Category NASA in the World

The extensive, blow-by-blow account of the in-house debates over European participation in the post-Apollo program in 1970-1971 (chapters 4-6) demon­strated the shifting perceptions of where the boundary lay between knowledge sharing and knowledge denial. So did the simultaneous debate over upgrad­ing Thor-Delta technology acquired by Japan (chapter 10). Indeed the Nixon administration of the early 1970s is noteworthy for the determination of White House staffers Peter Flanigan and Tom Whitehead, with the support of science adviser Ed David, to rein in what they saw as NASA’s profligate attitude to the sharing of knowledge that might undermine national military and/or economic security. Their concerns were reinforced by Bass’s brief mentioned earlier, which was forwarded to them amid negotiations over European participation in post – Apollo. The legal counselor argued that although the technologies of interest to NASA’s program were largely regulated via the Munitions Controls List, exports of data or articles by government agencies, including NASA, were “specifically exempt from the provisions of the Mutual Security Act and the ITAR.” What is more that exemption was extended by the ITAR when the export was in “fur­therance of a contract with an agency of the U. S. Government or a contract between an agency of the U. S. Government and foreign persons.”6 In short, according to Bass, in 1970 NASA and its contractors (like the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory in Pasadena) did not need to seek a license or other written authori­zation from the Department of State to export items on the MCL.

Flanigan and Whitehead were appalled and demanded that Ed David “develop a policy for the transfer of technology developed by NASA.”7 Bass’s report con­firmed for Flanigan that, as things stood, “NASA had no policy on keeping pro­prietary technical information developed by it available only to U. S. citizens.” NASA’s new administrator Jim Fletcher agreed that a new policy was needed to stop NASA “both by its charter and its history” from continuing “to make all its technological developments available nationally and internationally.”8 In the debate that ensued over the next six months Europe found its participation in the post-Apollo program reduced to building a module that fitted in the shuttle’s cargo bay, and that restricted transnational knowledge flows to the minimum required for mission success. Japan’s access to Thor-Delta technology was also severely restricted.

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

The trajectory of West Germany’s entry into the space age was marked by her history. The horrors of the Nazi regime, its promotion of advanced technolo­gies like the lethal V-2 missile developed by Wernher Von Braun and his team at Pennemunde, and widespread fears of a resurgence of German nationalism and militarism led the allies to impose severe constraints on the country’s scientific and technological development after the war.37 In the mid-1950s the division of Germany became accepted as a (temporary) fait accompli in the context of Cold War rivalry. The Federal Republic was given its sovereignty and entered NATO. A major effort was also made to integrate West Germany into the embryonic supranational nuclear power organization, Euratom, and into the European Common Market. The State Department actively promoted these initiatives. Its policy was guided by what diplomatic historians call double containment— restraining both Soviet expansion and German nationalism by building a strong, integrated Western Europe under American leadership.38

In October 1954 Chancellor Konrad Adenauer solemnly pledged that the country would never develop nuclear weapons on its soil. With this path to superpower status denied them, an alternative path to international signifi­cance was actively promoted by Franz Josef Strauss. Strauss was the minister of atomic affairs for one year beginning in October 1955, after which he was nominated the federal minister of defense. He was convinced that “the indus­trial competitiveness of a country as well as its international political weight was going to become increasingly dependent upon the national ability to master new technologies.”39 This national agenda was translated into his local political ambitions. As Niklas Reinke puts it, Strauss was a crafty strategist who, “not­withstanding his undoubted devotion to his homeland. . . acted with an eye to his political power base in Bavaria.”40 He adopted “a state-supported industrial policy aiming at creating innovative high technologies [. . . ].”41 When he was minister of atomic energy he actively promoted nuclear energy at Garching near Munich, and lobbied for the interests of German firms that wanted to develop civilian nuclear power. As minister of defense he ensured that the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt (DVL, German Aeronautical Test Establishment) was also established in Bavaria. It was again Strauss who in 1961 enabled Ludwig Bolkow, who had done sophisticated design work for Messerschmitt in the Third Reich, to create a big complex of industrial research laboratories for the aerospace industry next to his military production facilities in the south of Munich.42

Germany’s pool of skilled scientists and engineers was seriously depleted by the emigration—sometimes forced—of thousands to the allied powers after the war. Those who remained gradually built up small communities of space sci­entists and engineers in the early 1950s. Helmut Trischler tells us that these groups served two important functions. First, they helped reinterpret spaceflight in the political and popular imagination as a peaceful activity, dedicated to sci­entific exploration and technological advance. Second, they built a network of space enthusiasts dedicated to rocketry and the space sciences. This network established international linkages, including with the United States, successfully lobbied for the foundation of a university chair, established officially sanctioned research institutes, and built ties with German industry.

