Category NASA in the World

I have always claimed with gratitude that CNES is the child of NASA, and I would add, the loving child of NASA. There has always been a great friendship and mutual understanding between the two agencies. . .

Jacques Blamont17

Nazi missiles raining down on their country stimulated the French military’s interest in rocketry.18 About 100 V-1s fell between June and September 1944; almost 80 V-2s struck in four weeks from September to October that year. Henri Moreau, the director of a Parisian laboratory, was so impressed with the weapons that he made several trips to Germany to study them more closely, including a visit to the infamous production facility at Nordhausen. Moreau brought back nine wagon loads of missile parts and signed an agreement with the American authorities to receive ten complete V-2s. These were never delivered, presumably because of the presence of communist ministers in the postwar French govern­ment and in important scientific organizations.

A ballistic missile research laboratory was established at Vernon in May 1946 to exploit the spoils of war, a test range was built at Colomb-Bechar in the Sahara Desert, and 123 German engineers and technicians who had been involved in Von Braun’s program at Peenemunde were employed under contract to work on missiles for the French military. One of them, Karl-Heinz Bringer, was to stay in France and play a crucial role in developing the pro­pulsion systems for the French sounding rocket Veronique as well as its first missile-derived satellite launcher, Diamant, and the immensely successful European rocket, Ariane.19

France was ill-prepared for the opportunities provided by the IGY. Contrary to Britain, it had no space policy, no institutions to promote it, no technologi­cal or industrial capability in the space sector, and no space science community. This was partly because of the weakness of science in France after the war, and its inability to organize groups having a critical mass, partly due to interser­vice rivalry between the technical branches of the three arms of the military, and partly due to the huge investment, undertaken in 1956, to test a French atomic bomb within four years. In summer 1958 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lamented the country’s marginal influence on the international scene. The dis­persal of already limited resources between different administrative organs made it impossible for France to speak with one voice. The essentially military charac­ter of its rocket program excluded it from playing a role in COSPAR.

The arrival of President General de Gaulle to power in June 1958 was trans­formative. De Gaulle was determined to strengthen the country’s scientific and technological capability, believing that it was essential to reestablishing “la grandeur de la France” and to its strategic independence. A major missile pro­gram was established to provide an independent nuclear deterrent. A new civil Committee for Space Research was set up in January 1959 at the request of the minister of foreign affairs. Its brief was to take stock of the resources already at hand, to draw up a plan for the future, and to advise the prime minister on national and international space policy.

With space assuming a new significance, considerable resources were released for a campaign using an enhanced Veronique-IGY sounding rocket. The first launches that got under way in March 1959 were a spectacular success. The payloads were provided by a newly minted PhD, Jacques Blamont, who had worked at the University of Wisconsin in 1957. Blamont visited the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories near Boston on his way home, where he was given the blueprint of the mechanism for ejecting sodium vapor into the atmo­sphere that was being used with the American Aerobee sounding rocket. It was perfectly adapted to the limitations of the French situation at the time: cheap, solid, simple, of proven success, and it did not require any electronic equipment. Three German engineers prepared the rockets for launch at Colomb Bechar. Though the first launch did not attain the expected height the next two achieved their objectives. The ejector released a huge orange sodium cloud over Algeria between 90 and 130 kilometers, and then between 90 and 180 kilometers.

On Blamont’s telling, in addition to its scientific achievements, this campaign had two major consequences. First, there was renewed interest in having a French space program. The rocket-borne sodium clouds that could be seen hundreds of kilometers away for over an hour were given wide media coverage. The public was so enthralled that hundreds of newborn girls were named Veronique.20 Second, it brought him together with Robert Aubiniere, “a brilliant army colonel whose ambitions were inspired by technology and the future.”21 Strong bonds were quickly established between the two men and with Aubiniere’s support previ­ously unimaginable resources were made available for Blamont and for French space science. What is more, the authorities were persuaded that France now had the means to move beyond sounding rockets to ballistic missiles and satel­lite launchers. In March 1962 the French national space agency, CNES (Centre national d’etudes spatiales) came into being to replace the Committee for Space Research. Over the years the agency developed launchers, built a national sat­ellite industry, a tracking network, and a dedicated equatorial launch pad in Kourou, French Guyana, as well as being responsible for international affairs.

Relationships with the United States were an important source of train­ing and of legitimacy for the young community of French space scientists and engineers. Bell labs helped engineers from the national center for telecommu­nications research (CNET—Centre nationale d’etudes de telecommunications) to build a ground station at Pleumeur-Boudou to receive signals from Telstar 1.22 Blamont’s sodium vapor experiment was followed by an invitation to the Goddard Space Flight Center in October 1959. NASA encouraged Blamont to extend the range of his investigations to higher altitudes and in 1960 and 1961 he launched his payload with Javelin sounding rockets from Wallops Island, reach­ing an altitude of 600 kilometers (compared to 200 meters for Veronique). In March 1961 a formal agreement was signed in Washington for launching French payloads on American rockets and for hosting French engineers in NASA centers in the framework of the COSPAR offer. A French group took over a major bal­loon project that had lost support in the United States, and which they baptized Eole. In 1963 CNES and NASA signed a protocol defining a two-phase FR1 program: sounding-rocket studies of the upper atmosphere between 75 and 100 kilometers followed by the launch of a scientific satellite using a Scout.

The origins of Eole can be traced back to a project called GHOST (Global Horizontal Sounding Technique) promoted by Vincent Lally at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. Lally suggested floating 2,000 mylar bal­loons in low earth orbit along with a system of satellites that would localize them and relay meteorological measurements made at different heights back to earth.23 This corresponded with a surge of interest in mathematical models of the atmosphere that needed an input of fresh data points at least once a day. Blamont realized that a project of this kind was one that was both prestigious and politically visible and NASA agreed that France pursue it. Eole was led by Pierre Morel using mylar balloons imported from the United States. About 500 balloons were launched from stations constructed in Argentina for the project. The lifetime of each was about 103 days, and each took some 8 days to go around the world. The project was haunted by the fear of a collision with high­flying aircraft and was gradually wound down. Morel’s conclusion is uncompro­mising. Eole, he says, was a courageous and risky choice but it was not a scientific success. His team launched less balloons than they had hoped. The project was premature given the state of knowledge at the time, and it was undertaken in a hemisphere about which the French scientists knew very little.

NASA’s help was unstinting in the FR1 program. Arnold Frutkin and Jack Townsend arranged for 12 young, enthusiastic French engineers to spend six months at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each worked in a separate technical domain and was instructed to establish bonds of mutual respect and friendship with their American colleagues. Whenever possible, contracts for the hardware were placed with French firms; otherwise NASA helped arrange for orders to be given to American companies that were visited regularly by CNES engineers to improve their own skills. To facilitate communications with NASA’s tracking network the French used the already crowded VHF bands that NASA used, 136 MHz for telemetry, 148 MHz for tele-command. Relationships were warm, and with the help of NASA the French were able to proceed far more rapidly, and with a reduced risk, than if they had worked alone. Sam Stevens, the project leader at NASA was particularly effective. Jean Pierre Causse, the first director of the satellite division at CNES, affectionately remembers him as a kind of elder brother who freely gave of his advice without ever imposing his solutions. In fact this support meant so much to him that at a recent conference Causse exclaimed, “Thank you Sam! Bravo NASA and the United States!”24

The construction of FR1 also established close ties between Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW) and Matra.25 TRW sought international partners to strengthen its bid for communications satellites being built by Comsat on behalf of Intelsat (see chapter 5), while the French firm sought an American partner to build its credibility as a prime contractor for projects being developed by CNES and by ESRO (the European Space Research Organization). In 1965 a “Technical Assistance and License Agreement” was signed between Matra and TRW’s Space Technology Laboratories division (STL) that allowed Matra to have access to the patents and know-how of STL through visits and internships of French engineers and technicians at its headquarters in California. The inter­penetration of practices between the two firms was so great that one senior ESA official reputedly remarked that “[w]hen one spoke with people from Matra one had the impression that one was speaking to American industrialists.”26

In 1964 NASA established an office in Paris that gave the agency a permanent representative in Europe. The first to arrive was Gilbert Ousley, who left GSFC in 1964 to take up his new post. He has described his role at the time as primar­ily being “to find cooperative programs which would benefit NASA and which in our judgment could be done with a partner that would live up to their side of the agreement.” The training offered at GSFC was not simply intended to bring young French scientists and engineers up to speed, however. It was also intended to export NASA’s way of running projects abroad. As Ousley puts it, it

was a great excuse for us to really share technology and training but we also had a selfish purpose. It was to get young engineers that were experienced to participate in our program and later come back to France speaking the same terminology that NASA uses, that understood our review process and did not feel insulted by peers looking at what was being done and making constructive criticism.27

