Category NASA in the World

A bird’s eye view of Japan’s space history since World War II reveals the grad­ual and difficult emergence of the country as a major space power that, with US assistance—but also to bypass US restrictions on the transfer of sensitive tech­nology—fruitfully channeled its quest for independence into a robust national program that enabled it to collaborate successfully with its erstwhile mentor and other partners.1 The United States, through NASA and private industrial corporations, supported Japan’s fledgling program early on, but deep internal divisions in the country made it difficult to build a durable arrangement. What little cooperation existed between Japan and NASA during the early 1960s was limited to small space science experiments using sounding rockets and data col­lection from ground stations. A 1969 agreement to provide launcher technology to Japan, strongly promoted by the State Department, was a major stimulus to the ongoing rationalization of a national space program, though this came too late for Japan to participate actively in the post-Apollo program. In fact NASA’s relations with Japan began to achieve significance only during the late 1970s and grew extensively in the later years to include a variety of cooperative space projects that benefited both countries, including human space flight and partici­pation in the International Space Station.2

This contribution traces the broad outlines of these developments with partic­ular emphasis on three of the most significant phases of US-Japanese collaboration in space: (1) the frustrations of the 1960s caused by internal rivalries and a strongly nationalist agenda in some sectors of the Japanese space science community that hampered international collaboration and that eventually crippled Japan’s ability to participate meaningfully in the post-Apollo program; (2) the transformations precipitated by the 1969 agreement to provide Japan with Thor-Delta technology that not only provided the country with much of the hardware needed to reach the geostationary orbit but also, by restricting the scope of technology transfer, accelerated the country’s independence and self-confidence in launcher develop­ment as the 1970s wore on (treated separately in the next chapter); and, finally (3) the contribution of Japan to the International Space Station in the 1980s.

The end of the Cold War forced yet another reassessment ofNASA’s role. The rigid­ity that had marked 40 years of US-Soviet rivalry and the framework for collabora­tion that it had defined had now collapsed. The space program “lost an enemy.” The political and military rationales for collaboration with Western allies—and the subordination of economic considerations to geostrategic concerns during the Cold War—would come back to haunt the United States: the technological gap was no more and erstwhile allies were now economic competitors. As the Soviet Empire crumbled “the Bush administration, in a sharp reversal of prior practice, [. . ,] announced that it [would] henceforth review license applications to export dual-use technology to the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries with a ‘presumption of approval.’”43 The hallowed principles of no exchange of funds and clean interfaces to restrict technology transfer were being overturned. Efforts were made to retain the infrastructure and institutional memory of the major Soviet space programs in Russia and later the Ukraine, though technology transfer was restricted by the Missile Technology Control Regime. As a report for the Office of Technology Assessment pointed out in 1995 Russian industrialists involved in the International Space Station would be obliged to abide by Western nonproliferation rules, for example, by not selling sensitive booster technology to unreliable partners.44 Scientists and engineers were given strong incentives to ally themselves with US – and Western-style reforms in an attempt to stem “the flow of indigenous high-risk technologies and expertise from those locations [the CIS states] to outside destinations, principally Third World Nations.”45

This change in context had palpable effects on the evolution of the plans for the Space Station (see chapter 13). NASA had already shown a new flexibility in defining this huge technological venture with representatives of ESA, Canada, and Japan even before the president authorized the scheme in 1984; in recognition of the technological maturity of its partners, and the absolute necessity to have them share the cost, NASA’s “coordination in the early planning phases indicated a con­sideration of foreign partner interests and objectives unprecedented in space coop­eration hitherto.”46 With the inclusion of Russia in the venture beginning in 1993 there was an increased move to multilateralization and interdependence. NASA and American industry could benefit directly by collaborating closely with a partner that had extensive experience in human space flight. It was reported in 1995 that US firms and their counterparts in Canada, Europe, and Japan had entered into space-station-related contracts and other agreements worth over $200 million. NASA had procured about $650 million of material from Russian suppliers over four years.47 Russia became functionally integrated into the station in 1998, pro­viding critical path infrastructure elements on what became a US-Russian core.