Increasing industrial capacity, along with growing scientific interest, notably after the IGY, were not sufficient to galvanize the German government into action. Nor did the launch of Sputnik, which was seen as just another factor in an arms race between the superpowers in which Germany was not a participant.43 By the end of the 1950s “space activities enjoyed a degree of political support from various ministries, but this did not as yet amount to space politics or a space policy.” In addition the minister for economic affairs, Ludwig Erhard, did not approve of Strauss’s views on state-interventionism in the economy, and did not see space activities as being significant drivers of economic development. It took the initiative in June 1960 by two of the founding fathers of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) to build a collaborative European space effort to “arouse the authorities from their research policy torpor.”44 Eighteen months later Chancellor Adenauer put an end to interdepartmental rivalry, and gave the Atomic Affairs Ministry overall responsibility for space science and space transport research and development. This department was transformed into the Federal Ministry of Scientific Research in May 1963.

The scientific community, with industry’s support, made three main criti­cisms of the Federal Republic’s space policy in the 1960s.45 They opposed Erhard’s free-market philosophy, insisting that the federal government should take responsibility for space research and development that was far from the market, and promote it as a core national asset. Second, they insisted that it was imperative to provide sufficient funds to develop a strong national capability and to participate internationally, both with Europe and the United States. Third, they emphasized that working with other space programs was meaningless with­out significant investments in a domestic effort. As one document submitted to the now-chancellor Erhard put it in July 1965, “All experience in science and technology shows that unless national funding is at least two to three times greater than contributions to international programs, much of the money con­tributed to those programmes must be considered as subsidies on which there is no return. In those circumstances, we are simply supporting space research in other countries.”46

This financial aspect of this plea was not heeded. The political imperative of being engaged in the European program, including in the development of a European launcher, skewed space expenditure away from the national.47 As the German authorities struggled to find the right balance between a national program and a European collaborative effort, bilateral programs emerged as a means to lever limited resources to kick-start space activities: Trischler remarks that this was not indicative of a clear political strategy; it was dictated by pragma­tism. The preferred collaborators were the United States, where Germany would necessarily be a junior partner, and France, where the asymmetry between the nations was less marked.48

The first links with NASA were established by the minister for atomic affairs, Siegfried Balke, in February 1961, who visited the United States again in May 1962. Balke’s successor, Federal Research Minister Hans Lenz, crossed the Atlantic with his counselor Max Mayer in June 1963. During these visits German officials became painfully aware of the limits of US support. Rocket technol­ogy would not be shared on a bilateral basis. The amount of funding Germany intended to allocate to space research produced what Mayer called “sympathetic smiles.”49 A visit to von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville was also disappointing. Mayer asked if some of the German-born members of von Braun’s team who were “experienced policy and contract planners” could be released for a limited period of time to work with Lenz. They would be on the government’s payroll and would help the minister “put the show on the road.” Von Braun refused.50 It became clear that if West Germany was going to build a bilateral program with NASA it would have to bring something to the table. A small research satellite footed that bill.

In April 1964 a 60- to 80-kilogram scientific satellite labeled Project 625A emerged as the centerpiece of the Federal Republic’s first national satellite proj­ect.51 The concept was presented to NASA as a suitable candidate for a bilateral program six months later. Its mission was to explore the interaction between cosmic rays and the magnetosphere, notably in the region of the inner Van Allen radiation belt and of the Northern Lights, as well as during temporary changes in solar wind during eruptions on the sun. On July 17, 1965, a groundbreaking memorandum of understanding was signed between the Ministry and NASA.

