

Overcoming gravity by use :,; electric current.

between two Indian warriors, while a thirdwas trying to lift your scalp! Gravitationallevitation is much more pleasant.

You are right about the inverse-squarelaw on the laser-propelled sail that I firstproposed back in 1962. But for a laser, thatlaw applies only outside what is called the"near-field" zone. Inside the near-fieldzone you can actually focus the laserbeam or make it travel in a parallel beamwith negligible expansion. For a laser array300 kilometers across and shooting out agreen laser beam, the near-fieldzoneextends out to nearly 19 light-years! Thatmeans that nearly all light from a300-kilometer laser array can be focusedon a 300-kilo'rietF.r-diemeter sail even atdistances of many light-years. Outsidethe 19-light-year region, theinverse-square law will apply.Planet FarmingConcerning the article "Farming of thePlanets" [February 1979], it is a mostinteresting idea but, unfortunately, boundby the fetters of possibility. Most ecologistsof my acquaintance would not consider it

a noble endeavor to alter the ecosystethe Sahara, let alone the entire planetVenus.

To counter the problem of excessiveheat, Mr. Oberg would produce cloudsand dust storms on the face of the planewhile flooding the magnetosphere withions. The clouds and dust already existVenus, which is the main 'reason it remaiat an unbearable 500C-tons introduceinto the magnetosphere would beattracted toward the poles, producingionic storms at the polar regions.As far as the problem of water is

concerned, the solutions presented arehardly more feasible. No significantquantities of ice are known to exist onMars, and the extreme temperature onVenus would prevent the existence ofwater in its liquid form. The diversion ofcomet to provide water is as impracticalit is difficult. The path of such a cometwould have to be controlled within minuof arc. If such a diversion could be madwithout the destruction of the comet, theamount of material remaining would beabsurdly small. It has been noted that tentire tail of most comets wouldconveniently fit inside an average-sizesuitcase. If the diversion of even largemasses of ice were to be accomplished1.000 megaton bombs, as the authorsuggests, it would be too radioactive tosafe for use.

It is quite apparent that the radicalalteration of the ecosystem of ourimmediate neighbors is quite impracticaat best. As one looks to the future, theemphasis should be placed on findingother planets like ours, not creating themA solar system of pseudo-Earths wouldvery monotonous indeed. Walter Boye

Tijeras, N.

MonopolyI agree wholeheartedly with executiveeditor Frank Kendig that scientific andtechnical information should not be theexclusive domain of established journal[First Word. February 1979],

However. Mr. Kendig is in grave errorwhen he suggests that these journalsshould not have a "virtual monopoly onnew breakthroughs." The complicatedprocess of peer review may delay theannouncement of such breakthroughs,this delay is a necessity It is theresponsibility of the scientific journal toensure critical review At the same time,the popular press serves an invaluablefunction in translating the journal articleinto a form the general population canunderstand.

Curtis K.DeutsUniversity of Tex

Austin. T

Social Darwinism RevisitedYour interview in the February Omni didnot reveal the essentially political natureE. 0. Wilson's ideas. Sociobiology isCONTINUED ON PAGE 130

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PARADISE LOST

EARTHBy Kenneth Browerur earliest account of a tropicalrain forest is from ChristopherColumbus. Of the island His-

paniola, which he discovered in 1492,Columbus wrote, "Its lands are high [with]many sierras and lofty mountains. All aremost beautiful, of a thousand shapes, andall are accessible and filled with trees of athousand kinds and tall . . . and I am toldthey never lose their foliage, as I canunderstand, for I saw ihem as green andlovely as they are in Spain in May."The Hispaniola of Columbus, like most

other islands in the West Indies, wasentirely covered by tropical forest. Today487 years later, Hispaniola retains lessthan 9 percent of its original cover, andthat small relic of a jungle is going fast.Haiti, the nation occupying the westernthird of the island, has failervfrom paradiseto paradigm. It is this hemisphere'sforemost example of the troubles thatdeforestation can bring to a tropicai landand its people.

Haiti was once France's richest colony.A land of abundant sun and rain, itsplantations exported more sugar, indigo.

cotton, cacao, and coffeemorewealththan any of England's or Spain'sNew World possessions. But that glow wasan unhealthy one. Haiti was being mined.Its productivity was built on the abuse ofland and people. The plantations grew onhillsides ruthlessly cleared of those nativetrees. The land was worked by slaves,men and women whose lives were sobrutal that once in a generationaboutevery 20 yearsHaiti's entire populationhad to be replaced.