Jean Pierre Causse amplified this by stressing how important the NASA man­agement principles of “no exchange of funds,” memoranda of understanding, a single project manager, design reviews, systematic testing by engineers in the project and in industry, and so on were to the success of the French teams sent to Goddard.28 This flow of management practices across the Atlantic from TRW and from GSFC was a characteristic feature of NASA’s relationship with European projects in the 1960s and 1970s, as Stephen Johnson has shown, and played a major role in helping Europeans acquire the skills needed to bring com­plex space projects to fruition.29

Close collaboration with France also had an important political and ideologi­cal role. Many French scientists were left-wing. Working with NASA sharpened their perception of the differences between the two world systems. Roger Bonnet, for example, who grew up in a communist family was first attracted to space by Soviet achievements. And even if he would have liked to work closely with Soviet colleagues, he found that, by adopting an “open policy of information which we could not always get from the Russians,” NASA “could attract and involve the best foreign scientists in their programs, directly or indirectly [. . .] So, ultimately there was a greater appeal to cooperate with the Americans.”30

From NASA’s point of view, collaboration with France did not simply kick – start the national space program, and build a community that adopted NASA’s management practices, so facilitating the day-to-day technical cooperation between people on both sides of the Atlantic. It was also an instrument of “soft power” that provided a counterweight to the attraction that some French scien­tists felt for working with the highly successful Soviet program.31

In July 1970 the European Space Conference took a major step forward in what came to be known as the first package deal.75 At the core of this deal lay the decision to reorient ESRO’s mission away from scientific satellites toward appli­cations, with top priority being given to a communications and an aeronauti­cal satellite. ELDO would continue to work on the completion of the Europa II launcher. Belgium, France, and West Germany, along with the Netherlands (to the end of 1971 only) were also willing to go it alone and to embark on the development of a more powerful launcher, Europa III.76 The delegates also agreed to establish a working group that would draft a convention establishing a single European space agency, similar to NASA. Collaboration with the United States was not neglected. Not only did the ESC commit itself to an immedi­ate start on the project definition phase of an aeronautical satellite (Aerosat) in cooperation with NASA, it also wanted “all possibilities” for European partici­pation in the post-Apollo program to be studied by a working group of ESRO and ELDO officials in consultation with NASA. It voted $2.5 million through June 1971 for studies of the space tug.

The American authorities were heartened by these developments. The Europeans would gain technical, managerial, and industrial benefits, would be able to “avoid investment in the development of redundant European launch capabilities,” and would be given additional assurances regarding American launchers and launch services.77 For the United States, a major European con­tribution could be of substantial domestic value. It would bring in financial resources and technology, and enhance the use of the systems, so strengthening the justification for developing them. It would improve NASA’s political hand as it battled for its budgets. As George Low wrote in a memo intended to “empha­size [his] own enthusiastic and strong support” for “wide and meaningful coop­eration in the post-Apollo program”—if successful, such a project would “have a strong influence on support for our post-Apollo program objectives both in Congress and within the Executive Branch.”78 It would also provide a template for further partnerships of this type, and contribute to the North Atlantic alli­ance. On the down side, a joint project would be more complex to manage, for “although the Europeans will be heavily dependent on us, we will become dependent in some measure on them.” But only in some measure: this was not a level playing field, as emphasized in a position paper prepared for the State Department:

In view of the preponderance of U. S. resources and effort which will be put into the development of these systems and the far greater use which the U. S. will have for them, when operational, this collaboration with the Europeans would be very asymmetrical [. . . ]. There will be no credible basis on which this collaboration could be viewed as an equal partnership. The responsibility and control will neces­sarily be American.79

The challenge then was to give the Europeans a meaningful stake in a pro­gram in which the balance of power was tilted heavily toward their partner.

On September 16-17, 1970, a delegation led by the Belgian minister of state in charge of scientific policy and planning, Theo Lefevre, was hosted by the Department of State in Washington, DC. Lefevre headed the mission in his capacity as chairman of the ESC. He was assisted by J. F. Denisse, the president of the French national space agency, and Lord Bessborough, the United Kingdom’s minister of state in the Ministry of Technology. Causse and Dinkespiler were among the very few scientists and engineers present. The American delegation was headed U. Alexis Johnson for the State Department. The other principal members were George Low in his capacity as acting NASA administrator, Edward David, the science advisor to the president, William Anders, the executive sec­retary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, and John Morse, deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO Affairs. Senior staff mem­bers from these various arms of the administration attended as advisors, includ­ing Arnold Frutkin and Dale Myers, NASA’s associate administrator for Manned Space Flight. This was then a discussion at a very high level of a “preliminary and exploratory character,” to sound out the “political, financial and other implica­tions of an eventual European participation” in the post Apollo program.

The meeting moved beyond the usual formalities and exchanges of views and tried to make concrete progress on fundamental matters of policy.80 During the opening session on September 16 the members of the American delegation made brief statements expressing their enthusiasm for European participation in post-Apollo, while taking care to add that the program had not yet been officially adopted. They indicated possible areas where the Europeans may like to cooperate, from building a discrete element of the orbiter to participating in an integrated system. They remarked that the collaboration would be guided by no exchange of funds and management integrity. A number of other items that were of concern to Europeans—access to information and facilities and participation in decision-making—were addressed. However, the burning issue, and the one almost immediately raised by Lefevre, concerned the availability of launchers. Europe, Lefevre said, did not have the financial means to maintain an independent capability in satellites and launchers and to participate in the post-Apollo program. Faced with this dilemma, it had to have US launchers available “without political conditions, and on a commercial basis.” There was a preliminary exchange of views on these issues the next morning.81 Two weeks later, on October 2, 1970, the US undersecretary of state officially replied to Lefevre. His 14-page letter carefully described the administration’s thoughts on three key European concerns: acquisition of launch services and launch vehicles, the extent of European involvement in decision-making, and European access to US information and facilities.

Johnson reassured the Europeans that they would have a role in decision­making and management commensurate with the extent of their participation. They would be consulted in the development of the shuttle and the space station whenever matters arose of “significant, mutual concern to both parties.” There would be an “extensive role” for Europe in the management of those areas in which its contractors were involved, even if they worked under an American prime. Europe would also have to be “a partner in reaching any decisions which have a measurable impact upon European costs or European tasks.” As regards the use of either the shuttle or the space station, “we would expect Europe to take part in mission planning and experimental programs in generous propor­tion to their use.” That said, given the preponderance in the United States’ con­tribution to both development and use, “overall responsibility for management of the post-Apollo program would necessarily rest with the U. S.”82

As for access to information and facilities, Johnson noted that the aim was to make optimum use of resources and skills on both sides of the Atlantic. In doing so one had to distinguish between general and detailed access to technical data and facilities. All countries would have general access, meaning access through visits and published information, to all technology and facilities in the over­all development of the program. Detailed access—meaning “access to design, development, and production data to the level of commercial know-how”— would be allowed to participating countries “commensurate with the measure and character of their participation.”83 It would be released by the United States or by Europe “on a need-to-know basis necessary for the accomplishment of their specific tasks under the agreed collaboration,” and in phase with their progress with those tasks.84 Access to technological know-how was thus tied directly to the extent of investment and participation, and was not a generalized right that could be acquired with a minimum of effort by the foreign partner. As Frutkin put it in a briefing document, Europe can “determine the extent of its access to commercial know-how in the program by increasing its contribution, and through it the number of interfaces it will be involved in, and through its requirements for such information.”85

Sensitive information, classified or unclassified, was not directly dealt with in the meeting on September 16-17, but the State Department had prepared itself for the question if it arose. Only individuals or teams clearly identified as requir­ing it would be granted access to this knowledge, it would be restricted to the location where the work was done, and it could not be transferred or applied in strategic military weapons systems. If by chance guidance or reentry technology was involved Europeans could only be allowed access to such knowledge “if it could be clearly demonstrated that (1) better technology and know-how exists in the prospective contributing country or, (2) in the case of only equivalent technology and know-how, there are over-riding reasons to seek foreign par­ticipation in these areas, and (3) neither the U. S. technology nor end products resulting from it would be transferred to any third party.”86 In sum, if there was little to lose the need for international collaboration could trump national security, but only under the strictest need-to-know regime and with appropriate safeguards.