Project 625A meshed with Germany’s wish to build its national scientific and industrial strength. Early in 1965 the Federal Research Ministry had received over 100 experiment proposals from academic institutions, independent research establishments, and industry. Seven of these were selected. As for the satellite itself, the prime contractor was Bolkow, and was responsible for payload integration, testing, and launch support. Many other firms were involved, including AEG, Dornier, and Siemens. These firms improved their technical capability by testing new processes and techniques involving components developed in the United States. As in the French case, with the help of TRW they also gained insight into NASA’s management methods to better cope with an enormous technological challenge for which, as Bolkow put it, they were “scarcely prepared.”52

The arrangement with NASA respected Frutkin’s criteria for international cooperation. It was concluded with a government ministry. There were clean technological interfaces. There was no exchange funds. West Germany’s con­tribution was some 80 million DM. NASA provided for preliminary testing of experiment payloads on sounding rockets. It also provided a Scout rocket for the launch, and initial tracking and data services for the satellite. These were later taken over by a newly created German Space Operations Center at Oberpfaffenhofen whose personnel had been trained by NASA. The only condi­tion imposed by NASA was that the German project should not duplicate work already done in the United States and that all of the new data obtained should be made freely available to the entire scientific community.

The 71-kilogram satellite was launched on November 8, 1969, when it was baptized Azur. The tape recorder failed five weeks after its launch, after which data could only be received in real-time. For reasons that are still not clear, all contact was lost with the satellite late in June 1970, over a year before its expected demise. All the same, as Reinke puts it, “the political hopes vested in the venture were not disappointed: the involvement of many firms in the Azur mission expanded the expertise of German industry and the German sci­ence community in the space sector and prepared them for many tasks.”53 Azur was not only Germany’s own spacecraft. Twenty-five years after “the end of the calamitous Peenemunde project, German science and industry had successfully demonstrated its capacity and its determination to peacefully re-enter space.”54

Another important step toward NASA-West German collaboration was taken a few months after the memorandum of understanding that led to Azur was signed.55 The plan was publicly announced at a state banquet in honor of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard a few days before Christmas 1965. In a brief toast to his guest President Johnson remarked that the time had come for the two coun­tries and other European partners, “to do together what we cannot do so well alone.” He identified a probe to the sun and a probe to Jupiter as appropriate ventures that were both “very demanding” and “quite complex.” Both would contribute “vastly to our mutual knowledge and our mutual skills.” Johnson did not fail to couple this proposal with broader foreign policy considerations, thanking Erhard for “the support which your Government has given to the common cause in Viet Nam, and which you may give in the days ahead.”56 The president’s high-profile offer to collaborate in space was also a public act of grati­tude to a faithful ally.

In February 1966 Arnold Frutkin and Homer Newell (responsible for space science) visited several European capitals to sound out their interest in the president’s proposal, which NASA had suggested to him under the label of the Advanced Cooperation Project.57 The two NASA officials began their trip in West Germany, and also visited Britain, France, Italy, and The Netherlands.58 The project was also presented to ESRO, which was NASA’s preferred partner. The American delegation emphasized that the Jupiter probe—though only illustra­tive of what might be done—was technologically and managerially challenging, and would significantly advance European industry. The solar probe would be used to investigate magnetic fields and the interplanetary environment near the sun. “The reaction,” writes Newell, “was surprising. [. . .] Only West Germany was interested in an expanded program with the United States.”59

Newell has given several reasons for European skepticism. They doubted that either project would advance European technology. With resources for space research limited, they wondered whether it would not be preferable to devote their available funds to developing applications satellites. They also suspected that NASA was less interested in promoting European capabilities than in hav­ing Europe contribute money to large projects that Congress was reluctant to support. Some critics went further. They were suspicious that “America was dan­gling the Jupiter probe in front of Europe to divert attention toward science and away from more practical projects like communications satellites.”60

West Germany’s “interest” was of course sparked by the presidential initiative during Erhard’s visit in December 1965. The German chancellor was far from enthusiastic about the idea, however.61 Erhard’s retained his skepticism about space projects as candidates for federal funding. Indeed just before he left to meet Johnson the Research Ministry was complaining bitterly about the tight – fisted approach of the administration. It had only managed to secure long-term financial support for Azur because a memorandum of understanding had been signed with NASA. By contrast, “funding for the development of a second sci­entific satellite and the conduct of further experiments, already planned under a specific program and agreed in preliminary talks with NASA [presumably the project officially announced at the State Banquet], has so far been refused” by the Finance Ministry.62

This financial prudence also reflected Erhard’s concerns about West Germany’s budget. Among a wide range of issues that were raised during his visit to Washington in December 1965 one of the most pressing concerns was the question of Germany’s offset payments to the United States. West Germany was required to “offset” with military purchases the approximate costs to the American gov­ernment of retaining US forces in its territory. From the US point of view this arrangement both provided a market for US weapon’s systems and improved the balance of payments. From Germany’s point of view, it secured an American com­mitment to hold the front line against Soviet expansion in the Cold War.