In 1984 NASA administrator James Beggs had warned his senior staffinvolved in the Space Station program that they were to be careful to avoid “adverse technology transfer” in international programs, notably where the Soviet Union was involved, and expressed concern about “careless and unnecessary revela­tion of sensitive technology to our free world competitors—sometimes to the serious detriment of this nation’s vital commercial competitive position” (see chapter 15).48

Economic concerns were complemented by new military demands. As satel­lite technology became more sophisticated, the military began to make increas­ing use of space-based hardware as a “force-multiplier,” that is, they exploited its capacity to enhance traditional military operations. Satellites began to be used to improve the effectiveness of battlefield surveillance, tactical targeting, and communications.49 These advantages were dramatically demonstrated in Operation Desert Storm, the UN-sanctioned, US-led assault on Iraqi forces that had occupied Kuwait in 1991. The Final Report to the President on the U. S. Space Program of 1993 stressed this dimension of the conflict. “Control of space was essential to our ability to prosecute the war quickly, successfully, and with a minimum loss of American lives.” Communications, navigation, weather reporting, reconnaissance, surveillance, remote sensing, and early warning—all these were mentioned in the report as essential to US victory.50 The defense space budget climbed in line with demand. NASA’s budget remained roughly unchanged in constant dollars between 1975 and 1984 (hovering between $8 and $9 billion 1986 dollars). The defense space budget came from behind to equal NASA’s around 1981. By 2000 they were approximately the same at $12.5-$13 billion current dollars. The terrorist attacks on American soil on September 11, 2001, accelerated demands for the protection of space as a key asset in America’s defensive arsenal.51 It was recently reported that for FY2005 Congress allocated $19.8 billion for space to the Department of Defense, and $16.2 billion to NASA.52

Already in the 1980s there were major concerns that the Soviet Union had taken advantage of the liberalized trade agreements that were part of the policy of detente to acquire, by every means possible, knowledge and training in supe­rior American high technology to build their industrial and military strength. Beginning in the mid-1990s, and with increasing emphasis today, it is the deter­mination of the People’s Republic of China to reap the fruits of America’s sci­entific and technological research system to enhance its global standing, either by exploiting openness or by espionage. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which have always impacted the circulation of satellite and launcher technology, have been tightened up, and heavy fines imposed on those who break them. NASA has responded to this situation by centralizing its export control activities in a special division and by engaging with the State Department in ongoing discussions on ways to improve the implementation of ITAR (chapter 14). It is significant to note, however, that it succeeded in making the International Space Station an “ITAR-free” project (chapter 13).

By May 1970 the ELDO Council had voted $500,000 for conceptual studies of the tug, while the ESRO Council had voted a similar sum for a modular element of the space station.29 The full-time ELDO and ESRO representatives to NASA in Washington had been nominated. Industries on both sides of the Atlantic were exploring ways of working together. It was being suggested that Europe would contribute up to about $1 billion over the next decade to a $10-billion post-Apollo program by providing both discrete elements such as the space tug and highly integrated elements such as parts of the shuttle.

In response to European requests, NASA arranged for briefings on the station and shuttle in Europe in the summer 1970. Speaking in Paris and in Bonn early in June, Frutkin once again emphasized the agency’s enthusiasm for European participation, and identified five basic principles that would underpin it: “(1) self-funding of participation, (2) management integrity, (3) adequate exchange of technical information, (4) equivalent access to space facilities, and (5) the broadest possible participation.”30 Participation could take four forms—studies and R and D; developing a separate element like the tug; developing an integral part, element, or subsystem of the shuttle itself; and utilization by foreign experi­ments or foreign astronauts. Frutkin stressed that the sooner Europeans became engaged in the program, the greater would be the scope for participation.

