Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS report, dated 1 August 1990, translates an interview with Major General of Aviation Aleksey Leonov published in the Moscow journal Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika. Leonov describes the Soviet manned lunar program, how the cosmonauts trained for it, and the test failures that ended it. He also criticizes Soviet secrecy and argues that the Buran shuttle is needed. Asked about UFO claims, he says Aldrin's remark 'they're watching us' referred to Earth, not extraterrestrials.
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Document 8 of 17 mechanism has not been developed for stimulating enterprises' introduction of new kinds of products and technologies which, for example, now lie unclaimed in excess in the space sector. Hence the conversations about low profitability of space. But this is not the fault, but the misfortune of cosmonautics. 28. I remember how we were asked to monitor agricultural lands from space. In a 24-hour period we gave out a pile of data, but it differed from that which the State Committee for Statistics gives out by 25-30 percent, and they turned down our services. But we learned that many fields either were smaller than according to the data of the Agro-Industrial Committee, or they were not being used, or they were not taken into account at all. Results of mismanagement also are easily seen from space: trampled-down pastures, ruined rivers and reservoirs, and the polluted atmosphere of cities. We can tell, for example, about all the outrages which the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources committed on Soviet land. Much is being said now about Aral and Balkhash, but the fact is that cosmonauts were first to sound the alarm 15 years ago. I myself went to Pelshe, chairman of the Party Control Commission of the CPSU Central Committee, and told him what was being done on the Baykal-Amur Railroad and Sea of Aral. While they made certain other decisions on the Baykal-Amur Railroad at that time, they did not for Aral. 29. It seems our information is little needed by anyone. I personally believe that reproaches on this matter should be addressed to the economists above all, and the press must properly arrange the emphasis here. Rigid communications, both direct and feedback, is needed and then there also will be an economic effect. 30. [Kuznetsov] And the last question, which journal readers often ask: Do you believe that our contemporaries will be eyewitnesses to fulfillment of a Soviet lunar program? 31. [Leonov] Such a program is not envisaged before the year 2000. But beyond that, we will see. 32. COPYRIGHT: 'Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika'', 1990.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.