That said, the scheme was not popular in the Federal Republic. The flow of dollars abroad was significant For example, Erhard was supposed to place $1.35 billion of weapons orders in the United States by December 31, 1966, and to make a further $1.4 billion of offset payments by June 1967.63 In addi­tion, offset payments were associated in the public’s mind with a series of crashes of the F-104G Starfighter jets—ten in the first half of 1966 alone—giving the impression that the United States was selling unreliable and unnecessary mili­tary equipment to its ally.64 To add to Erhard’s woes the Federal parliament had just imposed a 10 percent budget cut on the chancellor.

The offset issue was raised when Erhard met Johnson in December 1965.65 On that occasion Johnson told him that

the Viet-Nam conflict is beginning to put a strain on our budget which will have to expand to accommodate the necessary expenditures. . . The President said he

expected the FRG to make another payment under the offset agreement this month so as not to upset the quarterly balance of US finances and not to weaken the international confidence in the dollar.

Erhard remarked that he had taken some extreme measures to meet the budget cut imposed on him at home. He assured the president that he wanted to respect his commitments, but suggested that he was looking for greater flexibility in the US approach: “The FRG would be willing to talk about this matter but at pres­ent it had considerable difficulties,” said Erhard.

Erhard returned to Washington for two days in September 1966. The American ambassador in Germany, George McGhee, advised Johnson ahead of the trip that this meeting would be “the most critical one you have yet held with the German leader.” The offset agreements were now “the greatest single source of friction” between Washington and Bonn.66 McGhee insisted that Johnson had to be flexible: Erhard’s political future depended on it. The ambassador (and others) made a number of suggestions for how the burden on Germany could be reduced, including “limited purchases in the field of space and foreign aid,” which would probably not exceed about $20-50 million annually.67

Johnson propelled space collaboration into prominence by accompanying Erhard down to Cape Kennedy during this very brief visit. In an official address in the still incomplete Vehicle Assembly Building the president personally thanked all those who had come to the United States from Germany, including von Braun, for the “great efforts” they had made to the American space pro­gram. He also enumerated the many projects that NASA had engaged in with European partners, and reiterated his desire to “vigorously pursue” international cooperation in space science, and to provide launchers for space efforts of mutual interest.68 On the flight back to Washington NASA administrator James Webb took the opportunity to talk at length with the German chancellor. As he wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, he assured the chancellor

that the President was, in fact, offering him more than friendship and more than dollars. In fact he was offering a partnership in the development of technology that could permit Germany to increase its own capability, gain a better understand­ing of its own needs and opportunities for multilateral and bilateral cooperation, establish a basis for leadership in the direction it felt its leadership could be effec­tive in Western Europe, and could set a pattern of university/industry/government cooperation suited to the needs of Germany, benefiting throughout from our own experience.69

Webb left his guest with the impression that “Erhard had a different attitude when we left the Cape than when we arrived. In fact,” Webb wrote Rusk, “he did say that it was impossible to learn from pictures, television, and documents the true scope and magnitude of what was being done and that he had a much better appreciation of its importance.”70

Did the trip to the Cape also signify the president’s willingness to allow the purchase of civilian space technology to offset the German debt? Reinhard Loosch, who was engaged in these early discussions and who later had an impor­tant administrative role in the Federal Republic’s space program, says that it did. Loosch stressed that the possibility of doing a joint satellite project with the United States not only “gave us at least the feeling that we would then be at the forefront of technology,” but was also a response to the question “what can we do, mutually agreeable, in order to help in offsetting the foreign exchange expenditures of the United States government.” Loosch emphasized that the FRG authorities did not object to the principle of offset. It was the implementa­tion that was straining the alliance:

It was clear for us from the very beginning—I should say from 1955 on, when we finally came back into the international political scene—that we would have to pay for that. This was taken for granted. But then, let’s do something more than just pay, help pay for the costs, but something where we could get something out of it. And in this respect, I think, the [collaboration with NASA] was quite, quite good.71