Europeans could not act fast, however. Their own internal uncertainties and divisions over the future directions of the European space program were amplified by the need for certain assurances from the US authorities regarding the space transportation systems and the space shuttle. On the industrial side they hoped for “technical access to the space shuttle and space station projects,” along with a “European role in the production as well as the development phase of any items Europe undertake.” On the political side, they wanted guaranteed, reimburs­able access to American launchers and launch facilities both before and after the shuttle was operational. Both of these requests—for meaningful technological collaboration, and for guaranteed access to the shuttle—raised serious policy issues. It will be remembered that NSAM 294 specifically excluded foreign access to ballistic missile technology. What guarantee was there that STS technology, and above all the development of the technologically advanced tug, would not leak into national missile programs? As for the question of shuttle availability, this was poten­tially subject to the restrictions imposed by NSAM 338. NSAM 338 specifically disallowed NASA to launch telecommunications satellites that could undermine the single global telecommunications system being put in place by Intelsat (to be described in detail shortly). As a major NASA policy statement explained in May 1970, “in its ‘worst case’ form,” the demand for launch guarantees “raises the question of whether Europe should in principle be permitted to buy US STS launch services to establish commercial communications satellite systems which the United States might regard as competitive with Intelsat. The European view,” it went on, “is that Europe cannot be expected to contribute to the development of a key Space Transportation System whose use would be subject to U. S. ‘whims.’”

To sum up. In the months after Paine had enthusiastically promoted NASA’s new vision and program for space in Europe, the negotiations over European participation had become intertwined with a number of other related issues that complicated the decision-making processes enormously. Europe’s resources were limited. They were willing to invest more in space. But they faced a stark choice. Paine summed up the alternatives in a letter to Nixon. Europe “must choose either an independent European space effort of a limited and retrograde char­acter or commit to a much bolder joint program that will be dominated by the United States.”31 The NASA administrator had gone to the heart of the dilemma as seen by many abroad: independence along with technological obsolescence, or cooperation at the risk of domination.

The withdrawal of the orbiter was not too difficult to swallow; participation was of limited importance anyway. By contrast the unexpected removal of the tug came as a bitter blow. Thirty-five years later Causse still remembered the announcement as coming as a “shock.”23 Nothing could have been more indica­tive of the asymmetry in power between the two sides of the Atlantic, and of the still-massive disparity in the financial, technological, and industrial capabilities in space between the two “partners.” Pollack emphasized at the meeting on June 16 that it was “important that both sides keep in mind the basic, enduring nature of the ties that bind the United States and Europe.”24 He surely wanted to calm ruffled feathers: in reality, he probably only made matters worse.

To put this in perspective we must remember the history. In February 1971, and again as late as February 1972, the joint meeting of experts had made a number of decisions to promote phase A tug activity.25 NASA let it be known that, for financial reasons, it would only have limited funds available for tug studies and technology development. The preliminary mission model, on the other hand, indicated that the tug should be available soon after the shuttle became operational, as it was required for “over 50%” of the missions. The man­agement of the tug would be left to Europe, with NASA in a “supporting role.” An informal version of the proceedings in Paris in February 1972 by NASA’s European representative recorded that the agency was “very interested in having Europe consider undertaking the Tug as a Post-Apollo cooperation effort both for the over-all program needs and from the increased international cooperation that such a program would bring.”26 The joint experts group had decided that funds would be allocated to two phase A studies in European industry, that a technology development program would be started as soon as possible, and that the economics of the tug and the mission model would be refined.

Just a few weeks later Frutkin moved sharply away from this position, not­withstanding the advantages noted by the expert group. “The tug is given sec­ond place after the sortie module because it is far more difficult to develop and could conceivably give rise to performance difficulties which might impair relationships,” he suggested. The risks here were amplified by NASA’s decision not to devote substantial resources to the tug, even in the most challenging technological areas. As a result, Frutkin feared that the tug “could also stimulate European advances in technology beyond those of the sortie module.”27