The launcher policy described by Johnson was effectively that agreed between NASA and the State Department in July (see earlier).87 It was conditional on Europe making a substantial contribution to the program, meaning “at least 10%” of its estimated cost of some $10 billion over ten years. This share could be met by contributing significant new technology to the system, or by developing a major system or subsystem, or by a combination of these. If the Europeans were willing to make this 10 percent-plus financial engagement, the United States “would no longer determine the availability of launch services for European payloads on a unilateral case-by-case basis”: American and European interests would be on an “equal footing” with regards to the supply of launchers “for pos­sible commercially competitive purposes.” This “blanket assurance” to launch had to be “consistent with relevant international agreements,” however: the United States would respect the decisions of the Intelsat Assembly of Parties. In particular, unless two-thirds of the Intelsat member states voted that a proposed separate system did do significant economic harm to the global system (a “nega­tive finding”), the United States would launch for Europe.

Johnson did not want to provide substantive criteria for “significant economic harm,” as requested by the Europeans. The Intelsat negotiations were drawing to a close, major concessions had been made, and this was no time to reopen the debate on the highly contested Article XIV of the definitive agreements. However, he did stress that the United States “would provide the requested launcher facilities [. . .] even if it had voted against the project.”88 On the other hand, if there was a negative finding, the United States would still “consider their position, without saying that under no circumstances could they provide launchers”89 In short Johnson assured the Europeans, however significant eco­nomic harm was defined, the United States would not apply “the principle of being consistent with Intelsat arrangements” “in a narrow way.”90

The general philosophy underlying Washington’s position is clear. It was no longer trying to “help” a weaker ally, as in the 1960s. Europeans had a finan­cial, technological, and industrial contribution to make to post-Apollo. Once they had decided what they wanted to do, the United States would determine how best to meet their requirements, consistent with Washington’s desire to foster international collaboration and to protect its national interests broadly defined. Of course the relationship would, of necessity, be dominated by the United States. The asymmetries in contributions of all kinds were evident, “Nor will it be in our interest to attempt to enhance the benefits for the Europeans artificially.”91 Thus time and again when the Europeans sought to be treated as “equal partners”—in decision-making, in access to technology, in negotia­tions with third countries—they were reminded of their subordinate position. Europe’s ability to influence events would be proportional to their share in the program and restricted to the areas in which they were directly engaged.

The position on launchers followed the general pattern: greater US flexibility was tied to substantial European participation. The State Department made it clear that, if that participation was forthcoming, the United States had no inten­tion of using its power in Intelsat to indiscriminately protect American interests. The willingness to interpret voting majorities in terms of a negative finding, which favored the petitioner, was indicative of this flexibility.

Of course, there were still areas of uncertainty. How binding on the United States was a “negative finding”? How did one measure “significant economic harm”? Johnson recognized Europe’s fears of being held hostage to American launch policy if they did not retain independent access to space. He was willing to give near-blanket assurances of launcher availability: after all, there was a differ­ence between launching foreign payloads “subject to case-by-case determination on the one hand and, on the other, offering an assured, on-going commitment to do so for all European space projects (so long as they are for peaceful purposes and consistent with international agreements.)”92 However, he was extremely reluctant to commit the United States to launch European telecommunications satellites “unconditionally,” and in defiance of a “negative finding” by two-thirds of the appropriate Intelsat organ—a situation that, he thought, was most unlikely to arise anyway.

While the US authorities played down the difference between the two par­ties, the Europeans tended to emphasize them. Lefevre insisted that an adverse recommendation in Intelsat was not legally binding, and that Europe could legitimately defy it if it had its own launcher. Europeans also wanted to inter­pret “economic harm” so widely that they could reconcile their commitment to Intelsat with “projects which could be competitive with Intelsat rules without jeopardizing its existence.” Johnson was emphatic that the credibility of the United States as an international actor demanded that it respect the decisions taken by Intelsat (even if it had voted against them). Europe could not be treated differently to any other petitioner. The United States, Johnson wrote to Lefevre on October 2, 1970, “would adhere to the language and intent of article XIV, and would expect other countries to do the same.”93

Beginnings

The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in space is quite accurately portrayed as one of fierce competition. The launch of the Sputniks in late 1957 and Gagarin’s flight in 1961 were deep blows to American pride. They challenged preconceptions about the superiority of American sci­ence and technology, even about the superiority of the capitalist system itself. Thus, the global struggle for “the soul of mankind” inscribed itself upon a mul­titude of scientific instruments, launch systems, institutions, and individuals.1 For many years, historians have labored to reconcile the paradoxes of Soviet- American cooperation in space with the space and missile races of the mid-twen­tieth century.

Such histories commonly open with speculation centered on the likelihood of a joint lunar mission proposed by President Kennedy to Premier Khrushchev.2 Indeed, Kennedy’s famed May 1961 “Moon Speech,” announcing the United States’ “race to the moon” was bookended by both covert and public invitations to collaborate.3 In so doing, Kennedy unwittingly set up audacious expecta­tions for astronauts and cosmonauts to explore the moon and beyond. With human spaceflight as the agency’s signature activity, scholars have struggled to assign some sort of reason to the two nations’ rocky progression from (what was apparently) an utter lack of intercourse to the stilted Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and finally the interdependence of the International Space Station.4 Geopolitics became reified in human spaceflight: cold shoulders through the dire years of missile and space races; detente’s climactic 1975 handshake in space; and finally, the Cold War denouement in the International Space Station agreements.

Beginning with the Kennedy-Khrushchev moon flirtations, historians have characterized US offers for cooperation as meeting a “rhetorical goal” and functioning as a “benign hypocrisy.” Operating as such, the US space program appeared open to Soviet contributions, but at the same time participated in implicit competition to outdo their rival in hardware and soft power perfor­mances. Such narratives explain the complex motives and political economy of major commitments such as a joint lunar expedition, the ASTP, or the ISS.

Well-publicized, expensive, and demanding years of lead-time, these projects were carefully orchestrated under the watchful eyes of presidential administra­tions and Congress (whose interests at times conflicted with one another and/ or NASA administration).

On the flip side of the coin, the many years spanning Kennedy’s joint lunar base offer and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as well as those years separating ASTP and the International Space Station Agreements are commonly explained by intractable negotiations on diplomatic fronts: wrangling over nonprolifera­tion treaties, controversy over interventions in the developing world, or the uncompromising political will of heads of state. Collaboration seems impossible at these times.

These two chapters aim to add breadth to that presumption, exploring Soviet – American collaboration through the following questions. To what degrees did representatives of NASA attempt to sustain collaborative activities since the 1957-1958 IGY? To what degree might collaborative activities have been shaped by the interests of researchers and policymakers representing state, national, and transnational scientific organizations?

It remains something of a paradox that the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics/Russia have cooperated in space exploration for more than half a century. While their relations have been strained by fears of technol­ogy transfer, threatened by executive posturing, and reshaped by fiscal consider­ations, to fluctuating degrees individuals making up these research communities have labored steadily to share resources and exchange information.

The year 1991 ushered in a flurry of activity, calibrated to the rapid disarmament of both Soviet and American Cold War era weapons arsenals. At the July 1991 Bush-Gorbachev summit, the two signed the START I treaty, agreeing to cut their weapons base by roughly two-thirds. While meeting, they also signed an Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. As with previous agreements (including 1987, 1977, 1972, 1971, and to a lesser extent, 1962), the agreement charged joint working groups (JWGs) to negotiate cooperation in a number of fields including space biology and medicine, solar system exploration, space astronomy and astrophys­ics, solar-terrestrial physics, and earth sciences.

As detailed in chapter 7, cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union tapered off considerably in the 1980s, but by no means stopped. Several instruments were being built and flown on host satellites: between 1987 and 1997 a total of 70 NASA life science experiments flew on three Soviet/Russian bio­satellites.10 In August 1991, NASA sent its Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer into orbit aboard a Russian Cyclone (Tsyklon) rocket.11 That same year, using a research ship, a plane, and a ground station, Soviet scientists made observations of chemical releases in the Caribbean for the American Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite program.

Four themes in the Agreement for Cooperation captured the limelight. For one, this agreement called for preliminary cooperation on the Shuttle-Mir mis­sions. Second, in a revolutionary change in trade limitations, Russia would be permitted to submit a bid for launching one US-built Inmarsat 3 communications satellite (a tremendously important shift in international trade relations, permit­ting the launch of a US instrument on a Soviet lifter). Third, the United States would contribute a hard lander to Russia’s Mars 94 spacecraft. And finally, the two nations would explore the possibility of using the Soyuz-TM as a “lifeboat” for the space station in medical or technical emergencies (also known as an Assured Crew Return Vehicle or ACRV).12 NASA and the White House viewed these projects as just the beginning of a long-term relationship in space exploration.