In 1791 the slaves began a revolution forindependence, which finally succeeded in1804. Haiti was the first colony in LatinAmerica to win its independence. Itseemed a promising beginning, but intruth the new nation's foundations werealready compromised and crumbling. Asecond revolt, a revolt of the land, soonfollowed the first. Caused by the agri-cultural practices of the French, itgathered momentum with the fires anddestruction of wars for independence, thevindictive burning of plantations after

"victory, and reached breaking point withIhe burgeoning numbers of Haitians.

Tropical rain forests grow freely because of boa .-03 u&.ionsi Or/sv-So'v o.Ms.'de Tucson, Am

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Observatory on Mount Hamilton,California, 30 kilometers of winding roadeast of San Jose. Although theobservatory composes hal~ a dozeninstruments, only the two largest are onpublic display. Each afternoon, tours areconducted inside the old steel dome of the91-centimeter Great Refractoraninstrument that enjoys-the dubiousdistinction of serving as the tombstone ofits benefactor, James Lick, whose body isburied in the telescope's supporting pier.This long, slim telescope, the largestretractor in the world when it wascompleted in 1888, was one of manyfashioned by the excellent nineteenth-century American optical firm Alvan Clark

' and Sons; fhe facl that it is still usednightly after 91 years is certainly anexcellent return on James Lick'sinvestment. During the summer, on Fridayevenings, the public is allowed to lookthrough this instrument. A pleasanthalf-a-kilometer walk away through therugged mountain chaparral, you canstand in a glassed-in v .sites' gallery andgaze at the graceful three-meter reflectorthird largest in the US, Although thelelescope is two-thirds the diameter of the508-centimeter" reflector at Palomar, it isequally as long; 15 meters. Plan lo spendsome time just strolling around the top ofthe mountain; the view to the westembraces the southern part of the SanFrancisco Bay, and on rare crisp winterafternoons you can see the snow-cappedSierras and Yosemite's Half Dome 200kilometers to the east.

In Arizona, a prime site for astronomicalobserving, lies the Kitt Peak NationalObservatory. Affectionately known to someas "Telescope National Forest," Kitt Peaksports the densest concentration ofastronomical instruments in the world. Nofewer than 1- a flerent telescopes dot thetop of the mountain, which is some 80kilometers west of Tucson. There you cangaze up 19 stories, while riding up anelevator to the glassed-in panoramicgallery, at the four-meter Nicholas U.Mayall retlector, second largest in the US.There is also a visitors' g.-i lery in the domeof the 210-centimeter reflector. The uniquehallmark of the Kilt Peak Observatory isthe McMath solar telescope, which from adistance. looks like a sleek whiteupside-down check mark: a vertical whitetower eleven stores nigh supporting aslanting shaft twenty sto'-os long. Thisshaft forms a 150-meter light,path ior thebeam of sunlight that, when it finallycomes to a locus in the observing roomunderground, forms an image of the sunnearly a meter across. Inside thetelescope is a glassed-in visitors' galleryhalfway down Ihe light path. The visitors'center at Kitt Peak is particularly nice, withmany exhibits, a working solar telescope,and even Papago Indian handcrafts.

After a 'five-hour drive north of Kitt Peakyou come lo the Lowell Observatory inFlagstaff, founded in the gay '90s by

Boston Bianmin Pereva Lowell (thebrother of the poet Amy Lowell) for theexpress purpose o ; looking for canals onMars, which Lowell thought might beevidence of an intelligent race. Much ofthe work of the Lowell Observatory is stillconcerned with the so fir system, and theplanet Pluto was discovered there in 1930.Set back in a peaceful pine forest on a hillat the west end of town, it is one otitis fewmajor observatories that can be easilyreached by public transportation. There isa one-hour lecture tour given everyweekday afternoon during which thepublic is treated to a slide show, ashortlecture, and a.demonstration of fheobservatory's 61-centimeter Clarkrefractor housed in a wooden dome that isinelegantly rotated by means of rubberautomobile tires.Another large astronomical institution in

the American Southwest is the McDonaldObservatory on Mount Locke near ForiDavis, Texas. The mirror of the main