The memorandum of understanding for the cooperative satellite called Helios was signed in June 1969, more than three years after the first official con­tacts were made with Germany.72 In December 1974 and in January 1976 two German spacecraft weighing about 205 kilograms each, Helios 1 and Helios 2, were launched by Titan rockets from Cape Canaveral into elliptical orbits about the sun. They were designed to fly closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft (approaching to within 45 million kilometers) and to provide novel scientific information about solar processes and solar-terrestrial relationships. The probes were designed, manufactured, and integrated by Messerchmitt-Bolkow-Blohm, who worked closely with the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology and the German Aeronautical and Space Research Test Center.73 Each carried ten experiments, the majority of which were German (though there were also con­tributions from the United States, Australia, and Italy). The spacecraft, which cost Germany about $100 million, were operated and controlled from a national facility. NASA provided the deep-space tracking network to support the mission, and participated in the Joint Working Group responsible for technical imple­mentation.74

Helios was the most ambitious bilateral scientific project that NASA had undertaken to date. The Helios spacecraft not only imposed advanced techni­cal requirements on German industry, particularly for the development of the on-board power system, on-board data-processing system, and thermal controls that had to survive high levels of solar radiation, it also introduced German engi­neers and project managers to the way space projects were implemented in the United States.75 Admittedly quite a bit of the equipment in these early projects was not of German origin. However, the “conscientious imitation” of successful technologies and management methods were fundamental to building an inde­pendent national effort.76

Just before these delicate and complex negotiations got under way the Europeans lost one of their most trusted allies: NASA administrator Tom Paine.

Paine was convinced that if NASA was to going to sell its post-Apollo pro­gram, it had to adopt what he called a “swashbuckling, buccaneering, privateer­ing kind of approach.”114 He tried to enroll the White House in his ambitions plans by writing several letters to the president, encouraged by Nixon repeating publicly in March 1970 that he hoped for “greater international cooperation.”115 His energetic advocacy was not, however, matched by the administration’s sup­port for NASA.

NASA’s ambitions were reined in by transformations to the decision-making process on the budget. Nixon elevated the Bureau of the Budget (BOB) into the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in July 1970, and gave it wide – ranging powers to evaluate program performance and budgetary requests before they were submitted to Congress. This arm of the administration was thus a cardinal player in the assessment of budget requests coming up from the various government agencies (only the CIA and the DoD were apparently able to over­ride their strictures), and its officers had a crucial role in transforming general policy statements into concrete programs with a realistic (in their eyes) dollar amount attached to them.

These changes had palpable effects on NASA’s budget. Indeed between the time that Paine made his ebullient speech in Europe in October 1969 and the Congressional debate on the budget in the first six months of 1970, he saw NASA’s future funds cut by over 25 percent. His proposed budget for FY1971 was $4.25 billion, a sum that he had already reluctantly reduced by about $0.25 billion. The BOB lopped $0.8 billion off that. Senior White House staffers Peter Flanigan and Thomas Clay Whitehead pruned it further. Flanigan was an invest­ment banker who had been Nixon’s campaign manager in 1968 and who had been given oversight responsibilities for space. Whitehead was a systems analyst from RAND who was asked by Flanigan to assess NASA’s budget and planning procedures. Flanigan and Whitehead reduced the BOB figure to $3.53 billion, and then, even as Paine was announcing this to the press, cut it by a further 2.5 percent to $3.3 billion as part of an across-the-board reduction to present a balanced budget to Congress for FY1971. Paine’s budget proposal thus suffered a massive reduction of some $1.2 billion in a few months.116

Then there was the situation in Congress. A survey of Congressional opinion covering the first 11 months of 1970 remarked that ‘‘[ijnflation, increasingly pressing domestic social problems, urban decay, environmental pollution and growing popular disenchantment with Federal programs that could possibly be called technological luxuries” had pushed space well down the list of national priorities. This was exacerbated by the success of Apollo 11 and 12, which sug­gested that the United States was well ahead of the USSR in the “space race.”117

The Cold War rationale for a major space program had lost its bite, and the sat­isfaction of domestic social needs was uppermost in the minds of both Congress and the Senate.

