Category NASA in the World

О ur first debt of gratitude goes to Steve Dick and Steve Garber in the NASA History Office. In selecting this team for this project they not only placed their faith in experience. They sought also to extend and consolidate the community of space historians, and gave two young scholars the opportunity to grow per­sonally and intellectually. Bill Barry provided extensive and invaluable feedback on an earlier version of this text when he was appointed NASA chief historian, and did all he could to facilitate its publication with an academic press.

The advice and generous help of the archivists in the NASA History Office made the product possible. Jane Odom was not only our guide and counselor. She also had the task of frequently dealing with the formalities needed for two of us to enter the NASA Headquarters Building. Nadine Andreassen provided invaluable additional support. Collin Fries, John Hargenrader, and Elizabeth Suckow pulled file after file from storage cabinets, tracked down obscure refer­ences, and lived with four huge boxes of our material on the floor of the archive for months on end. This study has benefited extensively from their knowledge of the primary source material, their imagination in suggesting new leads, and their generous availability whenever we called on them. Thanks too to Patrick Reust of the World Meteorological Organization Library, Geneva, and Betsey Stout and Elizabeth Rogers of the Marriott Library Special Collections at the University of Utah for their advice and help.

Primary sources were supplemented with about two dozen formal interviews, now transcribed and available in the NASA Historical Reference Collection, and with many informal discussions with eminent members of the space community. Those interviewed included many dedicated NASA staff who gave generously of their time. All interviewees are acknowledged individually in the “List of Interviews”: their insights added important texture to the documentary record. John Hall and Paula Geisz deserve a special word of thanks for their careful reading, and rereading, of the chapter on export control compliance.

The Georgia Institute of Technology was an immensely supportive envi­ronment for doing this work. We want to thank Chris Fehrenbach, above all, for administering this contact with consummate skill and good humor. Janis Goddard, in the Office of Sponsored Programs, was our interface with NASA itself. Katharine Calhoun, Gladys Toppert, and Bruce Henson in the library made untiring efforts to get books, articles, and dissertations in record time. The faculty and the graduate community in the School of History, Technology and Society were always engaged and willing to give advice and feedback. We particularly want to thank Ron Bayor, Laura Bier, Doug Flamming, Prakash Kumar, Ken Knoespel, Nathan Moon, Jenny Smith, Tim Stoneman, and Steve Usselman whose insight and personal encouragement was invaluable.

Preliminary versions of our findings have been presented at many confer­ences, workshops, and university seminars. Engaged audiences were construc­tive critics. We owe a particular debt of gratitude to Jacques Blamont, Roger Bonnet, Jason Callahan, Jean Pierre Causse, Indira Choudhary, Martin Collins, Mark Finlay, James Flemming, Kristine Harper, Tom Lassman, Pam Mack, Ian Pryke, Yasushi Sato, Asif Siddiqi, Raman Srinivasan, Roger Turner, and Odd Arne Westad for thoughtful comments and criticisms on various incarnations of this research.

In transiting from a NASA publication to an academic press we owe an immense debt of gratitude to Roger Launius and Jim Fleming, who immediately agreed to include it in their series. Chris Chappell and Sarah Whalen at Palgrave Macmillan provided outstanding editorial support.

This book would not have been possible without the unstinting support, pro­fessional and personal, that many colleagues, friends and family have provided. Special friends too numerous to mention have stood by us through thick and thin. And then there are those who have intimately shared our anxieties and our excitement—Lydie, and David, Peter, Simon, and Sara; Adrienne, Cyndi, Frances, and Jason; Dolly and Nate, and Appa, Amma, Kannan, Rajesh, and Anand. We could not have done this without knowing that you were there.

NSAM294: Curbing France—Two major hurdles stood in the way of mov­ing beyond scientific to technological collaboration with Europe, notably in the strategically key domain of launchers. The first was enshrined in NSAM (National Security Action Memorandum) 294, signed by McGeorge Bundy and dated April 20, 1964. NSAM294 was a response to de Gaulle’s determination to develop an independent nuclear deterrent, including guided missiles, and the French president’s dislike for international and supranational institutions (includ­ing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO) that restricted France’s sovereignty and autonomy of action. For Washington, to curb proliferation on the continent “it continues to be in this government’s interest not to contrib­ute to or assist in the development of a French nuclear warhead capability or a

French national strategic nuclear delivery capability.” To that end NSAM294 directed that “effective controls be established immediately” to stop “exchanges of information and technology between the governments, sales of equipment, joint research and development activities, and exchanges between industrial and commercial organizations [. . .], which would be reasonably likely to facilitate these efforts by significantly affecting timing, quality or costs or would identify the U. S. as a major supplier or collaborator.”13 Closing the technological gap with France in the domain of rocketry would undermine the stability of the Atlantic alliance that the United States hoped to construct to meet the Soviet threat, rather than contributing to the defense of the free world.

NSAM338 Promoting Global Telecommunications—The second major stum­bling block to technological sharing was the administration’s determination not to launch foreign satellites for “separate systems,” which would do “significant economic harm” to an American-led global telecommunications satellite system. US-European tensions over this issue threatened to sabotage the collaborative process in the 1960s and early 1970s, and their evolution over the decade will be treated in detail in what follows.

In his famous speech before Congress on May 25, 1961, President Kennedy not only committed the United States to put a man on the moon before the decade was out, he also called for the establishment of a single, global commu­nications satellite system. Soon thereafter a White House press release dated July 24, 1961, invited all “nations to participate in a communications satellite system, in the interest of world peace and closer brotherhood among peoples through­out the world.” The president called for the establishment of a privately owned corporation, Comsat, to handle the American portion of the system. He also made it clear that he wanted Comsat to establish the system quickly to ensure an American space first.14 The Communications Satellite Act, signed into law by Kennedy on August 31, 1962, authorized Comsat to “plan, initiate, construct, own, manage, and operate itself or in conjunction with foreign governments or business entities a commercial communications satellite system.”

Kennedy’s proposal challenged the domination by Britain of an international communications network of submarine cables. It also politicized an ongoing busi­ness-led communications satellite enterprise.15 It recognized the cultural impor­tance of an American-led global communications system: a main leitmotif in the May 1961 speech was, after all, the use of space technology to win the hearts and minds of those who were faced with a choice between “freedom and tyranny.”16 It was also a more immediate, pragmatic, and commercially important way of “selling” space to the American public than a remote and immensely challenging lunar landing. These aims—the creation of a commercial entity that would both be profitable and promote an American foreign policy agenda in the context of intense Cold War rivalry—dominated the negotiations surrounding the definition of the role of Comsat. They influenced its relationships with the administration (notably the State Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)), and with European telecommunications entities and governments.17

It was assumed from the outset that, to ensure the most efficient utilization “of a very rare resource—the electromagnetic frequency spectrum,” Comsat would establish a single global system: competing global, regional, or national systems would be discouraged. This would avoid “unnecessary and wasteful” economic competition, the needless duplication of technologies, and facilitate the standardization of equipment.

The global system foreseen by Comsat distinguished sharply between the financ­ing and management of space and ground segments. The space segment comprised all of the satellites in the system, along with their supporting tracking, control, and command facilities. It would be jointly owned and financed by the participants (nations, groups of nations, or regions), whose capital investment would be propor­tional to their potential use of the global system. The ground segments would com­prise stations transmitting and receiving data from satellites and would be under the control of national private or public telecommunications entities.