The nature of those advances was specified in a report prepared by Causse and Dinkespiler for the European Space Conference in March in which they emphasized how important the tug would be for Europe. “The tug by its mis­sion partakes of the nature of a launcher, but by its ultra-light structure, big flight autonomy and automatic rendezvous capability is akin to a space vehicle and actually makes use of highly sophisticated satellite techniques,” they wrote. “It pushes propulsion techniques well beyond what is currently envisaged in Europe,” and by virtue of “its far-reaching integration with the shuttle and with the payload during operations will afford Europeans effective participation in most American missions.”28 They explicitly told NASA in mid-April that they saw the tug as “a very critical development which, maybe in the future, could be a stage in Europa III.”29 In other words by encouraging the tug NASA not only risked being charged with irresponsible technology transfer but, even worse, of proliferating booster technology.

Then there was the problem of use. Causse and Dinkespiler also sought reas­surances that NASA and the Air Force would not build tugs under license in the United States for their own use, and would at least undertake to buy European – built tugs for a certain period of time. NASA had certainly been open to this early in February. Going into the meeting of the joint expert group, Culbertson had written that “[i]f there is a European decision to develop the Tug, Sortie Can or RAM, NASA would expect to commit to use providing it meets our specifications.”30 By mid-April, however, NASA was posing the question dif­ferently. If before it was willing to buy tugs as needed—unless Europe failed to deliver—now “we were basically concerned about uncertainties in the definition of a tug, the difficulty of producing one, and the multiplicity of approaches to orbit-to-orbit capability.”31 There were also concerns in NASA about the safety of having a tug powered by cryogenic fuel lodged in the Shuttle’s cargo bay. In short, upstream of the question of use, NASA was now having doubts about the safety and the technological feasibility of the tug concept itself.

The Air Force’s evaluation of the costs and benefits of developing the tug abroad also struck a blow at European aspirations.32 It was recognized that contracting out the tug to Europe would save dollars. On the other hand, the Department of Defense was concerned about the dangers posed to national secu­rity by having foreign powers develop one of their key technologies. They would have to reveal the nature of their missions. Their requirements might be jeop­ardized by unilateral decisions, technological and industrial deficiencies, and a lack of operational support by the Europeans. Building the tug abroad would also undermine the domestic industrial base in an already-weakened sector that was crucial to national defense. Summarizing the situation, it seemed to NASA that the Air Force would be willing to use a tug developed in Europe if one were available, but would “undoubtedly” manufacture it under license in the United States. In addition, to secure its supply lines the Air Force would “also likely sup­port development of an alternate, expendable stage [that could perform the tug’s missions], based on Centaur or some other existing vehicle.”33 In short, there was no hope that the Air Force would only procure tugs built in Europe, so boosting the production lines of European firms with orders for US “military” technology. By June the tug was dead; indeed it was never built. Studies were terminated in mid-August. That left the Europeans to do the Sortie Module that was later called Spacelab.34

There was more to come. On the last day of the June meeting (June 16) Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson finally expressed the official American position on launching the Franco-German telecommunications satel­lite Symphonie. The Europeans had long sought clarification on whether the United States would be willing to support the Symphonie proposal in Intelsat, and by extension launch it for them. Johnson replied that he could only do so if the proposed satellite was shifted to a different orbital position to that foreseen, and if its geographic coverage was more restricted than planned.35 This was the last straw for many people in France who were keen to develop an independent launch capability in Europe “to maintain the base of their ballistic missile tech­nology capability and [. . . ] to maintain European independence of the US in space operations.”36 Washington’s pared down offer of restricted technological collaboration in the post-Apollo program, the cancellation of Aerosat, and the determination to place launch conditions on Symphonie played into the hands of those who were determined that the region needed to develop its own inde­pendent access to space. The new European launcher called Ariane rose from the ashes of the explosion of Europa II in November 1971, and was nourished by the hard line taken by the American negotiators in June 1972.

