DATE: Saturday, September 27, 1997          TAG: 9709260022

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

GODSPEED, DAVID WOLF MIR ISN'T WORTH THE RISK OF AN AMERICAN LIFE.

If you are inclined toward prayer in times of peril, as many of us are, it would be thoughtful to include American astronaut David Wolf among those for whom you seek divine protection.

Wolf is embarked upon an intended four-month stay aboard the Russian space station Mir, to which the adjective ``troubled'' has been attached as permanently, and as deservedly, as the adjective ``durable'' has been attached to Cal Ripken.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said Thursday that ``the decision to continue our joint participation aboard Mir should not be based on emotion or politics. It should not be based on fear. A decision should be based - and is based - on scientific and technical assessment of the mission safety.''

Had he added ``prudence'' to the list of determining factors, Astronaut Wolf would still be among the Earth-bound. Computers and life-support systems continue to crash on Mir with frightening regularity. But Goldin said a ``careful and thoughtful review'' of risk and safety factors led to the conclusion that experience and data to be gained from Wolf's mission outweigh the dangers.

Goldin has ably led NASA and the American space program to a rebound from difficulties of its own. But he leads an agency whose mission is flight, so it is not surprising that he would lean toward continuing the mission. He again stressed that hands-on training aboard Mir is important in advance of the June 1998 launch of the first units of a new international space station.

Absent from these remarks, though, was specific detail of what knowledge Astronaut Wolf will add to the body of information gathered during five previous Mir missions by American astronauts. For the Mir crew these days, just keeping the computers running and the oxygen generators alive seems to be a full-time occupation. Mir has been in space for 11 1/2 years. One wonders just how applicable experience aboard a decaying antique will be in development of a new-generation space station.

In decrying the intrusion of ``politics'' into the decision-making process, one supposes Mr. Goldin refers to the House Science Committee's opposition to continued American involvement with Mir. But international politics, in reality, is playing a significant role in continuing these missions. The United States is relying on Russian cooperation in developing the new space station. Without the hundreds of millions of dollars the United States pays to place astronauts aboard Mir, that cooperation might be jeopardized. And bright post-Soviet science minds, as the theory goes, might be forced to support themselves by going to work in the defense industries of potential American military adversaries.

It is disingenuous of Mr. Goldin to sneer at politics in one direction while bowing to it in another.

But the decision has been made, the launch has taken place, and Astronaut Wolf is off on his great adventure. Whether it ultimately proves to have been worth the effort, let us all hope that in four months he is back among us, sharing whatever it is he may have learned.

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