In July 1992, one month after the Bush-Yeltsin summit and just three months after taking office as NASA administrator, Daniel Goldin joined a delegation of military, industrial, and scientific leaders heading to the former Soviet Union. Led by NASA and the National Space Council, this interagency delegation included Brian Dailey (new staff director of the National Space Council), Martin Faga (assistant secretary of the Air Force for space), and representatives of the National Security Council, State Department, and Central Intelligence Agency. Following the failure of the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989, the Bush administration was interested in implementing significant changes in NASA functionality. To this end they recruited Daniel Goldin from TRW Space Technology Group, where he had considerable success running space programs using minimal mana­gerial structures and streamlined engineering practices. Goldin’s mandate was to implement a top-down change in NASA practices and procedures (in parallel to the space sciences success with “Faster, Better, Cheaper”).13

Following a visit to European Space Agency facilities in Germany, the delega­tion went on to a number of institutions in Russia and Ukraine. These included sites geared for both human and robotic space activities including the Russian Flight Control Center (TsUp), NPO Energia, NPO Energomash, Khrunichev, KB Salyut, Babakin Research and Test Center, Lavotchkin, NPO Zvezda, and the Yuriy Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (Star City). NASA and NSC rep­resentatives met with the directors of the institutes visited. They also met with the heads of the Russian Committee for Hydrometeorology & Monitoring the Environment, the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP—responsible for the Bion satellites detailed in chapter 7), the Ministry of Industry, the Department of Aviation Industry, the Central Aerohydro dynamics Institute (TsAGI), and the Institute of Aviation Motors.

The Goldin-Dailey delegation departed on July 17. On July 18 a second American delegation arrived. It was headed by the director of the Office of Space Commerce (in the Department of Commerce). In the days to come, senior management and engineers from 17 leading aerospace firms visited more than 40 locations in Russia. They met with representatives of design bureaus, scien­tific production associations, research institutes, and production enterprises to discuss possible joint ventures. Administrator Goldin explained the significance of the second delegation—the US government aimed to cultivate “genuine” partnerships among Russian and US firms. Hoping to thwart accusations that aerospace firms were unnecessary middlemen in state collaboration, he went on to explain that this Department of Commerce trip was necessary for US aerospace companies to assess Russian technologies and that the Russians were planning a similar trip in reciprocation in the hope of finding routes for Russian – American business partnerships.14

Transnational projects occupied a minefield of political and economic con­siderations, making it a shrewd decision for the government and industry execu­tives to travel separately. Might Russian launch vehicles infringe on the budding US commercial launch market? If NASA purchased surplus hardware from the Russians, would savings in taxpayer dollars outweigh the “cost” of engineer­ing and production work lost? Might profits from civil space and aviation joint ventures help US firms weather cuts in defense spending? That being said, was the government merely offering Lockheed, Boeing, Rockwell, and the like new “subsidies” intended to help weather recent defense cuts?

Instead, proponents suggested that the adaptive reuse of Soviet surplus equipment such as the Topaz reactor, electric rocket thrusters, and the dock­ing module originally intended for Buran-Mir missions provided value-added work to US industries. At the same time this hardware cut research and devel­opment overhead for NASA and the Department of Defense. Dan Goldin’s observations, though understandably crafted to appeal to the appropriate audience, reflect the tricky nature of Russian-American business dealings. Aviation Week and Space Technology explained that “[a]dministration offi­cials are eager to involve US companies in the cooperative process, but they do not discount the possibility that government funds will flow directly to Russia to purchase space hardware.” Addressing the specter of post-Cold War unemployment, Goldin intimated that he desired to be particularly careful that the US civil space program did not add to the woes of the aerospace industry as defense spending dropped precipitously.15 Rather than (in his own words) simply “ship money to Russia and get back a product,” the new NASA administrator suggested that these new international deals could wind up a win-win situation: with taxpayers saving money and US firms acting as prime contractors on retrofit projects concerning Russian machines. “Do we want to make work for Americans, or do we want Americans to do value-added work?” he asked.16

In the weeks that the Goldin-Dailey delegation and the Office of Space Commerce industrial commission toured Russia and Ukraine, they observed a network of communities in painful transition. What remained of the Soviet scientific research base writ large were roughly 400,000 public and semipri­vate institutions. Nested within complex hierarchies, some were at technical universities, others specialist institutions, and many situated within entire “closed” cities of technical specialization.17 These included organizations such as the Institute of Microelectronics and High Purity Materials, the Research Institute of Robotics and Engineering Cybernetics, the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, and the St. Petersburg Aerospace Instrumentation University, all in need of funding and all in need of administrative direction. Some institutes, such as the Committee for Hydrometeorology, dated to the Cold War era. The Russian Academy of Sciences was reestablished, its origins dating to Peter the Great.

The 1969 agreement on the transfer of launcher technology to Japan catalyzed renewed efforts in the country to establish a centralized body responsible for space that was similar to NASA. Japan’s National Aeronautics and Space Development Agency (NASDA) was established to that end. Though ISAS was sidelined in favor of NASDA, both these bodies along with a few other government agencies and private corporations steered the Japanese space program until an umbrella organization called the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was formed in 2003.29 Cognizant of the “growing pains” of building and establishing a space program in Japan, of the geopolitical realities during the Cold War, and of domestic politics in Japan, over the last 50 years NASA has identified selective niches within ISAS, NASDA, and later JAXA for scientific and technological col­laborative endeavors.

NASDA was established as a public organization on October 1, 1969, with strong support from both the minister of science and technology and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato. It operated under the policy guidance of the STA who provided its budget, along with some government agencies. NASDA took over the functions of the National Space Development Center and of the Ionosphere Sounding Satellite Division of the Radio Research Laboratories of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and included engineers and scientists from both academic and industrial circles.

The timing of the creation of NASDA reflected the trajectory space was tak­ing toward the application needs of nation-states. The agency took the lead in the development of space application capabilities in Japan, including satellites for remote sensing, communications, and meteorological observation, the develop­ment of launch vehicles for those satellites and the development of facilities for production, testing, and tracking the satellites. It also benefited from a change in Washington’s foreign policy initiatives in the 1970s that saw the waning of a “special dependency relationship” that had characterized US-Japan relations since the end of World War II. The opening of China during the Nixon administra­tion and the “changing nature of the cold war—detente with Soviet Union, the evolution of a new world economy, and domestic forces transformed the Pacific alliance.”30 This was reflected in NASA administrator Tom Paine’s invitation to Japan in March 1970 to participate in the post-Apollo program (see chapter 4).

While the Japanese space community was eager to participate in the post-Apollo program, it was unclear what they could contribute. Uncertainties over the evolv­ing configuration of the post-Apollo program itself (chapters 4 and 5) were com­pounded by the reorganization of the national program, and the limited resources Japan had for space. Minister Nishida noted that the country could only make a useful contribution to post-Apollo if it had achieved something significant of its own, and was suitably advanced technologically: “real international cooperation” was otherwise impossible.31 Notwithstanding these reservations a special commit­tee was formed by the Space Activities Commission on July 1, 1970, to consider what contributions Japan could make. It sought clarity from NASA on its detailed plans, but to little avail given the fluid nature of the situation in the United States and Frutkin’s determination that potential partners should bring their own sug­gestions to the table (see chapter 4). A top-level team visited NASA field centers and contractors in July 1971 and had extensive discussions with Arnold Frutkin at the NASA headquarters.32 The lesson that was drawn was that Japan should first close the technological gap with other countries by developing space technolo­gies indigenously. The Special Committee backed off from any major participa­tion in the shuttle, recommending instead, in its final report filed in May 1974, that Japan prepare experiments to use the shuttle and Spacelab, doing its best to develop and supply the hardware itself.33 It also recommended that when the next generation system for human spaceflight was developed it was in Japan’s interest to extend its cooperation to the full development of a space laboratory and to send­ing a Japanese astronaut into space.34 This came in handy when deliberations on participation in the space station came up in 1984.

The San Marco project, named after the patron saint of seamen, was a major cooperative effort to build an Italian satellite and to launch it using a Scout rocket.32 In October 1962 NASA deputy administrator Hugh Dryden described it as “the biggest and most important international program in which NASA was presently participating.”33 Its novelty lay in the use of a sea-borne platform to launch a payload that measured the atmospheric density and the character of the ionosphere in the equatorial region.