&At observatories open to thepublic at nighttime,

you may have the chance togaze at the rings

of Saturn, moon craters, orsome multicolored

luminous cloud of gas in thedepths of space3

4.3-meter reflector was shof at but notseriously damaged in 1970 by apistol-packing deranged oprician, DuringIhe daytime, regular descriptive lecturesare given, and you are allowed to walkaround right next to the instrumentthelargest telescope in the country that is notoff-limits to visitors all the time. Thistelescope has taken some of the mostexquisite ground-based photographs ofthe planets ever made, some of which arehanging on the walls of the visitors' gallery.Throughout the year, on the lastWednesday evening of fhe month, there isa public observing oignt: V sitors listen to ashort lecture, see a film, hear anastronomer tell about his or her currentwork, and (weather permitting) get to lookthrough a ralnei eloory 205-centimeterreflector the largest lelescope in Ihecountry through which visitors can gaze.The best site for an observatory, oi

course, is one away from city lights andsmog, where the an is steady and itdoesn't rain half Ihe year. For thosereasons. Ihe largest modern researchinstitutions are in the American Southwest.Nonetheless, there are plenly of

oh so've-tone:? elsewhere in the country,particularly ores o' Historical merest. Ityou are in the Midwest, you might like tospend a Saturday afternoon at the YerkesObservatory at Williams Bay. Wisconsin,about 120 kilometers northwest ofChicago. This observatory is 'arnous for it99-centimete-' Clark redactor, the largestlens-telescope in the world; moreover, thisparticular instrument, instead of beingpainted Ihe usual batilcsh p gray. 'Scheerfully decorated n viv d colors:orange, white, and blue.On the East Coast is the US NavalObservatory in Washington, D.C.. whichprovides the standards ol time lor theNational Bureau of Standards and foreveryone else: When you set your watch,you are setting it to Naval Observatorytime. At the observatory is a museum,refurbished several years ago lor thoBicentennial: There you can read aclipping recounting a visit by AbrahamLincoln and an account of the discovery oIhe two moons of Mars. A visit to theobservatory's time center lets you see abank oi a dozen or so atomic clocks, rackof electronic consoles with slowly movingstrips of paper recording the timevariations of the clocks as they areconslanlly oeck rig tnemseives aga nstone another. Escorted tours take youinside the immaculalely kept dome of thecentury-old sixty-s : x-oenlimeter(twenty -six-inch) refractor. On severalnights each month, you can look throughthis instrument during frequentlyscneouled nighttime tours.

Astronomers not only look at thestars -they listen to them as well. For adifferent treat, you might like to visit Ihelargest radio astronomy observatory in thUS: the National Radio AstronomyObservatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, WestVirginia, about 200 ki omoicrs west ofCharlottesville. Virginia on Highway 2892.There, set among the lush Virginia forest ia calm valley, half a dozen giant radioantennas cup their wire ears to the sunand Ihe Milky Way. In the summer, visitorssee a short film called The InvisibleUniverse and are then taken on a narratebus tour that stops at several of the radiotelescopes, no largest being a wire-net dish fully 192 meters indiameter

If one of these major observatories is nonearby, don't neglect a smaller one thatmay be. Call the planetarium in your cityihe- astronomy dooarfment of a nearbycollege or university for more information.You'll have a much better chance oflooking through the telescopes, and thepeople there may have more time to showyou around.

Clear skies! DOi-or a complete and excellent descriptionof some 300 astronomical institutions andtheir hours, see U.S. Observatories: ADireclory and Trave. Guide cv ' ' rKirby Smith. Van.Nostrand Co.. 1976.

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RED STAR Recognition of space activities as beingrci cat ve 'T grea:-oowor status.

Implementator, oi space colonization asa logical development in Marxis; sce.oiy. Tne oer.orai oiases of top officials.The current party line porirays the con-

quest of space as an inevitable outgrowthof socialism, an expression of the leadingrole of Marxist-!. enin si socieTV "" the wchof history. The "naturalness" and "inevitabil-ity" of the Soviet Union's leading role in fhisexpansion cannot he emphasized enough.The Communist party has firmly committedits apparalus to sprinkling the Marxistequivalent oi holy wafer on the cannons ofthe space crusaders'.