The Europeans, organized through a new European Conference on Satellite Communications (CETS), were concerned from the outset about what they saw as American dominance in Comsat. In a key meeting in Rome in 1964 they voiced their hesitations over the dual role of Comsat as having both a major role in defin­ing policy and as managing the system. They were also concerned by a procurement policy that was based on accepting the technically and financially best bid from aerospace industries. This would necessarily favor US high-tech industry, given the huge technological lag between the two sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Italian ambassador Edigio Ortona opened the Rome meeting. He spelt out CETS’s position. He suggested that the global comsat system should be “owned and managed by a world organization” to ensure that all the participating countries could have an “adequate voice” in its management.18 This should be entrusted to a multinational general conference in which each country had one vote “in principle” on most matters. Ortona also urged that in the early stages of the system special provision should be made for European industry so that it could close the technological gap with the United States.

The American delegation rejected these proposals outright. It would proceed at once to raise the capital for the global system with or without the Europeans. Comsat would manage the space segment (while each country would control its own ground segment), and voting would be determined by investment (which in turn was based on a country’s use of the system).19 Financial share would be correlated with projections of traffic data based on the use that countries made of international cable facilities: this meant that the United States’ voting weight would be greater than 50 percent, perhaps as much as 65 percent. Contracts would be awarded competitively, thus effectively ensuring that no European firm could hope to participate significantly in the early technological fruits of the system. To rub in the point, in March 1964 Comsat announced that it had contracted with Hughes Aircraft Co. for the design, manufacture, and testing of two synchronous orbit communication satellites “to demonstrate to the Europeans,” as one US negotiator put it, “that their refusal to agree would not hold up the system.”20

The Europeans had little choice but to accept the US conditions. To satisfy their concerns it was agreed that the legal agreements then adopted would only apply in the interim. They would be reevaluated by an Interim Communications Satellite Committee (ICSC) in 1969, when steps would be taken to set up a per­manent organization whose operation would be defined by the newly negotiated definitive agreements. The interim voting procedures were the very last to be settled. The United States would (initially) have 61.0 percent of the vote in the Interim Committee, followed by Britain (8.15 percent), and France and Germany (6.1 percent each). As more countries joined the organization so the percentage shares would shift, but it was agreed that, in any event, the US share of the vote would not drop below 50.6 percent. Decisions would be taken if accepted by the United States along with other countries whose combined vote was “not less than 12.5%.” This effectively stopped France and Germany (12.2 percent together) having a veto over all decisions.

The interim agreements establishing the first multinational communica­tions satellite organization were opened for signature on August 20, 1964.21 The governing body of the consortium was called Intelsat—the International Telecommunications Satellite Corporation. Its executive instrument was the ICSC. Intelsat had overall responsibility for the design, development, estab­lishment, and operation of the single global system that would be managed by Comsat. A related Special Agreement dealt with the ground segment. By the end of 1965 the number of participants in the consortium was 46: no communist country was among them. The initial estimate for the cost of the space segment was $200 million. It would provide voice, telegraphy, broadband data, high-speed data, and television services. Comsat’s investment quota, which translated into voting weight on the interim committee, was a little more than 56 percent at the end of 1965. Western European countries had a share of about 28 percent.22

The initial structure of Intelsat ensured US preponderance in the system. As Charles Johnson, a senior official in the Johnson administration, put it, Intelsat was “an unusually attractive international vehicle for the U. S.”23 Since the interim agreements stipulated that the United States’ voting weight could never drop below 50 percent, “we control.”24 All the same, as more countries sought to exploit the new opportunity, Comsat, as manager on behalf of an international consortium, was obliged to encourage bids from foreign firms for equipment for the space seg­ment. NSAM338 was promulgated on September 15, 1965, to meet this chal­lenge.25 The “core” of NSAM 338, to quote National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy was “to use our technological superiority to discourage commercial compe­tition with Comsat and/or wasteful investment in several duplicative Free World defense-related systems.”26 The United States would provide technical information, launch vehicles, and launching services to other nations only when they assured the administration that “what we supply is needed to develop or use the global com­mercial system.”27 For military communications, the administration’s “aim was to encourage selected allied nations to use the U. S. national defense communications satellite system rather than to develop independent systems, and to accommodate allied needs within the U. S. system.”28 In short through NSAM338 the United States aimed to use its technological preeminence and its veto powers in the Interim Committee as levers to restrict the proliferation of competitors to the single global telecommunications system that was managed by Comsat.

NSAM338 posed immense problems for NASA and the State Department. On the one hand, through the Intelsat agreements, the United States was encour­aged to help other countries build up their communications satellite industries so as to get some return on their investment in the international consortium. NSAM338 instructed them not to provide that support unless they were given guarantees that the benefactor did not build a satellite system that could do significant economic harm to the single global system being established by Intelsat. It also discouraged technological sharing in the domain of launchers, for fear that other countries would eventually seek to develop their own com­munications satellite system outside the Intelsat framework. NSAM294 added to these restrictions by insisting that technological assistance to Western Europe in the area of rocketry should do nothing to advance the French military pro­gram. These requirements bedeviled the efforts made by NASA and the State Department to share technology with Europe in the latter part of the 1960s.

Europe’s insistence that post-Apollo collaboration was tied to “guaranteed” launcher availability meant that little progress could be made at the techni­cal level until the political problems were resolved. On February 24 the State Department briefed all pertinent embassies regarding the debates that had been held with the Lefevre delegation two weeks before and the uproar that it had provoked. It insisted that the “distortions” and “misunderstandings” that had occurred in the European press should be countered by stressing the important new concessions that the United States had made. They were willing to con­sider supporting regional European telecom systems. They would define the specifications of the system that the United States could support in Intelsat, with particular reference to the proposed Eurosat system that had been suggested for the 1990s by the Europeans themselves. They guaranteed that Europeans would not only have preferential access to the shuttle, but could acquire one for use at their own launch suites for launching their own payloads.28 None of this satisfied Lefevre. He stressed once again that the whole launcher question was tied to Europe’s wish to engage in a long-term telecommunications satellite pro­gram, and needed assurances that launchers would be available before deciding to abandon autonomous access to space. The “final decision power” vested in the United States by the new terms for launching comsats made it impossible for Europe—in Lefevre’s view—to embark on any “medium or long-term program­ming of our space activities.”29

Frutkin was determined that NASA’s views should be heard through the diplomatic cacophony. He spelt them out to Herman Pollack in the State Department and to Robert Behr on the staff of the National Security Council. He insisted that a bold step was needed to undo the damage done by Johnson’s reversal of the United States’ position in Intelsat. Nothing less could insure a 10 percent/$1 billion European commitment to post-Apollo, which would be at the expense of Europe developing an indigenous launcher and make them dependent on the United States for access to space.30 He noted that a recent agreement brokered with Japan by the State Department offered launch sup­port for comsats subject to Japan itself deciding whether they satisfied Intelsat’s conditions: there was no additional override clause linking US launcher avail­ability with Intelsat recommendations. Europe could not be treated differently. If it was, he told Behr, NASA and the United States would lose credibility as partners in international collaborative projects in science and technology. The agency would not be able to carry out the “personal and repeated directive of the President” to engage foreign partners in the post-Apollo venture. And Europe would be backed into “an independent launcher development program which would proliferate missile technology and win Europe total independence with respect to Intelsat initiatives.” Behr added a further argument in a memo to Kissinger of March 4, 1971: “Many large US firms have discovered that their international business depends upon the existence of foreign capabilities and skills to which they can relate.” For them even a 10 percent participation in the STS program would build the kind of “framework” that would narrow the technological gap and facilitate transnational and transatlantic collaboration at the level of the firm.31