The driving force behind the project was Luigi Broglio, a professor at the University of Rome, a lieutenant colonel in the Italian Air Force, and the rec­ognized Italian authority in the field of aeronautics. Broglio discussed the San Marco project tentatively with NASA officials at the COSPAR meeting in Florence in April 1961. US interest in the scheme led him to coauthor a proposal to Prime Minister Fanfani. He was attracted by the idea: it was suitably ambi­tious to capitalize on the Italian public’s fascination with space flight, it har­nessed science and technology to industrial development and national pride, and it would provide government support for the aerospace industry. In May 1962, just a year after the preliminary contacts were made at COSPAR in Florence, Broglio and Dryden signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Italian Space Commission and NASA for the realization of the San Marco project. It entered into force in September 1962.

As defined in the MoU the project had three phases. In the first a satellite would be designed and built by the Italians and its instruments would be tested on sounding rockets launched from Wallops Island. A prototype of the satellite would then be launched by a Scout rocket from the same base. Finally, in phase three the satellite would be launched by a Scout from an Italian platform located in equatorial waters.

NASA offered to help the Italian scientists and engineers at all stages of the project, in the spirit of Porter’s proposal at COSPAR in March 1959. It would provide sounding rockets and two Scout launchers. It would provide technical support and training for the design, fabrication, and testing of the payloads, and in vehicle assembly, launch, and range safety. NASA would also provide tracking and data-acquisition facilities for the sounding rockets and the first Scout launch from Maryland. The Italians would take over this function when they launched the second San Marco satellite from their floating platform in the Indian Ocean.

During 1963 and 1964 over 70 engineers from Broglio’s group were trained in the United States. They learnt about spacecraft at the GSFC. At the Langley Research Center they were trained to use NASA’s Shotput sounding rockets, a two-stage unguided vehicle stabilized by aerodynamic fins and developed at Langley by combining standard solid-propellant motors.34 They learnt range procedures and safety practices on Wallops Island. The prime contractor for NASA’s Scout rockets, Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) instructed them on the assembly and checkout of the vehicle. All of these exchanges seem to have gone smoothly until Broglio asked if he could buy all the components of the Scout in the United States and assemble it in Italy to save costs and to acquire significant technical information. This was refused point blank, in line with a general policy of not proliferating sensitive rocket/missile technology even with one’s closest allies. A compromise was struck in which the cost of the launcher was reduced by $150,000 (to $495,000). Broglio and LTV also signed an agreement in which three of the contractor’s senior engineers would assemble the Scout in Rome along with people from the CRA (Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali—Aerospace Research Center) and from Italian industry.

The Italian spacecraft was tested using several Shotput launches in the first six months of 1963. In parallel Broglio began setting up the floating launch platform off the African coast. An oil-rig platform was purchased and towed to Formosa Bay off the coast of Kenya. The site chosen was near-equatorial at about latitude 3°S and longitude 40°E. The Santa Rita platform, as it was called, was validated using three Nike-Apache rockets in the spring of 1964. In December that year, with extensive help from NASA and LTV, an all-Italian CRA crew successfully orbited the San Marco 1 satellite from Wallops Island with a Scout rocket.

The floating platform was the centerpiece of the final phase of the joint proj­ect. The Italian authorities decided to use a new platform for launching pur­poses, and to commission the Santa Rita platform as a control center. The new San Marco platform, acquired from the US Army, was a rectangular steel barge 90 feet wide, 300 feet long, and 13 feet deep. It was towed to Kenya via the NATO Mediterranean base in La Spezia, just south of Genoa. Once embedded in the ocean floor it supported the launcher and its transporter, as well as the electrical and mechanical ground support system for servicing and testing the rocket. Santa Rita, anchored about 1,800 feet away in the bay, housed the range control, blockhouse and telemetry gear, and living quarters for about 80 people. A small tower attached to the platform supported the generators that provided the electrical power for the launch complex. On April 26, 1967, the San Marco 2 spacecraft was successfully launched into an equatorial elliptic orbit by a Scout Mark II rocket. It remained in orbit for almost six months, providing valuable new scientific data on the structure of the ionosphere and on local variations in its electronic density.35

The San Marco project was an essential component of the early Italian space program. NASA and the Scout’s prime contractor LTV did not simply provide invaluable technical training and support in all aspects of satellite construction and integration, launcher use, range management, and tracking and data analysis. They also provided Broglio with the arguments and the additional credibility that he needed to persuade his authorities to invest in a major space effort, and to release funds to support the people, the institutions, and the industries that would become the backbone of an autonomous space program. For the State Department the venture provided an opportunity to express US solidarity with an administration that was a faithful American and NATO ally, and that was under constant domestic left-wing and communist pressure in the 1960s. For NASA the project was coherent with its mission to promote international coop­eration. It produced valuable scientific data on the ionosphere in the not-easily accessible equatorial region.

To conclude it is worth quoting Frutkin’s account of his visit to the San Marco complex shortly before the launch took place. It provides an entertaining antidote to the dry account one gains from official records, which really cannot do justice to the spirit of adventure and personal satisfaction derived from these early, sometimes artisanal collaborative space research efforts:

We had the agreement for the Italian San Marco project for a launch from their platform launch site. It’s a marvelous, marvelous program, and the greatest fun in the world. [. . . ] You see what happened was our project people within NASA who were pursuing, monitoring the Italian effort to get prepared for a Scout launch from this platform came in and said, “We’re not going to be able to do this. . . We’ve been out there to that platform, it’s a mess. It’s a god-awful mess.” Well, that was the first occasion when I was threatened with a cancellation. So I got hold of one of my buddies, somebody in the program, a very able, capable guy, Jack Townsend, who was then number three man at Goddard, and we went out to Africa together and climbed up onto that platform and looked around. There was water on the deck and there were wires snaking all around in the water and every­thing else, and it did look a bit of a mess. After a careful look-around Townsend said, “No problem, it’ll work.” [. . .]

We went out to see the first launch, went up to the top of this Texas tower they were using and when it came time for lunch, they said, “Let’s go up to the terrazzo.”

We went up to an upper deck under a striped awning where a great tribal warrior with scars, ritual scars, on his face made the pasta. [ . . . ] The Italians are more fun than anybody.

—Arnold W. Frutkin, in conversation with the author.36

In his report back to the ESC early in November, Lefevre began with a very posi­tive account of the gathering in Washington, and with an enthusiastic endorse­ment of the technological novelty of the post-Apollo system and of the United States’ “desire to internationalize the conquest of space, for the benefit of human­ity as a whole.”94 He spelt out clearly the shift in US policy on launchers—from a case-by-case decision to a (near) blanket assurance—and stressed that it was con­ditional on Europe making a substantial contribution to the American-led pro­gram. And he emphasized that, in the event of a negative finding in Intelsat, even if the United States were reluctant to go against an internationally-sanctioned decision, it might still “exercise its freedom of decision” on whether to accede to Europe’s request for a launch. This did not bother Lefevre unduly. He put a positive light on the launcher issue, emphasizing that “Europe will have a large availability of American launching devices” even if a few “uncertainties” needed ironing out. He was satisfied that enough progress had been made in Washington for Europe to enter “the negotiation phase proper” in a program that would “give a new dimension to European efforts and a greater responsibility vis-a-vis inter­national cooperation.” In July, said Lefevre, there had been general agreement in the ESC that telecommunications satellites and the means to launch them should provide the backbone to a European space effort run through a single agency. Residual doubts on this program should now be put aside. After today, he concluded with determination, “[w]e must know exactly which countries are willing to continue and organize a joint effort, meaningful and reasonable, so that Europe will efficiently participate in the development of space techniques with the twofold purpose of promoting technological progress and keeping its cultural and political independence. [. . .] The time has come to act.”