President Nixon was also less committed personally to space than was President Johnson, who had, of course, made the conquest of space his signature item in the run up to the 1960 presidential election. What is more when Nixon spoke of international collaboration he had the communist bloc foremost in mind. European matters took second place to his concern to establish east-west detente. This was translated into the signature of major international agreements intended to stabilize the international order, including a collaborative space ven­ture that involved the docking in space of an Apollo and a Soyuz spacecraft (see chapter 7).118

In a climate where interest in space was rapidly declining, where financial restraint was imperative, where the old Cold War arguments for a major space program had lost their punch, and where the budget process was dominated by people who were determined to clamp down on expenditure and were very reluctant to authorize new open-ended projects, support for a major post-Apollo program was anything but assured. Paine was not particularly good at adapting his proposals to this political reality: he rather naively believed that his enthu­siasm and the self-evident (to him) merits of NASA’s proposals would persuade the White House to endorse them and Congress to fund them. He was even less able to manage the internal dynamics in the White House and the power that the BOB had over preliminary budget estimates, nor the hostility felt by people like Tom Whitehead to his ambitions.

In August 1970 Thomas Paine decided to return to private life. One of the last things he did was to thank Henry Kissinger for his “strong and effective sup­port” in their “joint efforts to increase international participation in the space programs of the United States.” He also expressed his “deep appreciation” to U. Alexis Johnson (State Department) for his “help and encouragement” in the past, and urged his continued “strong support [. . .] to increase substantially par­ticipation by other nations in our space program.”119

As Joan Hoff puts it, Paine’s departure from NASA on September 15, 1970, “came as a welcome relief to both the legislative and executive branches of government.”120 The reaction in Europe was just the contrary. Paine’s “convic­tion and enthusiasm,” his “friendliness and open-mindedness,” would be missed. So would his recognition, not generally shared in Washington, that “we cannot have significant international cooperation without some real dependency, each side upon the other.”121 The secretary general of ELDO spoke for all on that side of the Atlantic when he wrote to Paine that “[w]e will [. . .] be deeply affected by your leaving NASA which will mean the break in an important personal link which has been of the greatest value at this still rather provisional stage of our common enterprise.”122

Following this rocky period, between 1968 and 1972 Soviet-American relations encountered a point of departure at which the two maintained coordinated activ­ities—be it even on one or two projects—until the present. In 1968, the World Weather Watch entered its operational phase (the World Weather Program), at which point both Soviet Meteor satellites and US TIROS satellites circled the earth providing continuous data to researchers and forecasters alike. In 1969 the United States cancelled its biosatellite program, making the Soviet offer for coop­eration on the Bion biosatellites all the more attractive five years later. In the fall of 1970, Soviet academician Keldysh wrote NASA administrator Paine acknowl­edging that cooperation was to date “limited in character,” leading eventually to the 1970-1971 agreement for an Apollo-Soyuz docking in orbit.19

The moon race, as it were, ended. NASA, which for many had come to be viewed as a single-issue agency, was now seeking new purpose in Spacelab, the Shuttle Program, hopes for additional planetary exploration, as well as sustained research and development in remote sensing. Congress reduced NASA’s budget and priorities year after year, leading in part to the resignation of Administrator James Webb in October of 1968.20 In March of 1969, Thomas Paine took over duties as NASA administrator, but remained in office a mere 19 months. James C. Fletcher followed as NASA administrator in April 1971, remaining through May of 1977.

During this time, initiatives for bilateral collaboration were in some regards a “bottom-up” phenomena. Historian Yuri Karash indicates that in late 1969 and early 1970, cosmonauts began making rare visits to the United States. At that time, Mikhail Millionshchikiov, a vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, spoke at the Second National Convocation on the Challenge of Building Peace in New York City, expressing the sentiment that the time was favorable for renewed talks in collaboration. In a remarkably short period of time, October 1970, leading officials from both US and Soviet space programs met in Moscow to discuss the possibility of joint ventures.21

In January 1971, NASA’s acting administrator George Low and Arnold Frutkin met with Nixon’s foreign policy advisor, Henry Kissinger. In their meeting, Low broached the possibility of formally inviting the Soviet Union to take part in a test mission involving an Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. Kissinger assured Low, “As long as you stick to space, do anything you want to do. You are free to commit—in fact, I want you to tell your counterparts in Moscow that the President has sent you on this mission.” (Kissinger’s condition “as long as you stick to space” stemmed from the fact that astronauts had been quoted, indicating that bilateral negotiations at the national level ought to be as easy as those for space collaboration.)22 With the Nixon administration’s blessing, negotiations led eventually to the January 21, 1971, US-USSR Science and Applications Agreement.