Pollack agreed with Frutkin that the United States would have to make American launchers available to the Europeans for their own use, but insisted that Washington should decide whether or not the payload would do significant economic harm to Intelsat.32 Behr included in his memo for Kissinger the argu­ments against a strong European presence in post-Apollo and against a relax­ation of the US line in Intelsat. At the top of the list was Tom Whitehead’s claim that “we are giving the Europeans too much technology for too little return,” and that they were demanding a “disproportionately large share of program management responsibilities.” He noted that the savings to the United States would be considerably less than $1 billion because of the increased managerial complexity. And he suggested that any concessions to Europe would alienate Third World countries in Intelsat, who might feel that once again the industrial powers were arranging concession among themselves that were denied to the less-developed world. “There was no need for you to get involved in this hassle at the moment,” Behr assured Kissinger. But he did suggest that the national security adviser meet with the president’s science advisor, Ed David, to discuss “whether it is in the interest of the U. S. to continue the development of the space shuttle/station and, if so, to what extent do we wish to engage foreign participation?”33 His comment serves as a reminder that no firm decision had yet been taken on whether to proceed with the shuttle at all, let alone with a European contribution at it.

In fact momentum was growing to exclude Europe from the post-Apollo program. On February 22, 1971, Ed David met the president along with White House staffers Peter Flanigan and John Ehrlichman—but no one from the State Department. David informed Kissinger about a month later that the meet­ing had concluded that “a joint effort with the Europeans is not in our best interests.”34 He mentioned that this seemed to be Nixon’s view too. The presi­dent’s science adviser listed five reasons against European participation. Topping the list was “substantial high technology transfer” in return for a 10 percent contribution that was of dubious value anyway, since it would be offset by the increased costs of a cooperative program, and by the United States probably having to “undertake back-up programs for those elements or systems being developed abroad.” Management would be complicated by the need to satisfy partners. Collaboration would strengthen Europe’s capacity to compete “for our own commercial exploitation of our satellite technology.” And, finally, the “proposed arrangements [would] lock us into the shuttle program, depriving us of the flexibility to tailor the program to our evolving needs.” Kissinger was not prepared to take these remarks at face value: as he cautioned Ed David, “[O]ne should not attempt to deduce Presidential decisions from casual conversation.” The upshot was that all agreed it was necessary to continue discussions with the Europeans but to “to slow the pace,” not to soften the US position on launchers, and to produce a “technical cost/benefit analysis of the various alternative ways of cooperating in space with Europe”35 in case it was needed to exclude them from post-Apollo.

Toward the end of April another high-level attempt was made to explain the European view in Washington, this time by a German delegation led by the min­ister of education and science, Hans Leussink. The Germans had been strong supporters of post-Apollo participation from the outset. As Behr told Kissinger, the reaction in Bonn to the “failed” Lefevre mission in February had been one of surprise and shock, “by what they universally described as the ‘hard line’ taken by the US” at the meeting. “They expressed fear that it will be impossible for Europe to participate in the post-Apollo program and dismay that Europe will find it necessary to develop an independent launcher capability which would be wasteful and also a divisive element in US-European cooperation.” 36 In short, Bonn felt that it was being forced by Washington to support a program in Europe that it did not like at the expense of a collaborative venture with the United States that it had always sought.

Leussink met with Low, Frutkin, and others at NASA on April 21. Low repeated the offer that Europe do the tug that would be required for “the major­ity of the shuttle missions,” and contribute, on a subcontracting basis, “some portion of the shuttle air frame.” As regards launcher availability, Low empha­sized that he understood the concerns expressed abroad and hoped “that we can work out our problems on this subject in the near future.”37

The next day Leussink met with Ed David.38 He insisted that if post-Apollo cooperation failed it would undermine the drive to European integration. He emphasized that Germany was willing to collaborate on any reasonable venture—shuttle, tug, or space station module—but that it needed launch assur­ances (failing which it would be “forced, with other European countries, into development of Europa III, leaving no money for post-Apollo cooperation”). Leussink also pointed out that he would be quite satisfied if the Europeans— like Japan—could buy American boosters or build them under license abroad.

The internal divisions within the administration emerged full-blown at a spe­cial meeting on post-Apollo cooperation held immediately after Leussink’s visit. It took place in the White House Situation Room on April 23, 1971.39 The meeting was chaired by Kissinger, and attended by White House staffers Peter Flanigan and Tom Whitehead, the new NASA administrator, James Fletcher, and his assistant, George Low, Edward David and Norman Neureiter from the Office of Science and Technology, and Robert Behr from the National Security Council.

Kissinger explained what was at issue: “[W]hether a program of co-operation with the Europeans is desirable. If the President wishes to have a program of some substance,” he went on, “the US will have to provide launch services to the Europeans. If he decides against a program of co-operation, we will hold to a hard line on the provision of such services.” Flanigan was particularly outspo­ken, objecting to the dangers of technology transfer and charging that NASA was advocating a program that was “nothing like what the President wants.” Flanigan claimed that for Nixon “a symbolic gesture like flying a European astronaut in space” would suffice. Whitehead supported him, arguing that what really mattered for the president was cooperative ventures that resulted in a net foreign policy benefit for the United States: the “grandiose program” being pursued by NASA was likely to have the opposite effect.

Kissinger, on balance, showed more sympathy for NASA than for David, Flanigan, and Whitehead. He was more sensitive than they to the foreign policy aspects of post-Apollo cooperation. He disliked the presumption by the White House staffers that they had privileged access to the president’s wishes. And he implied that the debate was being driven by muddled preconceptions rather than by reasoned argument. NASA was asked to provide within two weeks, in coopera­tion with David’s office, a paper “(1) defining technology transfer and analyzing its implications and (2) describing the various possibilities for space cooperation with the Europeans in addition to the shuttle.” Kissinger told Behr that a reply from the State Department to Lefevre would have to wait until this paper had been prepared and evaluated, and a program direction had been selected by the president.40

As envisioned by NASA-Hydromet-Weather Bureau planners in the early 1960s, a minimum of two polar-orbiting satellites provided by the United States and the Soviet Union would support GARP. Through the course of the 1970s NASA provided two generations of polar-orbiting satellites: the Tiros Operational System (TOS) and the Improved Tiros (ITiros). The Soviets made incremental upgrades to the Meteor system until 1975, when they introduced the Meteor-2 system.

American researchers and the press were quick to point out that Meteor satel­lites tended to have shorter functional and design lives than the US systems (six as opposed to twelve months).39 One trade journal reported that although the Soviets were satisfied with the operation of Meteor satellites, the United States was not. It went on, explaining, “US dissatisfaction with Soviet meteorological data was expressed recently by NASA administrator James Webb, who noted that the Soviets were not living up to the agreement on exchange of data.”40 Although NASA officials described photos as “excellent,” data tended to be delayed 24-48 hours (too late for use in weather prediction) and when they arrived, they were not gridded, adding to the difficulty of using them in a timely manner.41 Were NASA representatives dissatisfied with Soviet technologies, management, or both?