As the Soviet Union awkwardly dismantled itself in the early 1990s, NASA policymakers labored to adjust their existing research and exploration initiatives to what was shaping up to be a new world. Having ostensibly won the Cold War, state officials now and again paused to consider the chances of a more enlight­ened coupling of capitalism and democracy. For some, waning tensions begged an unrestricted reassessment of government, cutting back on half a century’s build-up of armaments, infrastructure, and spending. Vice President Al Gore oversaw the streamlining of American bureaucracy before taking the reins of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (for economic and technical cooperation between the United States and Russia). For both former Cold War superpowers this cohort sought balanced budgets, smaller smarter government, and improved regulatory practices.

At the close of the twentieth century, new economic and security regimes took shape, carrying the promise of reduced tax expenditures, increased capital flows in the global economy, and the likely inclusion of the Newly Independent States in formerly “Western” multilateral security structures. Tightening bud­gets reflected a new skepticism of public spending on large R&D and scientific projects such as the Superconducting Supercollider (cancelled by Congress in 1993), the Strategic Defense Initiative (cancelled in 1994), and the Space Station Freedom (which later became the ISS in 1994). At the same time scholars began to seek links between Japanese commercial success and the shrinking percentage of profits being reinvested in American industrial research and development.

This political environment characterized by demobilization, fiscal belt-tight­ening, and bureaucratic reform combined to produce the curious situation in which the world’s leading space powers collaborated for more than two decades, meeting some needs through innovation and others by coasting on the surpluses of Cold War science, engineering, and productive capacity.

In 1991 NASA sent an ozone mapping spectrometer into orbit aboard a Ukrainian Tsyklon rocket, originally designed as a Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

In 1992 Rockwell, prime contractor for the Shuttle Transport System and Energia, Russian Scientific Production Association (NPO), began retrofitting a docking device intended for the Soviet Buran. It would be used for the American Shuttle’s visit to Russian space station Mir.

In 1993 NASA’s Space Station Freedom Office considered the possibility of purchasing a Soyuz capsule for use as a space station “life boat.” It was later inte­grated into the International Space Station (ISS) as a Crew Transfer Vehicle.

The year 1994 brought the consolidation of the Western alliance’s Space Station Freedom (SSF) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ Mir II plans into the International Space Station.

What follows is an overview of the history and historic significance of Russian – American collaboration in space in the 1990s. The first half contextualizes the two nations’ collaboration, considering its intended role in the post-Cold War reordering of international trade, demobilization, and environmental activities. It considers less the micropolitics of how and why NASA retooled preexisting projects and initiatives for collaboration and more how NASA’s history dovetails with American foreign policy as it was intended to bring order and stability to the former Soviet Union.

The latter half of the chapter focuses less on international activities and more on US interest groups. It is again an overview, illustrating the complex of inter­ests shaping space policy: would importing finished products from Russia come at the expense of American industrial prowess? Should national space program cooperation and liberalized trade be considered an effective preventative against weapons proliferation? To what degree would NASA (and Congress) be will­ing to reshape their preexisting national policies in the interest of international cooperation? The Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission bundled these oftentimes – conflicting interests when seeking to embed formerly Eastern structures of trade, science, and international relations in the West. Under these agreements, NASA officials labored to craft and often renegotiated agreements with the fast­degrading, but still very proud heirs of the Soviet space program.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty of September 1951 removed the prohibitions that had been imposed on Japan’s development of atomic energy and aerospace research for peaceful purposes. Local elites, determined to modernize the coun­try, seized the opportunity to pursue atomic and space science research for inter­national prestige and scientific and economic benefits.

The early history of space in Japan is marked by the tension between oppos­ing concepts of how to secure a position for the country in space. On the one hand there was the nationalist impulse of Hideo Itokawa who was determined to remain independent of foreign help and indeed of government “interference” in his research agenda. Itokawa advocated the pursuit of space sciences using sounding rockets and believed in the incremental development of solid propel­lant sounding rockets to launch scientific and application satellites. His views were diametrically opposed to those of Kanuro Kaneshige.3 Kaneshige aimed to use space technologies for economic and commercial benefit and sought inter­national cooperation for forwarding his country’s space goals. He was open to international cooperation and sought assistance from other foreign countries, mainly the United States and Europe, to nurture the fledgling program through cooperative endeavors.

