MIRNEWS.123    27 FEBRUARY 1992

YELSTIN SIGNED DECREE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE R.K.A.:

R.K.A. stands for Rossiyskoe Kosmicheskoye Agentsvo, so Russian Space Agency.
For a long time the Russian parliament discussed about the need to establish
such an organisation. Its tasks and possibilities, but also the relation to
parliament and government, are almost equal to that of the American NASA.
Projects for space-operations have to be submitted to that R.K.A. The R.K.A.
investigates the project and evaluates the need, necessity, costs and eventual
contribution from state-funds. Projects aimed to achieve political- or
chauvinistic prestige will not have any chance. After analysing a project this
will be send to the parliament for consent about eventual funding. The president
can put his veto on it. After consent the project will be send back to R.K.A.
R.K.A. asks for offers of firms, scientific institutes, enterprises, national as
well as international ones, on the basis of free enterprise and free market and
selects those who will get the order(-s). After that R.K.A. has to keep control
on the execution of the orders. It will take some time before such an
organisation is operational and in fact it is already a little bit late.

RIDICULOUS AND EXAGGERATED INFORMATION ABOUT BAD HEALTH AND MOOD OF MIR CREW:

For a long time, more or less caused by 'glasnost' and the bad economic
situation in the CIS-states, the (ex-) Soviet press
critically and even with denigration reported about their national space
exploration. For a few weeks that same press gradually seem to be inclined to
change this policy a little bit due to a moderate positive attitude towards
'space' of Yeltsin. A lot of Russian journalists still entertain grievances
about the fact, that not a Russian, but a Japanese journalist flew in a Russian
space-station. Average reports about space-station MIR are still below zero and
a lot these reports find their way to the West. Regretfully the spokesmen and
public relations officers of space-organisations in the CIS are still very
passive and miss the skill and willingness of their western colleagues to fight
for their cause. Negative reports, for instance articles in Komsomolskaye
Pravda, Izvestiya and others, are extra exaggerated while proceeding along
western press-channels. The cosmonauts hear a lot from western news-agencies and
from radio-amateurs around the world and sometimes do not believe their ears.
On Febr. 17th Moscow-TV relayed a direct TV-session with MIR and the viewers
could see how healthy and active the cosmonauts were. I myself know by day to
day observations that the crew has a very good health and a high morale. Of
course they meet problems, technical failures, even serious ones, but they
always keep good hearth and in cooperation with experts on TsUP they resolve
problems by repairing or replacing equipment or systems. Radio-amateurs, who
have the possibility to communicate with the crew or to exchange information via
Packet Radio, certainly will share my opinion. I will advise you all: take all
press-reports about MIR, not with a pinch, but with some pounds of salt.

C.M. van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.