In spite of lags in development and frequent lapses in data dating to the begin­ning of cooperation, the Weather Bureau (later Environmental Science Services Administration and finally, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) continued to use what data was sent over from Moscow. Meantime, Meteor developers took credit for discovering several jet streams—many in the United States—as well as documenting hurricanes along the American east coast.42 Soviet officials estimated that fishing and merchant ships saved 5-7 percent cruising time because they were able to map optimal routes according to weather forecasts.43 In 1975, maritime savings amounted to approximately one million rubles ($1.35 mil­lion) annually and satellites had been crucial predictors of four hurricanes in the

Indian Ocean.44 While it is difficult to evaluate the reliability of these Soviet claims, they do demonstrate the cultural and political significance attributed to the Soviet weather satellite program. In 1970, Science reported that both the United States and Soviet Union were still “heavily involved in GARP” with both nations orbiting Automatic Picture Transmission devices on their satellites.45

In 1975, the Soviet Hydromet committed to launching a geostationary satel­lite (along with the United States, Japan, and the European Space Agency) for 1977-1979 GARP experimentation, but were forced to withdraw the offer in 1978, due to technical difficulties.46 Regardless, the polar-orbiting Meteor sat­ellites continued to provide useful coverage of roughly two-thirds of the globe, including information on cloud cover, ice formation, radiation, weather fronts, and jet streams.

As evidenced by a broad array of periodicals—newspapers, trade journals, and the like—prestigious, cutting-edge projects such as GARP attracted consider­able attention both in the public eye, as well as in professional fields. Morris Tepper, in recalling his work in developing NIMBUS satellites, explained, “By the time we’re talking in this period, the Global Atmospherics Program was get­ting very hot. I was interested in providing the data to that Global Atmospherics Program that they could use in order to globalize the numerical prediction models.”47 Later, he suggested that the linking of the peaceful uses of outer space and meteorology was “an obvious thing and that’s why GARP, which was to provide data to all the research groups all over the world, would be an excel­lent indication that NASA’s providing data to the world in terms of peaceful uses of outer space.”48 Others feared that NASA’s role in the day-to-day opera­tion of programs such as GARP was at times underappreciated. Noted NASA’s 1967 assistant administrator for policy analysis, “in the process of transferring space applications systems to user agencies the ‘space identity’ [i. e., NASA iden­tity] is lost.” Thus, he explained, “the general public does not fully appreciate this important continuing aspect of the NASA program. A clear recognition of our unique role in developing space systems for user agencies should be one of our important objectives.”49 This concern was particularly dire in the uncertain climate of the late 1960s, when NASA funding for even the Apollo program begged repeated justification.50

The Goldin administration at NASA anticipated that using Russian (read: Soviet) technologies would reduce the cost of getting a space station in orbit.67 Listed here is a brief list and description of such elements. Note that several are identi­fied by more than one name. This is due to changes in bureaucratic nomenclature as well as inconsistencies in translation, but also because Russian design philoso­phies value adaptability—meaning that one module or vehicle may be adapted to many new models, receiving a new name with each incarnation.

FGB Module 45,000 pounds (also: Zarya, Functional Cargo Blok, FGB Tug, Mir-2): This module traces its lineage to the Salyut space station (first orbited in 1971) and its basic design to Mir-1 and plans for a Mir-2. Much of the appeal of Russian cooperation on the ISS was that the FGB was near completion and could be launched much sooner than any comparable SSF module under US develop­ment. This, the first ISS module in orbit, had guidance, control, navigation, mul­tiple docking ports, propellant stowage, and propulsion capabilities, meaning that it could provide station-keeping reboost power (to monitor and control the alti­tude of the ISS’s orbit). The FGB also had Environmental Control Life Support Systems (ECLSS) to supply oxygen, remove carbon dioxide, monitor for airborne contaminants, store oxygen and nitrogen, and circulate air. The FGB was intended to provide guidance and control for the first five months in orbit until the Service Module was to be launched. It would also “keep alive” power to US labs until NASA’s power module arrived.67 It was launched in November 1998.

Service Module 64,000pounds (also: Zvezda): Like the FGB, this module is based on the Mir service module and, as such, provides redundant systems of life support. As of 1997, NASA’s administration anticipated that these two modules together would provide control, reboost, and life support for continuous habitation of up to three crewmembers until a US habitation module was to be launched in 2002.68

Science Power Platform 46,000pounds (also: Power Mast): This mast featured 13 kilowatt power generation capability and was augmented by US-provided solar blankets. The pressurized mast section houses gyrodynes.

Progress (Resupply Missions): First launched in 1978, Progress was an auto­mated spacecraft derived from the Soyuz spacecraft. NASA and RSA planners anticipated over one hundred automated Progress propellant resupply missions (six-nine launches per year) throughout the life of the ISS program, saving valu­able space on Shuttle flights and reducing the number of Shuttle launches neces­sary for ISS upkeep.

Soyuz Crew Vehicle 16,000 pounds (SSF: Assured Crew Return Vehicle, later ISS: Crew Transfer Vehicle): First launched in 1966, Soviet space program offi­cials used this vehicle model to resupply Salyut space stations. RSA and NASA officials planned for ten alternating Soyuz crew rescue vehicles to be made avail­able to the ISS through 2002 when a US crew rescue vehicle was to replace it.

Launch Services: for ISS assembly including two Proton launches (first launched in 1965), approximately 40 Soyuz launches (first launched in 1966), and another estimated 70 Soyuz launches in the postassembly phase.

Initially, each of these launch vehicles and spacecraft were to be provided as “contributions” of the RSA—fully funded and delivered in orbit by the Russians.

It was in this way that NASA’s space station redesigners justified Russian coop­eration as saving a total of $2 billion from NASA’s total budget.

The following interviews were conducted in the framework of this project and have been transcribed and lodged in the NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA HQ, Washington, DC.

Richard Barnes, with John Krige, Washington, DC, March 27, 2007

Richard Barnes, with Ashok Maharaj, Washington, DC, April 28, 2008

Karin Barbance, with John Krige, Paris, June 22, 2007

Jacques Blamont, with John Krige, CNES, Paris, July 4, 2007

John Casani, with John Krige, Pasadena, May 18, 2009

Lynn Cline, with John Krige, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, March 30, 2009

Peter Creola, with John Krige, Berne, May 25, 2007

Charles Elachi, with John Krige, Pasadena, June 10, 2009

Margaret Finarelli, with John Krige, Washington, DC, April 20, 2010

Arnold Frutkin with John Krige, accompanied by Angelina Long and Ashok

Maharaj, Virginia, August 19, 2007

Roy Gibson, with John Krige, Montpelier, June 15, 2007

Andre Lebeau, with John Krige, Paris, June 4, 2007

Reinhardt Loosch, with John Krige, Bonn, June 29, 2007

Fernando de Mendon^a, with Ashok Maharaj, Washington, DC,

April 28, 2008

Robert Mitchell, with John Krige, Pasadena, June 19, 2009 Michael O’Brien, with John Krige, NASA HQ, Washington, DC,

March 30, 2009

Karl Reuter, with John Krige, Munich, June 17, 2007 John Schumacher, with John Krige, Washington, DC, April 19, 2010 David Southwood, with John Krige, ESA, Paris, July 16, 2007 Substantial informal exchanges were also had with the following persons:

