Soviets honour shuttle women

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 6

Soviets honour shuttle women

•NZPA-AP Moscow Soviet cartographers had decided to name two craters on the planet Venus in honour of the teacher, Christa' McAuliffe," and the astronaut, Judy Resnik, who were killed in the shuttle explosion, a newspaper said at the week-end. The dally, “Sotsiallstlcheskaya Industriya” (Socialist Industry) said the decision to name the craters on Venus after the dead Americans had been reached on Friday, just before it was to print an article about the cartography of Venus. The paper said Soviet cartographers had drawn the first map of Venus in 1975, It had been decided then to name features on the planet only after women. Most other women honoured so far were famous in Czarist Russia or in early Soviet history. Two other newspapers said at the week-end that Americans were questioning the space programme

and the;’development of "star wars”; weapons be-cause-of the Challenger tragedy; z . The disaster “has been a a blow ionone of the main postulates of advocates of the' ‘star wars’ programme — that it is technologically possible to create ‘impenetrable antiballistic missile defence systems,’ which Is supposed to make nuclear weapons obsolete and ensure peace all over the world,” said the Communist Party daily, “Pravda.” The Army daily, “Krasnaya Zvezda" (Red Star) said that Americans swere questioning the validity of a space-based missile defence, asking whether a technical error might lead to a global catastrophe. The Soviet news media, after printing initially neutral reports on the Challenger tragedy, have suggested since Friday that the disaster was a warning to abandon the strategic defence initiative, or “star wars.”