Lefevre’s hope of pulling the collected ministers together behind a unified policy was soon shattered. The British led the opposition. They had already voiced two concerns in the meeting held on September 16-17. First, they hoped that participant countries would be granted “full access to, and unrestricted use of, all know-how, design rights, etc generated by any part of the post-Apollo pro­gram” (my emphasis).95 This idea had been killed at once. The United Kingdom had simply not come to terms with the asymmetry in the partnership, nor with the implications “of the obvious preponderance of U. S. investment and use,” which undermined any “credible basis” for the level of sharing that the British hoped for.96 Second, Britain was extremely reluctant to make a “substantial” contribution to a program whose content and cost was still not defined. In September Johnson’s reply reflected the difficulty NASA was having in getting Congress to support Paine’s original program.97 This ambiguity was picked up by the new British minister of aviation supply, Freddy Corfield. Corfield had taken up his post in September 1970 after the Conservative Party ousted Harold Wilson’s Labour government at the general election in June. As he put it, “There have been considerable changes in the form of the proposal since it was first suggested and at the present moment there is no specific programme approved by the American government. The timescale is uncertain and the cost estimates and incidence of expenditure remain to be clarified.”98 The new British govern­ment was engaged in a comprehensive review of public expenditure. It could not accept “a commitment to share the costs of 10% participation [in post-Apollo], running to as yet unquantifiable but probably very large sums of money, and this in a context of a project too loosely defined to enable any assessment to be made of the benefits in relation to resources involved.” Nor was this necessary to secure US launchers for applications satellites, in Corfield’s view. He said that 10 percent participation may be needed for blanket assurances. But the United Kingdom did not seek them. The British government was persuaded that, as in the past, “for all purposes for which Europe is likely to require launchers, we can expect to be able to rely on a reasonable American response.”99

Corfield’s opposition was given added traction by the Gaullist minister for industrial development and scientific research, Fran^ois-Xavier Ortoli, who put a different twist on the uncertain situation across the Atlantic.100 Whatever the costs of post-Apollo—and current estimates were likely to escalate—a 10 percent European share would probably far exceed the costs of developing a European launcher. In return the benefits were dubious: the US guarantees for launchers were not watertight, and access to technology was too restricted. On balance, therefore, it was cheaper and more advantageous technologically and industrially for Europe to go it alone.

The discussions were finally suspended at 2 AM in the morning of November 5, a day earlier than anticipated. Belgium, France, and Germany agreed to pur­sue the possibilities of post-Apollo collaboration with the United States and invited others who were interested to join in the next round of discussions.101

These negative reactions to Washington’s proposals infuriated Frutkin. Already at a meeting in Florence organized by Eurospace (an industry lobby group) in September 1970, he had emphasized the obvious—that “it would be extremely unrealistic to assume that there would be total access to the technol­ogy of the programme, at the know-how level, if the U. S. is contributing 90% and Europe 10%.”102 “Equal” partnership (Ortoli) or “full access” (Bessborough) were inconceivable granted that asymmetry in commitment. As for the fluid state of the post-Apollo program, in Florence both he and Dale Myers confi­dently asserted that the post-Apollo program would be adopted, and stressed that the advantage of its content not being settled was that the Europeans could participate in the definition phase, so helping structure its shape in line with their interests.103 Instead of approaching post-Apollo collaboration in this spirit, Frutkin wrote Low, the meeting in November was conducted “with high emo­tion and political pre-judgment, with little reference to the available facts which should determine European interests, and with persistent unrealism on trade-off possibilities, conditions, risks and benefits.”104

Domestically Frutkin did try to turn one complaint made in November to NASA’s advantage. A few days after the abortive ESC meeting he wrote to Robert Behr of the National Security Council to tell him of Britain’s reluctance to commit to post-Apollo participation “because of the uncertainty of the US commitment to the space shuttle and to continuity in our major programs.”105 He added, somewhat menacingly, that “[w]e would have to be prepared, in the event we do not move the shuttle forward, to find Europeans concluding that we provide a very poor foundation for international enterprises and that we have seriously delayed and diverted their own regional programs, perhaps deliberately.”106 A few days later he met with Johnson and Pollack in the State Department to discuss the NASA budget for FY1972 and the “need for a clear and credible signal to the Europeans that the United States is moving ahead with the space shuttle program.”107 This in turn led to both State Department officials drafting memoranda for Kissinger affirming that while the post-Apollo program did not stand or fall by virtue of international participation, it was imperative to offer Europeans an “assured alternative” if the United States expected them “to forego independence.”108 Johnson’s memorandum was par­ticularly explicit about what was at stake: the benefit of European know-how, a contribution of about $1 billion, national security concerns (“there are obvious advantages to having the Europeans as partners in the United States program, as compared to their developing a separate and independent space launching capability over which we might have little or no influence”), and political con­siderations (success in post-Apollo would promote intra-European cooperation and further major scientific and technological projects; it would also strengthen the capability of Washington’s NATO allies and of the alliance).109

These arguments amplified an appeal made by Low to Kissinger at the end of October, and reinforced by him after the ESC meeting early in November. NASA’s acting administrator explained that the agency was now willing to defer a start on the space station in favor of the shuttle. This was not only because the shuttle was “the correct next major step in the United States space program.” It was also because “a go-ahead on the space shuttle, in FY1972, is of crucial importance in relation to the possibilities for very substantial international con­tributions to and participation in our major space undertakings of the future.”110 Another round of interdepartmental discussions was held, and the need for clear directives from the top was emphasized if European support was not to drain away.111 On January 4, 1971, the national security adviser replied to Low indi­cating that no definite policy directive could be expected at this time.112 NASA’s final budget resubmitted to Congress for FY1972 was slightly below that of FY1971. It would take another year before the president eventually endorsed the space shuttle.113

Perhaps we could render no greater service to mankind through our space pro­grams than by the joint establishment of an early operational weather satellite system.

—President Kennedy to Premier Khrushchev, March 7, 1962

It is difficult to overestimate the advantage that people would derive from the organisation of a world-wide weather observation service using artificial earth sat­ellites. Precise and timely weather prediction would be still another important step on the path to man’s subjugation of the forces of nature.

—Premier Khrushchev to President Kennedy, March 20, 19625

The history of formalized Soviet-American cooperation in space might well be traced to letters and public pronouncements between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. Over time (and fol­lowing occasional lapses in correspondence), the two superpowers narrowed fields of potential cooperation to those outlined in a June 8, 1962, Agreement on peaceful bilateral cooperation in space. Made one year after the orbiting of the first human in space (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin) and Kennedy’s subsequent announcement that the United States would place a man on the moon by the close of the decade, this agreement to cooperate “for the benefit of mankind” introduced new philosophies to what some have characterized as the “space race.”

Therein, the two nations agreed to four fields of cooperation: geomagnetic mapping, experimentation with communications satellites, sharing of biomedi­cal data (for the emerging field of human spaceflight), and exchanging weather satellite images through what came to be referred to as the “Cold Line” facsimile network. Early on, representatives of the two nations agreed to limit work to that which may be characterized primarily as data exchange or even coordinated observation—rather than designing or building instruments together, they agreed simply to share limited amounts of information.

Arnold Frutkin, noting that the content of the 1962 agreement (and the 1963 Memo of Understanding) had on occasion been grossly misrepresented, explained: “They provide for coordination rather than integration of effort, in other words for a kind of arm’s length cooperation in which each side carries out independently its portion of an arrangement without entering into the other’s planning, design, production, operations, or analysis. [In unequivocal terms, he assured possible critics,] No classified or sensitive data is to be exchanged.”6 In spite of the relatively low expectations entailed by data exchange and coor­dinated observations, Soviet participation in 1960s projects tended to be disap­pointing: their contributions to meteorology came late and were incomplete; their cooperation in the Echo-II satellite less than generous; their exchange of biomedical and geophysical data curt, if not truncated. Following a nine-month delay, waiting for the Soviets to simply name their Joint Working Group (JWG) candidates, one official remarked publicly that it was time for the Russians to “get off the dime.” Relations did not become particularly warmer once the JWG began meeting. Of the four aforementioned projects, the Soviets refused to take part in the telecommunications satellite system (opting instead to construct their own system with political allies), cooperated half-heartedly on Echo-II, and in the end, engaged in sustained cooperation in only one field: meteorology.

NASA’s administrator Hugh Dryden was particularly critical of Soviet con­tributions to the Echo-II experiments, detailing what appear to have been half­hearted gestures toward cooperation. His remarks before the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences have been quoted frequently, but warrant revisiting:

The Soviet side observed the critical inflation phase of the satellite optically and forwarded the data to us. They did not provide radar data, which would have been most desirable, but they had not committed themselves to doing so. The Soviets provided recordings and other data of their reception of the transmissions via ECHO from Jodrell Bank [United Kingdom]. On the other hand, the commu­nications were carried out in only one direction instead of two, at less interesting frequencies than we would have liked and with some technical limitations at the ground terminals used. I do not want to over-emphasize any technical benefits from this project. It was, however a useful exercise in organizing a joint undertak­ing with the Soviets.7

Dryden’s reflections on Echo-II reflect a general notion that collaboration—no matter how perfunctory—was in fact a feat of diplomacy. Unfortunately, the Echo-II experience was typical of most collaborative ventures with the Soviet Union, dating to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Arnold Frutkin, before working with NASA in international relations, had served as deputy director of the US National Committee for the IGY and recalled that the Soviets would frequently attempt to initiate data exchanges and then cancel. As Soviets tended to be slower and more secretive, the Americans became increasingly sus­picious. These frustrations surfaced in the press, indicating at least a limited pub­lic awareness of the many ups and downs of Soviet-American relations in space.