With John Krige Wolfgang Finke, Bonn

Doug Millar, NASA HQ, Washington, DC With Ashok Maharaj

Binod C. Agrawal, Anthropologist, ISRO, SITE Project

Prof. Asnani, Senior Scientist, ISRO, Remote Sensing, based in Pune,

near Bombay

Dr. Bhatia, Retired Scientist, ISRO, based in Ahmedabad Prof. Bhavsar, Retired Scientist, ISRO, based in Ahmedabad Jacques Blamont, CNES, Paris

Chandrasekhar, Former Scientist, ISRO, based in Bangalore E. V. Chitnis, Former Director of Space Application Center, ISRO, based in Pune

Padmanabh Joshi, Retired Scientist, ISRO, based in Ahmedabad Abdul Kalam, Former Director of ISRO, Former President of India, based in Delhi

Pramod Kale, Former Director of Space Application Center, ISRO, based in Pune

K. Kasturirangan, Former Director of ISRO, currently Member of the Parliament (MP, upper house), based in New Delhi Yash Pal, Retired Scientist, ISRO, based in Delhi N. Pant, Retired Scientist, ISRO

Radhakrishnan, Retired Scientist/Payload Specialist, ISRO

Gopal Raj, Senior Science Correspondent, The Hindu, Trivandrum, Kerala

Manoranjan Rao, Retired Scientist, ISRO, Official Historian of ISRO

U. R. Rao, Former Chairman of ISRO

Prof. Vasagam, Project Leader for Apple Satellite, ISRO

In 1959 the British government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan decided to cancel an expensive program to build an already obsolete Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile called Blue Streak.29 Rather than waste the money already spent, and disband the expert teams that had been assembled to work on the missile, the government decided to strip it of its military characteristics (which had been devel­oped in conjunction with the United States) and to offer it to European partners across the Channel as the first stage of a multistage satellite launcher. This gesture not only enabled Macmillan to save face at home: it was intended as an expression of goodwill to the emerging European Common Market, which the British had opposed in the late 1950s. After lengthy negotiations it was eventually agreed to establish an intergovernmental organization called ELDO to develop a three – stage launcher for civilian purposes. Blue Streak would comprise the first stage. The second stage, called Coralie, would be built in France. The third stage, which promised to be the most advanced technologically, would be built in Germany. Italy would provide experimental payloads to measure the environment during launching and in orbital flight. The rocket, called Europa, would be launched from Woomera in South Australia.30 The convention establishing ELDO was signed in March 1962. It was ratified by the governments of the seven member states (the five already mentioned plus Belgium and The Netherlands) in 1964.

NASA was quick to react to these developments. In December 1962 Arnold Frutkin, along with a few other representatives, visited Britain, France, and Germany for two weeks to get a closer look at the various installations involved in the project. They told the Europeans that “cooperation in the launch vehicle area was possible to a limited extent.”31 Those limits were set by several condi­tions. The European programs had to be directed to peaceful civilian appli­cations, and be of mutual technological interest to NASA and ELDO. Most important of all, the agreements had to be multilateral and not bilateral. NASA would only collaborate through ELDO and not with individual national author­ities in the domain of rocketry.32 This was supposed to avoid the exploitation of American technology in national military programs. It would also promote European integration. As State Department official Robert F. Packard put it, this change in US policy had to be viewed “as part of the entire spectrum of our national interests in Europe, among which a major U. S. interest is to encourage those developments which promote the interdependence and integration of the European countries such as Euratom and the Common Market.”33

It was not easy to translate these good intentions into practical action. The enormous lead that the United States had over the ELDO member states severely limited the areas of technological collaboration that could be of mutual inter­est. In addition, the structural weakness in ELDO that had been evident to many from the start, namely, the lack of a strong centralized system of project management and control, was of increasing concern in Washington.34 There is a porous barrier between many civil and military technologies used in rockets/ missiles. The ELDO Secretariat had little authority over the people and firms developing the separate stages in Britain, France, and Germany. Thus, contrary to what NASA and the State Department had originally hoped, routing sensitive knowledge and technology through ELDO was no guarantee that it would not eventually emerge in national military projects, notably that in France. A report prepared by the CIA in May 1964 confirmed the danger: “[T]he organization has no enforcement machinery to police compliance, and the possibility is raised that ELDO might contribute to the spread of ballistic missile technology.” This was just what NSAM294, promulgated in April 1964, wanted to stop. Indeed, notwithstanding requests from Europe for “propellants, guidance components and other launch-vehicle hardware and technology,” the CIA analysis found that export licenses had only been granted for a few select items.35

In 1965 the member states of ELDO decided that their launcher should be upgraded to have a geostationary capability (the Europa II program). This required constructing a more powerful third stage than previously planned for. In May of that year a senior engineer in the European organization, Bill Stephens, wrote NASA asking that ELDO and NASA staff discuss together “the more fundamental problems which have been encountered by NASA in designing, testing and launching liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen upper stages, the development philosophy followed,” and the possibility of establishing links between European and American firms in the Europa II project. Frutkin saw this request “as a valuable opportunity to advance our relationship with ELDO as a multilateral institution, to establish a ground for limiting or delaying assis­tance in the missile field to competing interests in Europe, and to establish a counterweight to National missile programs.”36 In other words, Frutkin was persuaded that the risks of technological leakage into the French military pro­gram could be averted and that a way could be found both to assist ELDO and to respect the constraints imposed by NSAM294.

Another impediment emerged even as NASA and the State Department were considering Stephens’s request: the restrictions on technology transfer in the telecommunications sector. This issue was given new urgency by the demon­strative success of Early Bird launched in April 1965. NASA was particularly disturbed by a restrictive clause inserted in the draft policy statement being cir­culated at the time by J. D. O’Connell, the special assistant to the president for telecommunications. That clause suggested that, to impede the development of foreign communications satellite services outside the global Intelsat framework, the United States should deny help with launch vehicles and launching services to foreign governments (unless the necessary guarantees were forthcoming). This was so controversial that NASA administrator James Webb took it upon himself to write O’Connell and ask that the extension of the restrictions to cover not only launch services but also launch vehicles be removed. As Webb put it, “In effect, although perhaps not intended, this [extension] places in a policy paper otherwise exclusively addressed to communications satellites, a blanket prohibi­tion on transfer of technology concerning launch vehicles.”37

NASA’s alternative suggestion was, as Webb put it, to make “detailed and fine distinctions” between the kinds of technology that could be shared and those that could not.38 An example was that between solid propellants and nonstor­able liquid propellants such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. As Frutkin put it, the latter technology “has not been deemed to accelerate the more advanced solid propellant program which France is developing in connection with strategic delivery objectives.”39 Thus whereas blanket policies made no attempt to distin­guish between various types of rocket fuel, and their implications for national security, NASA was at pains to distinguish between the military potential of solid (high security risk) and nonstorable (low security risk) propellants. Their sugges­tion fell on deaf ears. The broad restriction remained in place in the final policy statement that accompanied NSAM338, promulgated in September 1965.

It took much longer than anticipated to prepare the reports called for by Kissinger at the end of April. Both were eventually available in June, and evolved further as the meeting with Kissinger was postponed time and again: it was eventually held on or around August 9.