These individuals signify shifting political climates—as both drivers and con­sequences of their times. The competition of the early Cold War gave way to detente, and a cautiously cooperative climate shaped the character of NASA – Soviet programs in the 1970s and early 1980s. This is not to say that the thaw in US-Soviet relations overwhelmed all other challenges to collaboration: what was possible in practice was determined at once by scientific direction, security restrictions, technical limitations, and fiscal realities. Thus a study of coopera­tive work in the fields of biosatellites, atmospheric science, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project will illustrate the structural flexibility inherent to NASA’s principles and guidelines for international projects—how a wide variety of scientific and engineering communities managed to work under these adaptable guidelines, yielding scientifically and (to many) culturally meaningful returns.23

Under the 1971 US-USSR Science and Applications Agreement (renewed in 1974 and 1977), Soviet and US space researchers agreed to exchange lunar soil samples, share biomedical results from human spaceflight, and compare findings from Mars and Venus probes. In addition to this, they set up five joint working groups that supported the continuation of meteorological sounding rocket net­works, coordinated maritime studies, joint vegetation surveys, and called for the flight of Soviet life sciences experiments on Skylab.24 A number of these opera­tions were, or led to, multilateral ventures.

Indeed, several multilateral endeavors overlapped with 1971, 1974, and 1977 arrangements between the United States and the Soviet Union. Realizing that it was in their best interest to invite the participation of other nations, policymakers on both sides of the Iron Curtain proposed cooperation in their research or at the very least opened a substantial amount of data to the public domain. Both Soviet and US lunar samples were distributed to a number of nations. Likewise research­ers released results of biomedical and planetary research to international colleagues and continued to contribute standardized data and specialized observations to World Meteorological Organization data centers. In all cases the United States, it must be said, was far more forthcoming than the Soviet Union, in line with its far more positive commitment to international collaboration and openness.

In each of these fields, Presidential initiative per se appears to have played a limited role in sustaining cooperation. Indeed, several projects carried on in spite of executive policy intended to snub the opposing superpower. Following the initial thrust of the Kennedy administration, repeatedly pressuring Premier Khrushchev to work with NASA in space, bilateral collaboration operated for the most part under the inclination of NASA headquarters, NASA centers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and researchers located at various universities. Nevertheless, presidential administrations and the Congress together shaped NASA policy by setting budget priorities, demanding rigorous justification for innovative programs, or as in the case of the Carter and Reagan administrations, opting to not openly pursue joint objectives with the Soviets, but simply tolerating collaborative projects that were less prone to publicity.

Chapter 7 has demonstrated how from the 1960s onward, Soviet-American relations in the life sciences remained cordial, punctuated by exchanges of data and research findings, along with dozens of experiments flown by US research­ers on Soviet Bion satellites. In the years immediately preceding the collapse of the Soviet Union, life science researchers on both sides of the iron curtain continued to sustain low-budget, but scientifically meaningful cooperation. As of 1991, NASA had already shipped and installed special X-ray equipment for measuring bone density before and after extended Mir flights. As detailed in the last chapter, from 1975 through 1992, NASA’s Ames Research Center had been contributing experiments to Soviet biosatellites. In June 1991 a materials experiment “the size of two tuna cans” traveled to Mir aboard a robotic Progress M-8 cargo craft. This was a cooperative project between NASA and the Soviet Union’s Institute for Biomedical Problems (the same institutions responsible for biosatellite cooperation that bridged the Carter-Reagan gap in cooperation). Soviets lacked data on solar radiation levels outside the Mir and Americans were collecting information necessary for long-voyage engineering and, more imme­diately, Space Station Freedom design. Other advantages included the fact that the radiation experiment required no electricity from Mir and that it occupied minimal cargo room on its returning Soyuz capsule (Soviet representatives hap­pily took this opportunity to point out that Mir maintained a “backlog” of manufactured materials waiting to be returned to earth).34

Roughly three weeks before the failed August Coup against Gorbachev, President George H. W. Bush proposed a new twist. In a series of initiatives developed by the National Space Council and Vice President Dan Quayle, Bush suggested the exchange of an astronaut with a cosmonaut. Might it be possible for an American to visit Mir, if the Americans accepted a cosmonaut guest on the Shuttle?