Early space successes significantlybolstered Russian pride and conveyedoverseas a grossly c.yaciccraled image ofRussian science and power. UnderKhrushcnev, the cmi's soac* p'ogram w,i-subjugated, to an almost paranoid lust for"space firsts" that would' further humiliatethe Americans. After Khrushchev's fall, thenew regime relaxed ihs oiiective Temporar-ily. During the climax of the Apollo andSky lab triumphs, however, new Sovietheadline-seeking exertions' led to bothpublic and secret space dossiers, ne ox-tent of which is still not fully appreciated inthe West.Two lop Soviet leaders have spent a

quarter of a cenlury in Tie space businesssince they helped set up the first Russianrocket factories in the early 1950s (underthe camouflage name of "Ministry ofMedium Machine Building"). Today theyare the oadv socotary and the defenseministertheir names are Leonid Brezh-nev and Dmitriy Ustinov. Current versions oftheir biographies extol their contributions lothe development of Soviet space explora-tion and stress their personal enthusiasm.Much of this is undoubtedly an attempt toshare in the glory of present space suc-cesses, but much oh it seems authentic.

Both men are over seventy. Their depar-ture from power will leave a question markon the future of Soviets in space. Yet theirprogram has enough momentum anddeplh of suppor- ;c continue its strong ad-vance following' the loss of patronage fromBrezhnev and Ustinov.LAUNCH ITINERARY

With th s k no of multilevel support ob-servers are curious about time schedulesor Me Soviet space-colon, zaiion d.-ve.Moscow does not ti sclose expectedlaunch dates (to avoid embarrassmentfrom delays ana occasional failures)., but abroad-scope has been well delineated.

Following the 140-day soace marathon oliwc cosmonauts ale ast year. Hie Nnvaslinews agency ceased this a'-spaicn- TheSoviet space prograr- loresoes the devel-opment in the e-icntios of bgger space sta-tions, with a liie expeclancy o ; uo -o -ve

years and between 12 and 24 cosmonautson board. . . n the nineties. Sovie; scien-tists are already looking toiwara ic spacestations with a crew of up to 12.0. These, infact, would be real space factories and re-search institutes."

Professor Oleg _selorserkovskiy, rector ofthe Moscow Physical and Technical Insti-

. tuie, where many Soviet space -.vcxe's aretrained' and where space experiments aredesigned, jo-ned in the opt mistic forecast-ing: "Trends in the development ol contem-pota'y cosmonautics indicate that scien-" i 1 o ana production com;:, exes will be builtin orbit and that metallurgical, machine-building, and chemical plants may be cre-ated beyond the limits of the earthsoon. . . ."

Belotserkovskiy a member of the USSRAcademy of Sciences and a Lenin Prizelaureate, described another step in the de-velopment of Soviet space capabilities:"The fjtu'e ol soace flights depends alsoon the creation of new rocket engines utiliz-ing nuclear energy." Whether he was de-scribing a program already in progress ormerely expressing a personal opinion isdifficultly ascertain; a nuclear "space tug,"however, would be a logical step in the nextfew years.Two other famous Soviet space experts,

both named Petrov, have optimistic views ofthe future. Boris Petrov is the head of theIntercosmos Committee, whicii coordi-nates space research: Georgty Petrov (norelation) is a more shadowy figure, perhapsme never icentried "chiet designer" whoactually runs the Soviet space program.According to Boris Petrov. "humanity s

deep penetration into space begins onlyafter space technical taciliiies and crewshave been tested in all respects and Torlong periods of time in near-Earth orbits."Tnese wees are in agreement with numer-ous other suggestions :

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Soviet and American programs concernswater-purification equipment, crucial ma-chines (or recycling water on space sta-tions. At the NASA Johnson Space Centerin Houston, engineers are working on whatthey call "preprototype" equipment (fol-low-up developments would be "pro-totypes" leading eventually to the designand construction of aciual flight hardware).But the Soviets have been flight testingwater-recycling equipment on Salyutspace-station modules since 1974, and a50 percent closed-loop system becameoperational on Salyut VI almost two yearsago.As early as 1967, three Russians (physi-

cian G. Manovtsev, biologist A. Bozhko,and engineer B. Ulybyshev) stayed for oneentire year in a hermetically sealed labora-tory. Both mechanical and biological tech-niques were used to repurity the air, in an-ticipation of using similar methods on longspace expeditions. Several years later, ad-ditional hermetic chambers were erected inSiberia to investigate other biological tech-niques: Oxygen was produced from chlo-rella algae; greenhouses provided wheatand vegetables; stills cleansed the water.