NASA’s report on “Alternatives to Post-Apollo Participation” identified various areas where collaboration might be possible, and discussed the costs and benefits of each: flying a foreign astronaut to Skylab, a joint Air Traffic Control preoperational system, a joint experimental applications technology sat­ellite (ATS). However it effectively dismissed these as significant alternatives to post-Apollo.41 Indeed the original report was so one-sided that Herman Pollack summarily rejected it as “essentially a contentious paper reciting the dire con­sequences that would follow from backing out of the post-Apollo proposals. It denied that there are any suitable alternatives.”42 A revised version took a slightly more balanced approach but drew very similar conclusions. In short, as far as NASA was concerned, there was no way the United States could now deny the Europeans participation in post-Apollo, no alternative that could compensate for the drastic foreign policy setbacks of such action

The paper on “Technology Transfer in the Post-Apollo Program” expanded on the text produced the year before. It also went through two versions, a detailed one in anticipation of a meeting with Kissinger on June 8, and a punchier alterna­tive prepared when the meeting was postponed to the end of the month, before being postponed again.43 The core of the argument was developed at a meet­ing on May 5 with senior personnel in the Office of Science and Technology, including Ed David, and with input again from representatives of the American aerospace industry, notably MacDonnell Douglas, North American Rockwell, Grumman Aerospace, and General Electric.44

As we saw in chapter 4, NASA’s case against its critics was intended to turn on its head the charge that the agency was ready to give away American aerospace technology at ten cents on the dollar. Thus

The thrust of foreign participation in such a post-Apollo program will be to con­tribute to the US effort rather than set up a flow from us. Such a direction of flow

will be further supported by our practice of a policy already fully communicated to potential European participants, namely, our commitment to select projects for European development only where the capacity is already substantial in Europe.

That capacity was described by US firms already collaborating abroad. Grumman Aerospace wrote that the French firm Marcel Dassault was “one of the most capable manufacturers of high performance aircraft in Europe,” and “should be able to con­tribute any portion of the Shuttle prime structure that France might undertake,” except perhaps the main cryogenic tankage. Their work with Grumman on metallic and polyimide thermal protection materials and design should put them in a posi­tion to be able to manufacture some portion of the Thermal Protection Subsystem (TPS) that was “so crucial to the shuttle’s cross-range capacity.” Grumman also claimed that the German firm Dornier was “well capable of handling structural sub-assemblies” for the shuttle, and had excellent research and test facilities that could be used during the development of the shuttle.45 North American Rockwell was contracting with the British Aircraft Corporation for shuttle phase B participa­tion in “structural elements, aerodynamics, flight test instrumentation, and data handling.”46 The McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation, for its part, was actively pursuing international collaboration with ERNO in Germany, Hawker Siddeley in Britain, and SNIAS (Societe nationale industrielle aerospatiale) in France.47

It was noted that Europe could also make major contributions to the tug and the RAM. In summer 1971 Messerschmitt – Bolkow-Blohm gave a final presentation to ELDO and NASA of its pre-Phase A study of the tug, as did Hawker Siddeley Dynamics leading a group of ten European companies.48 The Convair Division of the General Dynamics Corporation, which had been selected to perform a Phase B RAM study, was subcontracting parts of the work out to MATRA in France (sys­tems design and analysis, guidance, and control), ERNO in Germany (material sci­ence and manufacturing in space), SAAB in Sweden (phased array, data processing, image compensation), and Selenia in Italy (bulk data handling, millimeter wave communication system, etc.).49 In sum, even if Europe’s ability still had to be tested in practice, its capacity to make major contributions to significant parts of the post – Apollo program was not in doubt, at least not to US aerospace corporations.

On the basis of their experience US aerospace firms were convinced of the quality of the work done in European industry, and were not particularly con­cerned that significant technology would be leaked to them. On the contrary since Europe’s contribution was limited to 10 percent, they repeated that “the US should come out further ahead of Europe than when we started.” In fact, the industrialists’ experience suggested that what Europeans lacked above all was not technology but “general management and systems engineering know­how.” Though they would acquire some insight into this through post-Apollo collaboration, “the American companies consider that such know-how would be directly applicable in Europe in only very limited ways.” The risks were more than outweighed by the benefits of a European presence, which, the companies argued, would “stabilize” the American program, and “avoid a stimulation of independent and competing programs in Europe.”

NASA backed these claims with a more detailed analysis of the nature and scope of technology transfer in the four areas it had identified. It again took the vertical tail of the shuttle to be typical of an area where Europe might be included in the orbiter program, to the advantage of both partners (e. g., by the provision of test data for the supersonic plane, Concorde). Special materials were the most advanced technologies here: titanium for the main structure, carbon/carbon for the Thermal Protection System on the leading edge of the orbiter, which could reach tempera­tures as high as 20000F. NASA’s study indicated that only the latter posed any risks of advanced technology transfer. Accordingly the agency suggested that this part could be separated out from the rest of the tail and manufactured entirely in the United States before being integrated into the tail on either side of the Atlantic

As before, the tug, which would be constructed by a European prime con­tractor, was broken down into two major elements, the propulsion module and the avionics module.50 This chapter stressed again that much of the propulsion system—the main engine, cryogenic propellant insulation to permit long-term storage, and so on—posed novel challenges to the Europeans and would undoubt­edly advance their technological base, though not with NASA’s direct help. By contrast, the avionics module called for a different approach. The Europeans only had limited experience and know-how in areas such as navigation and guidance (see chapter 4). This was not seen as a major impediment, however. It could be argued that it was in NASA’s interest to provide certain elements to make possible a larger foreign participation, and the flow of technology could be controlled if US firms could provide the subsystem components the Europeans needed as integrated technological units. In particularly sensitive cases they could simply supply a “black-box” for integration by the European prime.51

At the end of July NASA prepared an extensive presentation summing up its findings on the nature of technology transfer in the post-Apollo program.52 Some of the 50-odd viewgraphs, for the shuttle orbiter tail and wing, and the space tug, are presented in figures 5.2-5.4. NASA stressed the depth of technological capacity in the European aerospace industry, much of it due to the development of military aircraft and Concorde. It also drew attention to the positive attitude of US industry to collaboration (figures 5.2 and 5.3). The overall conclusions bring together in one image NASA’s and US industry’s arguments intended to allay fears that post-Apollo collaboration with Europe would lead to significant technology transfer (figure 5.4).

Frutkin’s (and US industry’s) efforts to reassure the higher echelons of the administration that there was no serious danger of significant technological leak­age to Europe were to little avail. The State Department was not persuaded. Hermann Pollack was delighted that NASA’s report did “not substantiate those who in the February 22 meeting with the President argued against the post – Apollo cooperation program on the grounds of unwarranted or uncompensated technological transfer.” All the same he felt that the technology transfer issue was still not definitively settled.53

NASA’s arguments did not satisfy Ed David either. Writing to Kissinger in late July, the president’s science adviser remarked that even though “the NASA study (concurred in by Jim Fletcher) suggests that the technology transfer ques­tion as well as management complications are not of significant proportions, my personal concerns on these points have not yet been answered to my full satisfaction, nor can they be answered until there is a better understanding of the potential European contribution.”5 4 He agreed to continue technical discussions with the Europeans but only to define more clearly “without any

Source: Technology Transfer in the Post Apollo Program. NASA HQ MF71-6399, 7-27-71, Record Group NASA 255, Box 14 Folder II. H, WNRC. Permission: NASA.

