World : Cosmonaut Space Effects Minimal

MOSCOW — Two cosmonauts who spent a year in space suffered fewer physical effects than expected, and there do not appear to be any barriers to even longer missions, Soviet space specialists said today.

“Longer flights, we believe, are quite possible, and we think they will be carried out,” Anatoly Grigoryev, director of the Institute of Bio-Medical Problems of the Soviet Health Ministry, told a news conference. Grigoryev said cosmonauts Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov, who returned to Earth on Dec. 21, suffered some atrophy of their calf muscles and some loss of calcium, as have other cosmonauts, but an exercise and training program lessened the effects.