Vladimir V. Rubtsov,
U1.Chernishevskogo,88,kv.66,
Kharkov 310023,
U.S.S.R.
December 13, 1988
Mr. Richard C. Hoagland %The Mars Mission
P.O. Box 981 Wytheville, VA 24382, U.S.A.
Dear Richard:
(May I call you in such an informal way? We are more or less of the same age!) Many thanks for your letter of August 15,as well as for the materials you have sent me so kindly. Excuse me, please, for the extremely long delay in answering - I was really overpressed by my current work.
I am much glad that our ETI book reached you safely. Now we are searching for a foreign publisher who would be bold enough to issue its English translation. Alas, the prospects of a financial success are in this case rather dull ...
The article of M.J. Carlotto is very convincing and well-founded. It is of much importance that it has been published in a really serious journal, not just in a popular magazine. The ETI studies have been deeply damaged, up
to this time, by their half - professional (to say the least) character.
Now the situation changes considerably, in many respects owing to the work of The Mars Project. Of course, I will be glad to get the newsletter "The Mars Horizon" and to take part in this endeavor.
It is fine that your ideas got a nation-wide coverage in the United States. Which are the result of your address at the engineering colloquium at Goddard please? I will try to contact Dr. R. Z. Sagdeev and to find out whether any additional investigations of the "Face site" may be realizable in the near future. In principle, there must be no technical difficulties for such an attempt with a "Phobos" probe, but there may be some organizational ones
(the more so, that now only one of these probes is "alive").
The article of E.O. Torun is also interesting, although your remarks are more than justified. A theoretical prediction of new significant sites on Mars and Earth and its subsequent confirmation would be a crucial step forward in our investigations.
There is a chance that I may go to Chicago the next August, for participating in the work of a conference. Unfortunately, it does not seem very likely that I will be able to visit Virginia during my stay in the USA, but I'd like to hope for a possibility to meet you there and to discuss the problems we are interested in, more closely.
I wish you and yours a happy Christmas and a very successful New Year!
Sincerely,
Vladimir