In February 1965 (13 months after the initial forced deadline for weather sat­ellite exchanges), the Washington Post ran its piece, “U. S. May Terminate ‘Cold Line.’” The Post detailed Dryden’s report before Congress, in which he gave his colleagues in the Soviet Union a final ultimatum: unless satellite transmissions came across the Cold Line “in a reasonable time,” the United States would terminate the link. NASA’s deputy administrator continued, detailing Soviet promises that satellite data would be forthcoming in 1965, and perhaps most vexing, how his numerous letters to Anatoly Blagonravov (Soviet academician in the Soviet Academy of Sciences) regarding the Cold Line had gone unanswered. Though NASA hesitated to set an exact deadline, the article suggested “some officials feel that American patience could wear thin by June 30 [1965].” NASA was effectively kept on hold for another year, waiting until June 25, 1966, for the launch of the first announced Soviet meteorological satellite, Cosmos 122.

Historians have documented these and similar discourses, interpreting them at times as substantive offers for scientific and engineering cooperation and at other times as more politicized diplomatic posturing with complicated mean­ings.8 NASA officials communicated their doubts and at times vociferous exas­peration with the Soviets. NASA administrator Tom Paine reported before the Senate Committee on Aeronautics and Space Sciences that between 1965 and the autumn of 1970, NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences held no meet­ings regarding possible collaborative efforts, in spite of numerous proposals for cooperative activities from the United States.9

Paine had written the Soviets to invite proposals for experiments on US craft, to negotiate use of the laser reflector left on the moon from Apollo 11, to invite participation in the analysis of lunar material, to solicit Soviet attendance at the Conference on the Viking Mars mission, to consider coordination of planetary programs, and to mark his openness to further suggestions. Ten months later, the two parties succeeded in arranging a meeting.

For a decade, representatives of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administra­tions had expressed the desire for Soviet-American cooperation in space. Explains Walter McDougall, “Whether or not significant cooperation were achieved, the United States must be perceived as desiring it.”10 Thus, in a piquant twist of Cold War logic, Americans continued to offer joint work, but bore limited hope for projects more grand than the World Weather Watch and relatively limited exchanges of data.

NASA representatives pursued relations with other international partners. In their monograph analyzing the history of Soviet-American efforts at collabora­tion, Dodd Harvey and Linda Ciccoritti note that NASA “publicly established” plans for post-Apollo cooperation in space (see chapter 4). Central to this were “space goals ‘internationalizing’ the space enterprise with or without the partici­pation of the USSR.” 11 Frutkin observed that a substantial amount of COSPAR reports testified to America’s cooperative associations. Without questioning the degree to which Soviet researchers shared the philosophies of the Soviet state, he contrasted US and Soviet policy: “Since the Soviet Union has so far given little more than lip service to such programs, virtually no references to cooperation with the Soviet Union are included.”12 Frutkin explained that “[t]he American space image abroad” was characterized by elements of openness, direct ben­efit to participants, generosity of research and results, a healthy drive toward technological and managerial preeminence, “and perhaps most important of all, the evidence of high national purpose.”13 He described the contrast between American openness and Soviet isolationism as “eloquent,” and said that the American example was “clearly pushing the Soviet Union toward some more or less imitative effort.”14

Frutkin, having participated in IGY administration, surely grasped the com­plex political environment his Soviet partners faced: travel restrictions, limits on the circulation of overseas publications, control over data, and the consis­tent prioritization of military over scientific pursuits. Years later, history would reveal the disappointment of even Sergei Korolev, whom Khrushchev personally restricted from participating in any international scientific symposia.15 A similar (and ultimately more tragic) disappointment is documented in the memoirs of Iosif Shklovsky, a prominent Soviet heliophysicist. Shklovsky got his first taste of international science in the IGY and spent the remainder of his career fading in and out of the international scene—the ebbs and flows determined at least in part with his standing with the Soviet state. The 1958 Moscow Assembly of the International Astronomical Union was a great treat to the man who “was obviously thrilled to recognize individuals who he had known only by the prox­ies of their published papers.”16 While his publications circulated the world over through the course of his career, between 1958 and 1984, Shklovsky maintained sporadic contact with colleagues in the United States.

During this time, the solar physicist received many invitations to lecture and participate in scientific meetings abroad. In spite of being recognized worldwide as a leader in his field and his eagerness to travel, Shklovsky’s “outspokenness about politics and human rights” jeopardized his requests to travel. But for rare International Astronomical Union (IAU) meetings and a couple scientific sym­posia, he remained homebound. Herbert Friedman, a colleague in the United States noted, years after the death of his friend: “[I]t was a bitter pill to swal­low for a man who had such a burning desire to meet with his peers abroad.”17 By the time of the 1970 US National Academies of Science’s annual exchange, Friedman was barely permitted to see his colleague at the Institute for Space Research, but never in private.

Whereas other fields of space research enjoyed an unprecedented thaw around 1972 (when bilateral arrangements were made for Soviet-American work in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and exchanging biodata from the Skylab and Salyut space stations), astrophysics experienced a setback. US researcher Herbert Friedman reported that in 1973 “many of the best Soviet astronomers” (includ­ing Shklovsky) were not permitted to attend the IAU in Australia. That same year Shklovsky was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences as a foreign associate, but, following a “courageous letter” in defense of Andrei Sakharov, he was banned from attending the 1976 IAU in France. This in spite of the fact that “he had been invited to deliver one of the most prestigious discourses of the occasion.”18

As the Western commercial sector began to tentatively explore former Soviet technologies for sale, assess Russian firms, and evaluate the institutional change necessary to make trade happen, representatives of the space sciences, too, engaged in their share of match-making. Whereas most Scientific Production Associations (NPOs, to the Americans) had been privatized through the course of market reform, many scientific institutes and agencies weathered the transi­tion from state-directed socialism to neoliberal capitalism as government enti­ties. Here are just a few of the key players.

Russian Space Agency (RSA), Rosaviakosmos/Roskosmos (RKA)18: Created in April 1992, the RSA functioned as a replacement for many Russian organizations including Glavkosmos, Interkosmos, Intersputnik, and the Ministry of General Machine Building’s civil space policy functions.19 This agency functioned as a rough counterpart to NASA, both a coordinator of space programs and procurer of technical systems. Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin selected Yuri N. Koptev, a former senior official of the Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM), as agency head.

Managing a newly formed agency, Koptev’s administration faced high expec­tations for performance as well as reform. Academician Roald Sagdeev observed: “[I]t took precisely 35 years to realize that the nation needs a unified organization to run its space program, not in the interests of the military or of the arms race, but in the interests of human kind, international cooperation, science and com­merce.” In 2001, experts observed that, “[t]he Russian space sector has come a long way.” “If you look back ten years the space sector was totally within the mili­tary establishment, the so-called military industrial complex, this was, actually, a tremendously successful conversion; it is not complete, but still impressive.”20

Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS): This institution was reborn at the end of 1991, becoming the default successor of the fast-dissolving USSR Academy of Sciences. As such, the RAS inherited many of Russia’s key research institutions and space science organizations including the Space Research Institute (IKI), the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, and the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics. Until the early 1990s, the academy was NASA’s primary partner in bilateral space agreements.

RAS: Space Research Institute (IKI): Directed by academician Albert A. Galeyev (and before that Roald Sagdeev mentioned earlier) and boasting a staff of more than a 1,000, this organization performed research in the fields of plane­tary physics, space plasma physics, astrophysics, space materials technology, opti­cal studies, and physical studies. Since its founding in 1965, IKI staff prepared space research programs, designed, tested, and operated scientific instruments (including spacecraft), and engaged in extensive international cooperation.

RAS: Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry & Analytical Chemistry: This insti­tute focused principally on space research concerning geological analysis and mapping. The Vernadsky Institute’s best-known work in planetary studies was the Venera Missions to Venus in the 1970s and early 1980s and the Mars 94 pro­gram. As a result, NASA staff were considering subcontracting with Vernadsky Institute through Arizona State University, seeking analyses of landing sites on Mars and weathering processes on Venus.

RAS: Intercosmos Council: For decades this council had coordinated inter­national space science projects. However Administrator Goldin’s July 1992 Briefing Book indicates that this institution’s influence seemed to be waning with the dissolution of the Eastern bloc and rise of the RSA.