• EUROPEAN AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY IS GOOD

• U. S. FIRMS WOULD NOT BE DISADVANTAGED BY POST-APOLLO TECHNOLOGY FLOW

• EUROPEANS NEED AND DESIRE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE

• U. S. FIRMS BELIEVE SUCH TRANSFER HAS LIMITED APPLICABILITY

• EUROPEAN PARTICIPATION WOULD REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT U. S. MANAGEMENT SUPERVISION

• THIS COULD REDUCE THE MONETARY VALUE OF EUROPEAN CONTRIBUTION

• MAJOR EUROPEAN GAIN WOULD COME FROM PERFORMANCE OF TASKS

• U. S. WILL GAIN PROPORTIONALLY MORE

• EUROPEAN PARTICIPATION WILL HELP STABILIZE THE POST-APOLLO PROGRAM

Figure 5.3 US industry views on post-Apollo cooperation.

Source: Technology Transfer in the Post Apollo Program. NASA HQ MF71-6399, 7-27-71, Record Group NASA 255, Box 14 Folder II. H, WNRC. Permission: NASA.

precommitment, the potential interests and contributions of both sides.” They should be undertaken recognizing that “we are not committed to agree to for­eign participation [but only] to give positive consideration to foreign interest in participation,” be it from Europe or from Japan.55

Figure 5.4 Summary evaluation of European participation in post-Apollo.

Source: Technology Transfer in the Post Apollo Program. NASA HQ MF71-6399, 7-27-71, Record Group NASA 255, Box 14 Folder II. H, WNRC. Permission: NASA.

One strong argument remained to tilt the balance: foreign policy. NASA administrator Jim Fletcher told U. Alexis Johnson in May that, in his view, “the decision as to whether to engage the Europeans in the Post Apollo pro­gram rests essentially on foreign policy considerations.”56 Pollock rehearsed the argument again for Johnson two days later.57 The program would strengthen ties with Europe, which were still “the cornerstone of our efforts to build a peaceful world.” The region’s industrial, economic, and technological strength were critical to the existing balance of power and closer ties in advanced indus­try and technology would consolidate the Atlantic Alliance. Space programs in particular were ripe for “meaningful cooperation,” and would “offer highly visible and dramatic symbols of the fruits of partnership.” On the other hand, without post-Apollo cooperation, “Europe’s program will be organized around France, and we would have little input and little influence on such a program.” Failure to work together in space might also impact Western European decisions in other high-tech sectors—such as the development of “breeder” reactors and uranium enrichment facilities. In short for Pollack, as he put it to Undersecretary Johnson, the decisions now being taken on both sides of the Atlantic as regards the future framework for advances in high technology would “have a profound, long-term effect on Europe and on its relations with the USA,” and “successful multi-national cooperation in post-Apollo [would] improve our ability to influ­ence Europe’s decisions in these other fields.”

Early in August 1971, then, there was general agreement between Fletcher, Johnson, David, and Flanigan that the United States should continue the technical discussions with Europe, making it absolutely clear that this did not commit either party to participation of any kind in the post-Apollo program. Kissinger accepted this position. On August 18, 1971, he wrote to Secretary
of State Rogers to tell him that Nixon had confirmed “his support for contin­ued pursuit of opportunities for international space cooperation in general, and specifically with the Europeans.”58 He asked the State Department to prepare a reply to Lefevre that suggested that technical discussions be continued with a view to defining “possible cooperative relationships between Europe and the U. S. in the program of STS development.” He was emphatic that no commit­ment of any kind should be made that might later impede “an independent deci­sion by the U. S. on the desirability or schedule of STS development.” With the future of the STS and of Europe’s participation in it thus left open, Kissinger asked that the scope of the discussions be extended to include “an exchange of views with the Europeans regarding the content of space activities” in the post – Apollo era, as well as to consider “other potential areas for cooperation in space exploration, operations and launches.” This also meant, of course, that from now on “U. S. launch assurances for European payload will not be contingent upon European participation in a joint STS program, but will be treated sepa­rately to the degree possible.” The results of these technical discussions were to be made available to the president by January 15, 1972.

As it happens, the week before Kissinger wrote this memo to Secretary of State Rogers the president had seemingly taken a major step forward as regards the content of the post-Apollo program. In a famous memorandum to Nixon dated August 12, 1971, the deputy director of the OMB, Caspar Weinberger, had proposed that NASA’s annual budget be stabilized at $3.3-3.4 billion, and that it should make provision for a shuttle. The American people and the world needed to be reassured, Weinberger wrote, that the United States was not “giv­ing up our super-power status, and our desire to maintain our world superior­ity.” Jobs also had to be protected in an aerospace industry made vulnerable by the wind-down of the Vietnam War. Nixon scrawled “I agree with Cap” on this memo.59 But this position was not yet formal, and in any event was not com­municated to the Europeans.

In the summer of 1972, President Nixon and Soviet Premier Kosygin signed the Summit Agreement Concerning Cooperation in Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes, in which, among other fields, they agreed to engage in a joint training exercise and experimental docking of their spacecraft: the Soyuz and Apollo cap­sules.51 This, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), for a few years functioned as what Administrator Fletcher described as a “major visible space accomplish­ment,” the likes of earlier Apollo missions and Skylab, or the upcoming Viking and Shuttle projects.52

With their administration a mere 14 years old, NASA staff had the foresight to consider documenting the history of ASTP even as Nixon and Kosygin were still in summit.53 In April 1974, Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell went to work. Stalking the halls of joint meetings, sharing coffee with NASA staff, and chatting over photocopiers, the two wove personal interviews, “desk archives,” technical data, and a flood of NASA’s internal correspondence into a rich account of ASTP. With this monograph, Ezell and Ezell explain the opera­tion of the joint working groups and the day-to-day engineering, the reflections of NASA and Russian engineers, as well as the activities of astronauts and cos­monauts in space.54 They illustrated the complexity not only of executing the project, but explaining its programmatic justifications.

In the summer of 1973 the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Olin Teague, contacted NASA administrator James Fletcher regarding Apollo-Soyuz. Teague, well aware of NASA’s difficulty in getting sus­tained support from their Soviet partners, wondered if it might be possible to add more scientific experiments to the payload, “making a justifiable, independent, scientific and technological contribution,” even without the Soviet Academy of Sciences.55 Recognizing that the Apollo-Soyuz mission was impossible without a Soyuz and its docking module, Teague went on in subsequent letters to explain that the “American public” must be well served by a productive US-only mission in the event of a Soviet pull-out. Teague offered his advice: “I believe that many of the alternate experiments identified by NASA are of sufficient importance to fully utilize the payload capacity of the vehicle.” If not more science, Teague determined that an additional trip to Skylab, “would also seem prudent.”56

With a budget of $10 million for experiments, and limits on both weight and volume, Fletcher agreed that the existing Apollo payloads may not fully justify a US-only flight. With an eye on the already tight budget, NASA was investigat­ing “several possibilities” for increasing payload weight and volume.57 Fletcher anticipated that his staff would complete the study in June and offered to brief Teague then.