Salyut orbital expeditions in the early1970s brought along space gardens aspart of the aptly named "Oasis" project.Russian flax, cabbage, green onions,peas, and other plants were grown inspace so scientists could study long-termplant genetics and germination patterns.

Experimental chlorella banks were also onboard.Cosmonauts on these flights remarked

on the unexpected psychological value oftheir green gardens in the sterile blacknessof space. Later spacemen conducted ex-periments involving tadpoles in a smallaquarium, which the men tended far morefrequently than required, even spendingmuch of their spare lime just watching their"nurselings." In postllight debriefings, thecosmonauts stressed the soothing effect ofhaving other living creatures around them.The present Salyut mission is also con-

centrating on oxygen-producing chlorella,food-crop experiments in the "Phyton"greenhouse equipment, and mechanicalwater-recycling systems. These projectshave been explicitly designated for long-term space voyages and permanent spacesettlements. They are clearly not for showAnother area of vigorous Soviet space

research involves the use of spinningspacecraft to induce an artificial "pseudo-gravity" force (actually it's just Inertia). Intests near Moscow, Soviet engineers havelived for weeks in cabins at the ends of longrotating arms, studying the little-appreci-ated problems of spin-induced vertigo. Al-ready, spinning platforms aboard five-tonrobot biosatellites have exposed experi-mental animals to space pseudogravity.(The US has no program along these lines,but the Soviets have allowed the presenceof a few American experiments as hitch-

Q/^cutOott.-

"Why, Dr. Miller, how goes It in research?"

hikers on the annual Soviet flights.) .Pseudogravity may actually never be

needed in space, since Soviet space-medicine experts hope that the humanbody, with proper conditioning and diet.can spend two or three years or more in"zero gravity" (a misnomer: the accurateterm should be "wefghtlessness") and re-turn safely to Earth. Of course, people whonever expect to return to the crushing grav-ity of Earth would appear to have no prob-lem at all with weightlessness, indeed, theremoval of such "natural" stresses (andEarth's ubiquitous disease bacteria andcarcinogens) might add decades to an individual's lifespanor might not.TRUE COLONISTS

It is just such a medical development thamight lead, within the next decade, to thappearance of the first true "space colonist." By the mid-1980s, the Soviets wilhave built several permanently inhabitespace settlements in orbits around Eartand the moon. Present expectations suggest that the normal duty tour will be onyear in length, with longer tours possiblavailable for volunteers (including couplesa significant proportion of crew memberswill probably be female).

With such a large population, medicaproblems are bound to arise. Some patients will be treated in space and returneto duty; others will necessarily be evacuated to Earth; still others, perhaps cardiacases, perhaps paraplegics, may bstranded in orbit by the hazards of the return flight's stresses or by the dangers o"normal" Earth-surface conditions,The firpeople committed to spending the rest otheir lives in space might therefore be involuntary.

Sizable space Dooulations such as thosenvisaged by Soviet space officials alsimply other unplanned social dynamicsnatural and accidental deaths, unexpected pregnancies, crimes of gain, revenge, and passion, and "black marketsin goods, services, and information. Perspectives offered by small expeditions ancolonies in the earth's past history offedespair to the "social planners" and hopto the enthusiasts of humanity. in space.The population of these space outpostwill gradually shift from a fraction of permanent residents and a vast majority o"short termers" to a culture where thpopulation (now numbering in the hundreds, which introduces the new dynamicof interactions with strangers) is dominateby the presence of people who consideouter space their adopted home. Sucsettlers, and their children who will be borand raised in space, their dealhs and thebirths, will have gone a long way towarbeginning to realize Tsiolkovskiy's dream.And this will only be fitting, since thes

space colonists will be Russians. Thehave nurtured and treasured that dreamand they have moved boldly to realizeaccepting the costs; they certainly deservto harvest its reality. DO

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