As of 1991, the most recent proposal developed by the Academy of Sciences for the development of space industries (“Program 2005”) had been around for two-and-a-half years, unacknowledged by the Coordinating Committee for Space Research. This general lack of direction only fueled the demands of scien­tists and engineers for a more centralized and active command.21 Though it may be impossible to generalize who welcomed privatization or realignment from statist to democratic operation, throughout this period each government entity and newly minted firm operated under at least one constraint: a precipitous lack of funding. The Russian Federation’s revenue deficit, along with a mad­dening pace of inflation, a desperately weakened tax base, and an inefficient (if not corrupted) supply of financial support, left each organization in dire straits. Officials needed more (and more stable) currency; institutions required steady work in order to remain intact.

Policymakers, industrialists, and the American public alike shared in this awareness. The years 1991 and 1992 brought a flood of coverage in US newspa­pers, trade publications, and scientific journals, detailing the plight of Russian science and engineering. Workers went without pay while engineers took on supplementary work as taxicab drivers and auto mechanics. The Baikonur launch facilities weathered slowly while many production facilities sat idle.

Anatoliy Petrushin, deputy director for finance at Progress Plant TsSKB (Research and Production Rocket Space Center), explained that in an effort to avoid layoffs, his launch vehicle production facility had begun ersatz diversifica­tion. “For example,” he pointed out, “we have set up a shop producing dispos­able syringes. And although only around 300 people work there, one half of the profit earned by the plant last year came from syringe production. Could this situation be more absurd?!” A disheartened Petrushin predicted the end of launch vehicle production for his plant: “Privatization will lead to just one thing: the replacement of space production by something that is short-term and ultra­profitable. The sophisticated equipment will then go out of commission and the plant will go under the hammer.”22

More disturbing, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics reported that rocket and space industries in the Commonwealth of Independent States were “simultaneously seeking to exchange space competence for hard cur­rency” and “attempting to convert their manufacturing capabilities to produc­tion of kitchen equipment.”23 A year earlier the Washington Post took readers to Ukraine’s Yuzhny Machine Building Factory where trolley buses and air­plane parts had supplanted ICBM production.24 Yuzhny might best be identi­fied as the facility at which Nikita Khrushchev boasted that the Soviets would “make missiles like sausages.”25 Indeed, what was an unemployed missile engi­neer to do? Several speculated that weapons scientists in more desperate straits were likely to sell their expertise to developing programs in Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or the like.

Even as debates carried on in newspaper editorials and on Capitol Hill as to whether Americans ought to collaborate with the Russians in space, policymakers questioned with whom precisely they ought even be negotiating. Often more than one bureau claimed ownership of hardware or intellectual property. NASA officials had difficulty deciphering who precisely was in charge, what Soviet pri­orities were, and even which assets were up for sale. A report prepared for the New Initiatives Office at Johnson Space Center illustrated the degree of uncer­tainty, if not confusion:

In his diminished leadership role, Mikhail Gorbachev has had little to say about the future of the Soviet space program. . . A reorganization has begun involving the major Soviet space design bureaus and installations, some of which will be transferred to new private industries. Yet to be sorted out is the degree of influ­ence and authority key personnel within the reconstituted bureaus, agencies, and industries will have.26

Stakeholders read the situation in different ways. Some called for US govern­ment and scientific organizations to send aid to the once thriving scientific and space infrastructures. Financial support might not only help individuals and their families, but perhaps dissuade weapons engineers from defecting, keep sci­entists from marketing their technical knowledge to “rogue nations,” or keep industrialists in line with weapons compliance regulations. Noting that US aid was “but a drop in the bucket compared to the scope of the problems confront­ing former Soviet science,” others begged that there be even the smallest, sim­plest demonstrations of support. One National Science Board official pointed out the benefits of offering “in kind” assistance in the form of journals, sur­plus personal computers, technically obsolete lab equipment, or the archiving of research data.27

Meantime, assorted critics voiced dismay. Some interpreted the former Soviet Union as an impotent and unstable giant that was best left to its own demise—be it the civil space program, military-industrial complex, or scientific research base. Others remarked on the confusion and limited liquidity that accompanied this rapid and haphazard privatization. Loren Graham, historian of Russian science, acknowledged the Russian state’s problems with authoritarianism and corrup­tion, cautioning that “[i]f money goes directly into the hands of directors, it might be slowing the process of reform,” ultimately, “enforcing the authoritarian character of the Soviet science establishment that we’ve criticized in the past.”28 At the same time, some speaking in the interest of national defense questioned the ability of the administration to assure its voters that their tax dollars would benefit civil space and not be plowed back into military complexes.

Be that as it may, a coalition was in the making that viewed the weakened economic system as an opportunity to reshape Russian institutions—Americans might provide leadership in postcommunist market reform, ease the conversion to a free market, introduce Russian firms to global business, or produce profit­able joint ventures among otherwise downsizing defense firms.

Party lines were not necessarily dependable predictors of behavior. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) declared that such trade offered “a way to complement each other’s civilian space programs in a way that allows mankind to advance, yet provides jobs for both the Russian and the American people.”29 Later he pointed out that cooperation with Russia would provide a way to “nudge” Russia down a “democratic path and [ensure that it] does not lapse into totalitarianism.”30 Senator Al Gore (D-Tenn), chair of the Senate sub­committee that authorized NASA funding, opined that “[t]he taxpayers would like to save some money if we can buy off the shelf some important components that [the Russians] have developed in their space program.”31 In 1993, Dana Rohrabacher—a Republican from California—went so far as to contemplate the hypothetical replacement of the Space Transport System with the Energia Rocket system. Such cooperation with the Russians, he postulated, “will not cost American jobs and will not cost taxpayers for us to work with these new friends and to help cement democracy in what was the Soviet Union.”32

In the 1992 presidential race, Republicans chuckled over the similarities between the Clinton-Gore platform and George H. W. Bush-Dan Quayle’s. “It’s a hoot,” commented one Bush administration official, who went on to describe Clinton’s space statement as being little more than a carbon copy of Bush’s. Like Bush policy, Clinton’s position paper supported Mission to Planet Earth, directed NASA to give higher priority to innovation in the civil aircraft industry, prodded the administration to establish a permanent presence on the moon, send humans to Mars, maintain strong cooperative ties on the Space Station while, at the same time, using robotic exploration whenever feasible. Tellingly, Clinton criticized Bush’s policy for only two shortcomings: failing to set clear enough priorities for NASA (which led to NASA being “saddled” with more missions than it could possibly achieve) and favoring military space spending over civil.33

The Bush and Clinton years are bridged by a broad collection of (borrowing from arms control language) “confidence-building measures” between NASA’s Goldin administration and Koptev’s Russian Space Agency. This cooperation led directly to some government-supported joint ventures, while easing the way for private sector activity in the months and years to come.

Although the ambitious post-Apollo initiative by Thomas Paine did not bear fruit, there were ongoing if sporadic talks between the two parties in the early 1970s.35 A meeting between President Nixon and Prime Minister Tanaka in 1973 led to the creation of a high-level binational panel to explore avenues for coop­eration. The panel identified “space science and applications as a promising area for expanded cooperation with Japan.”36 Specifically, NASA promoted the “uti­lization of the space shuttle/Spacelab system by Japanese scientists and facilitat­ing Japanese funding construction of a Landsat ground station.”37 A team from NASA visited Japan in October 1976 “to promote opportunities for Japanese uti­lization of the space shuttle for both scientific experiments and launching com­mercial payloads. [. . . ].”38 Logsdon suggests that little progress may have been made due to Arnold Frutkin’s known antipathy to working with Japan, perhaps because of his experience in the Pacific theater in World War II. In any event after President Jimmy Carter entered the White House in January 1977, a new team of NASA managers took over. Norman Terrell replaced Arnold Frutkin as the director of international affairs (Frutkin in fact left NASA soon thereaf­ter). Terrell encouraged NASA administrator Robert Frosch and his deputy Alan Lovelace to take up an offer to visit Japan in July 1978, to stimulate a more con­crete discussion of Japan’s plans for STS (shuttle) use. He also suggested that the visit could provide “the opportunity to offer ideas for planning more of Japan’s international cooperation with the United States.”39 This visit led to the estab­lishment of a joint study group that first met in December 1978. Its US chairman was Anthony Calio, deputy associate administrator of the NASA office of Space Science and Applications; Shozo Shimosato of the Space Activities Commission (SAC) led the Japanese participants. By June 1979 they had identified 17 areas in which US-Japanese cooperation might be initiated relatively quickly, respecting Frutkin’s now-classic principles (chapter 1). After a permanent Senior Standing Liaison Group meeting on a regular basis had taken up the baton, another round of cooperative agreements were signed that provided the basis for effective part­nership in space science and applications between Japan and the United States.40