MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax-AVN) - Humankind will refuse to use space for military purposes and will join efforts to use it in the interests of peace, thinks Pavel Popovich, a member of the first team of cosmonauts.
"Although I am a general who once was involved into the studies of space warfare, I am all against using space for military purposes. And I believe that humankind will finally think the same," Popovich told Interfax-Military News Agency at the presentation of the book titled 'World Manned Space Flits. History. Equipment. People' in Moscow on Friday.
Popovich added that he had been a crewmember of the Almaz (also known as Salyut-4) combat space station in the 1970s.
"Our main objective was to conduct overall reconnaissance in all spectrums. We also had a gun installed, just in case somebody wanted to inspect what we were doing over there," he said.
According to him, the U.S. also built a number of such stations. "However, they made little progress in this. Time passed and such programs turned unnecessary for political reasons," he added.
However, Popovich expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that military use of space is still an issue on the agenda.
"It is wrong. The world should cancel all military plans in space, and concentrate efforts on using space for peaceful purposes, like flights to Mars or Venus," he said.
The main objective of international cosmonautics should be the prevention of all kinds of natural disasters, Popovich noted.
"Yet Konstantin Tsiolkovsky used to say that space will give the humankind unprecedented power and large amounts of bread. He did not mean military power of course, but the power of mankind to control the universe," he said.
Popovich added that space provides fantastic opportunities in detecting the places where typhoons are formed. "I am dead sure that there are ways and methods to render hurricanes and typhoons ineffective already now, as it is common knowledge that humanity can counter thunderstorms. Why not using space for this?" he said.
The new book on manned space flights was edited by pilot-cosmonaut Yury Baturin. Its 700 pages narrate the history of Russian and foreign manned space flights, casting light on many military space programs of the USSR, the U.S., China and some other countries.