Fletcher’s notes indicate that this correspondence resulted in an October 2, 1973, Congressional hearing. Within two weeks, Teague wrote Fletcher, stating that the hearing had been “most productive,” but reiterated concerns that NASA might do more to assure that alternative experiments or a visit to Skylab be used to justify the expense if the Soviets backed out.58 Over the coming months, the two, with occasional interjections from (intended) Command Module pilot Jack Swigert discussed the possibility of adding a number of elements to the mis­sion.59 They considered earth observation experiments (in the fields of geology, hydrology, oceanography, weather, global tectonics, and atmospheric sciences) and even the possibility of including another camera, intended to help petro­leum geologists who were at that time dealing with the oil crisis.60

Ezell and Ezell indicate that “George Low looked at the entire project from a political perspective” and, therefore, considered that a mission without Soviet participation was not practicable. However in the fall of 1973, Low explained that the $10 million budgeted for experiments was already enough to justify launch. In the October 2 testimony, Low had stated, “That is how the $10 mil­lion were arrived at. You asked the question, what would we do if the Russians for some reason were unable to fly with us, political, technical, or otherwise, and would the mission in itself with the $10 million worth of experiments. . . be worth flying.” Low responded with candor, saying that that depended on how early NASA might be notified of a Soviet cancellation and more important, how much of the full $250-million budget had been spent.61

Furthermore, Low reasoned that if the Soviets and/or the American public heard too much of alternative missions without the Soviets they might begin to question the viability of the scheme altogether. “I think,” Low stated, “that would be something that could be very easily misunderstood from the point of view of the other side if you started to plan what you are going to do if this mission doesn’t happen.”62 In a booklet titled “Notes for Meeting Congressmen Teague and Dr. Fletcher,” NASA staff explained (presumably to Teague) that ASTP was unlike previous Apollo missions that were based more upon scientific payloads. Contrasting Apollo 15 and ASTP, the booklet states,

ASTP is primarily devoted to proving out the docking system. ASTP is carrying a good complement of scientific experiments but of more significance, I believe, ASTP is conducting experiments in space that could be the precursor of derivative applica­tions in future manned spaceflight. Consequently, although the ASTP experiment payload is not exclusively devoted to science. . . it is a good viable package that has a potential of increasing the value of the use of space.63

Returning to Ezell and Ezell, “None of the alternatives seemed as desirable as the basic idea of a joint mission. . . It was a gamble, but the risk seemed to be a reasonable one.”64

And it was a gamble. The Soviet partners tended to operate “shrouded in mys­tery,” in Ezell and Ezell’s own words. Paperwork moved slowly, but Fletcher, like Low, remained optimistic. A Senate Briefing Book dating from 1973 contrasted Soviet performance in the space sciences with ASTP, human spaceflight versus robotic, stating that Soviet performance had improved. Indeed, past experiences in the sciences did “not match the positive, businesslike approach Soviets have taken to ASTP nor the detailed information exchange in ASTP.”65 When rep­resentatives of the American press contacted Fletcher, disputing their exclusion from Soviet centers, Fletcher responded, pointing out that with the exception of “independent activities,” the US press was welcomed to all ASTP proceedings. Additionally, news coverage of ASTP was by far the most liberal access ever to the Soviet space program. Never before had the Soviet public viewed such activi­ties live. Fletcher added that this openness had been extended to the American news media as the “most comprehensive release ever” of real-time information related to a Soviet space mission.”66

By the same token, historian Asif Sidiqi notes that with ASTP (or as it was called in the USSR, the Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight) an increasing number of key space complex officials became public figures. These disclosures, however, came alongside the standard fare of propaganda. Stakes were higher in the 1970s for the Soviets. In the public sphere, criticism mounted and due to a significant decline in the communist economy, citizens were less likely to be “vocally in favor” of the space program.67

A broad spectrum of criticisms and concerns accompanied Russian inclusion on the ISS. Some voiced dismay over the move from a 28-degree orbit inclination to one of 51.6 degrees, questioning the expense of a Shuttle retrofit for an Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM). Others voiced concerns that the Americans might make themselves dependent upon another nation for ISS access or assembly, still others insisted on maintaining a leading edge in aerospace technologies above all else.

Congressman Sensenbrenner worried that NASA might use these changes to eke more money from appropriations, stating: “[N]ow, I think that increasing the inclination of the orbit. . . is going to cost money, and perhaps lots of money, because the higher the orbit, the more thrust is necessary with the rockets.” He continued asking, “Does this money come out of the existing NASA bud­get? And if so which programs will be cut? Or does the Administration plan to request a supplemental appropriation so that the lift capacity of the shuttle and the other Western rockets would be able to comport with sending a space station into a significantly higher orbit?”69 Sensenbrenner noted the fact that not only was NASA placing Russia on the critical path, they were paying the RSA directly for services—“something never considered with long-time allies.”70

Noting that the House of Representatives had already voted down the ASRM, Sensenbrenner voiced his concern over the flow of American dollars to Russia: “As the Cold War ends, a chilling irony remains. Even though some say America won the Cold War, it is clear from looking at space policy that the spoils of vic­tory are going to Russia.”71

Dana Rohrabacher, another member of the House, disagreed with Sensenbrenner over his concerns with the new ISS orbit. He pressed for total dependence on Russian launch vehicles. The real problem, he observed, was people who were overcommitted to the Space Shuttle (which he described as the most overpriced transport system in the history of man). Rohrabacher sug­gested that the use of the Energia Rocket system would “actually bring down the cost to the taxpayers.” Cooperation with the Russians, he predicted, “will not cost American jobs and [it] will not cost taxpayers for us to work with these new friends and to help cement democracy in what was the Soviet Union.” He cautioned instead against spending “hundreds of millions of dollars more on an antiquated space shuttle system.”72

Congressman Bacchus, on the other hand, supported cooperation in concept as good economic, foreign, and domestic policy. He added that, all the same, “my very strong view is that we must continue to focus on protecting American jobs, American technology, and an independent American space program even as we strive for cooperation with the Russians in space.” The United States must remain the senior partner with the Soviets, he cautioned, and it should not place the Russian Federation on the critical path. He suggested instead that coopera­tion with Russia be based on the same approach as that invoked with the other foreign partners: “I would like to see us design something in which we could plug in the Russians if they are around to be plugged in.”73

Under the auspices of the 1994-1998 Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission talks, NASA broke historic precedent, doing business with Russia in a substan­tially different manner. By taking on the Russian Space Agency as a subcontrac­tor for the International Space Station, officials made a notable exception to the “no exchange of funds” tenet of NASA’s international cooperation. In the August 1993 Economic and Technological Agreement on US-Russian Space Station Cooperation, NASA promised to compensate the Russian Space Agency $305 million in exchange for US astronauts’ training and time aboard the Russian Mir space station. This money was disbursed to the RSA in FY1995-1997—a cru­cial time for the Russians, who by then were not only maintaining and improving the aging Mir, but also developing their contributions to the ISS. US officials pre­sumed that much of the $305 million would be plowed back in Mir hardware for safety improvements, general maintenance, and retrofitting for Shuttle docking.

In June 1994, NASA released a joint statement on space station cooperation. It explained that “[a] definitized Contract Agreement was signed between the NASA and RSA for up to $400m of goods and services to be provided during Shuttle-Mir operations and during the early international Space Station assembly phase.”74 Thus, between 1993 and 1994 both US and Russian representatives realized that funds dispersed in and through Shuttle-Mir were intended to ease the financial burden of delivering space station equipment and services. While the $305 million was intended to support Mir systems upgrades, to help fund the docking module for Shuttle-Mir, and to help cover the added expenses of training and expanded management, the additional $95 million was considered a direct contribution toward the expense of “Phase II” activities, in particular, early development of ISS components. These included but were not limited to design costs for the joint airlock, service module, FGB Energy blok, power mast, Soyuz/ACRV.75 (See table 8.2 for a detailed listing of Shuttle-Mir, ISS, and other collaborative projects covered by this contract.)