At this early phase, NASA maintained life sciences as the primary research interest. The Soviets would provide data already gathered on long-duration flight research; both would share medical equipment for flight and participate in efforts to standardize scientific instruments and lab analysis.35 The exchange of crew held great symbolic value, foreshadowing a possible decline in secrecy of the then Soviet state. It would entail cross-training at the respective partner facilities, as well as calling for new telecommunications links between human spaceflight cen­ters. Whereas the Americans had only flown up to 84 days in orbit, their experi­ments tended to be carried out on more sophisticated equipment and performed in-flight. The Soviets, on the other hand, could boast Mir missions of a year’s length, but conducted most of their physiological research pre – and postflight and still had no freezer aboard Mir for storing blood and urine samples.36

Some warned of disadvantages. Frank Sulzman, chief of NASA’s life support branch, pointed out what critics might find less appealing. For one thing, some may fear the undue transfer of American biotechnology to Soviet counterparts, thereby enhancing their lead in long-duration flights. One official, preferring to remain nameless, speculated that the cash-strapped Russians may charge the Americans money for “the means of minimizing the effects of weightlessness on the body,” which in the short-term include nausea, fluid redistribution in the head and legs, and disorientation.37

In June of 1992, NASA administrator Dan Goldin (appointed by President Bush in April 1992) explained that the Americans and now Russian partners were advancing to the “next crucial step in expanding cooperative space activities.”38 Now, in addition to the flight of a cosmonaut on the Shuttle and an astronaut on Mir, the parties had agreed to negotiate two more international flights: an in-orbit rendezvous of craft (meaning the Shuttle would circle, but not dock with the Mir) and the eventual docking of the two craft a few months later. With the second exercise, astronaut Norm Thagard would transfer from Mir to the Shuttle for his return flight (which took place in the summer of 1995). Table 8.1 lists the Phase 1 Shuttle-Mir Flights.39

In the fall of 1992, negotiations commenced between Rockwell International (since 1972, the prime contractor on the Shuttle orbiter) and NPO Energia for the use of a Russian-designed Mir-Shuttle docking module.40 In the meantime, as NASA staff settled into cooperating with the Russian Space Agency Roskosmos (itself only five months old) and Rockwell began work with Energia, the American press discussed the likelihood that American firms and NASA might take any number of courses: purchase Mir outright, invite Russian participation on the Space Station Freedom, or commence with plans for an i nternational human

mission to Mars. But this was all speculation. At the time, Russian ties to the Space Station Freedom (by 1992 a disheartening eight years in the making—see chapter 13) were limited to a study contract, exploring whether or not the Soyuz might be employed as an ACRV “life boat” on the space station.

At the beginning of the Shuttle-Mir Missions, the Mir Space Station con­sisted of four modules, launched incrementally.41

Mir Base Blok (also: FGB Universal Blok Salyut or FGB Universal and Adaptable Space Apparatus (SA)): This module, derived from the military space station Almaz, had been used to provide power, station-keeping reboost, tug­ging, and docking to a number Russian missions—human and robotic alike. A report provided to NASA by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Facility highlighted the adaptability, variability, and compatibility of the FGBs, explaining that they were identical, predesigned systems with the same engines, tanks, control units, thermal systems, and so on. Russian engineers achieved variability among FGB craft by moving engines, adding or subtracting tanks, or changing electrical power ratings. Thus, the FGB blok was compatible with all Salyut, Mir, and eventually Russian ISS modules and had provided power to at least seven robotic Kosmos missions as well as Mir’s Kvant-2, Kristal, Spektr, and Piroda modules.

Kvant-1: This blok was launched in 1987, carrying instruments for scientific experimentation as well as six gyrodynes and a Salyut 5-B digital computer for station orientation.

Kvant-2: Launched in 1989, this module included an extravehicular activity (EVA) airlock, solar arrays, and additional life support equipment.

Kristal: Docked in 1990, carrying scientific equipment, retractable solar arrays, and an androgynous docking mechanism.

Spektr: A derivative of the FGB apparatus, Spektr had originally been designed for Soviet military experiments, but had never been launched due to a lack of funding. “Rescued” by US-Russian cooperation, this module was launched in May 1995. Americans and Russians used it for earth observation and atmo­spheric study.

Priroda: Supplied additional remote sensing capability, along with hardware for materials processing, meteorological and ionospheric research. Priroda also carried equipment for US, French, and German research.