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Central Intelligence Agency · 1990-01-01 · 53 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This Central Intelligence Agency file is a 1991 JPRS translation, report JPRS-USP-91-005. It carries the annotation and text of a Soviet brochure on the space program, written by one of the first cosmonauts. The brochure reviews what manned and unmanned spaceflight have achieved and calls the American lunar program a costly dead end pursued for prestige. It then proposes future tasks, including environmental monitoring satellites, orbiting factories, an international monitoring system, Mars sample return, radio telescopes and space robots.

  • p. 6 …fragments fall to Earth. If the altitude of the injection orbit is low (less than 200…
  • p. 12 …Such operations include studies performed with space telescopes placed in circumsolar and near-Earth orbits and…
  • p. 15 …Inexpensive reusable transport systems for transport operations between low orbit and geostationary orbit. 126. 18. Space…
  • p. 21 …Radio telescopes in near-Earth orbits or, what is more effective, in Sun-satellite orbits may…
  • p. 24 …glance, to offer important advantages over Earth-based and orbital telescopes. 169. The last task could…
  • p. 33 …acceleration from a low, near-Earth orbit to a high, injection orbit (beyond the Earth's…
  • p. 35 …injection of mission spacecraft into a low, near-Earth, assembly orbit, and use of transport craft…
  • p. 36 …communications with Earth, the mission module, and the Mars rover (via the orbiter). 247. Because of…
  • p. 37 …Based on a cost of $5,000/kg to put a payload into low orbit, using…
  • p. 39 …The booster-rocket stage must lift the spacecraft from a low, near-Earth orbit to an…
  • p. 40 …from Earth in a transport spacecraft that travels between Earth and the low-orbit servicing station…
  • p. 41 …travels between Earth and orbit and the costs of operating the low-orbit servicing station, which…
  • p. 42 …cost of putting the cargo into low, near-Earth orbit were assumed to be $5,000…
  • p. 52 …Low-orbit systems of standardized satellites for environmental monitoring, studies of natural resources, and weather observations…
  • p. 53 …low orbit and geostationary orbit. 353. 10. Space robots for operations in open space in Earth…

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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1991

Document 5 of 10

example) from one planet to another.

331. Would it be okay to create such a being? Do we have the right to do that? What incentives could we inculcate in him? It is those very questions that describe the main problem. Things are different with us, probably the product of organic evolution. The instinct for survival, for continuing the species, is deeply seated in us. A species that doesn't have that instinct or in whom it's not well developed does not survive in natural selection. But never mind natural selection! When because of age, health, or living conditions that instinct dies, the individual loses the will to live. But what kind of incentive to live could we give to our creation? Curiosity? The desire to be useful to those who created his body (which is perishable and replaceable) and who raised his person and his soul? The desire to be involved in studies of the world, in ultradistant travels, in the creation of transceiver stations for travels, in the construction of space bases near stars?

332. Are those incentives persuasive? Where would such an individual get fondness and love for those around him? How would we raise him so that he wouldn't turn out to be a monster with absurd, senseless aspirations for power or for the opportunity to give orders? How would we raise him to learn from and be like his benefactor? Or just the opposite. How would we raise him so that he wouldn't turn out to be an infantile, passive being who is apathetic about the world, about those around him, and about himself?

333. And finally, there would be enormous technical problems. How do we think? How are the stereotypes of our responses, our behavior, our evaluations created? How does our individuality come about? The algorithms of our perception of the world around us, of our analysis, and of our thinking are probably created anew in every human and, to a certain extent, differently. Their nature is determined by family, friends, and enemies; by school and the structure of society; by the joys and pains and successes of childhood. A society of slaves raises slaves, a society of freemen, freemen. From that standpoint, it's very dangerous to standardize methods of education. That's the most terrible thing we can do for our future. Mankind can be strong only when there are differences, diversity, and individuality. Of course, there must be certain common bases: love those around you, don't steal, don't kill, don't covet. But to prepare man fit a mold is to prepare our own demise.

334. Without having sorted all those things out, how can we set about creating artificial intelligence?

335. But the notion of it has already entered our consciousness. Perhaps the most popular problem among the most curious and

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About this file

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. 53 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.