Born in 1912, Hideo Itokawa graduated from the Imperial University of Tokyo and was involved in designing aircraft at Nakajima Aircraft Company dur­ing World War II. Concerned about the decline of the Japanese aerospace indus­try after the war, he galvanized the scientific elite at select institutions and created a niche within Tokyo University—the Institute for Industrial Science (IIS)—for research in aeronautics and space sciences.

In 1954 Itokawa’s group obtained a modest research grant to develop sound­ing rockets.4 A Japanese committee was formed in the spring of 1955 to coordi­nate a rocket project to coincide with the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The momentum generated while preparing for the IGY led to the establishment of a team that promoted the development and launching of sounding rockets for the collection of scientific data.5 In April 1955 the IIS exhibited to the public the first results of Japanese space research: a tiny rocket with tail fins called the Pencil. As the name implied this rocket was in the form of metal tubes mea­suring 23 centimeters in length and 1.8 centimeters in diameter and weighing around 200 grams. It was filled with solid propellants, similar to gunpowder.

The IIS was renamed the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) in 1964. Building on the experience gained with the Pencil rocket experiments the Itokawa group gradually scaled up their research and development to build the Kappa, Lambda, and Mu series of sounding rockets. Restrictions imposed on postwar Japan limited the launch vehicles to diameters of 1.4 meters or less. Itokawa’s personal view was that there was no need for Japan to develop rockets larger than the Mu because miniaturization would permit smaller payloads to do greater tasks.6 Stressing the possibilities inherent in miniaturization, he said that the Lambda series rocket could orbit a 100-kilogram satellite by increasing the booster’s diameter from 750 to 850 centimeters. Tokyo University could thus handle the application satellite program. He was not in favor of developing liquid fuels, though they had advantages for control purposes, and he dismissed suggestions that he collaborate with the National Aerospace Laboratory’s (NAL) nascent liquid fuel program.7

ISAS collaborated reluctantly with NASA in some experiments and research. Itokawa argued that having the United States launch Japanese satellites would take more time and money, would be less flexible, and would prevent the growth of Japan’s own technology. He also feared a loss of autonomy for his university – based group, believing that if he received assistance from abroad he would be accountable to the United States and to the Japanese government. As Emmerson and Reischauer put it, “As a matter of policy, the Japanese preferred to sacrifice short-term gains in speed and budgets in the interest of the made-in Japan prin­ciple. The technological experience and the pride and prestige of an exclusively Japanese effort were at that time more important than the speed of the space program.”8 Itokawa’s quest for autonomy came at a price. Four failed attempts to launch a scientific satellite using rockets developed by ISAS led to consider­able public criticism. It also bedeviled relations with NASA. Since ISAS was the dominant space group in Japan at that time, the United States took ISAS’s nega­tive stance more generally as indicative of a Japanese policy of noncooperation.9

As mentioned earlier, Itokawa’s group was not the only one engaged in devel­oping rocketry in the 1960s. The other was the National Space Development Center (NSDC) set up in July 1964. The NSDC and its governing body, the Science and Technology Agency (STA), were open to international collabora­tion and wanted to emulate the “leader-follower model,” meaning “identifying the leader in technological capability and learning as much as possible from its accomplishments, then building on that learning to develop a strong indigenous technology base.”10 The NSDC took responsibility for developing liquid-fueled rockets (the so-called Q series) for launching applications satellites rather than the pure space sciences pursued by the academic team at ISAS.

The NSDC was established by the National Space Activities Council (NSAC) chaired by Kankuro Kaneshige, also of Tokyo University. The council’s role was to coordinate the mushrooming space activities in Japan after the IGY. It had represen­tatives from universities and key organizations like the Atomic Energy Commission, the Meteorological Agency, the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, the Institute of Industrial Science, and the National Aeronautical Laboratory. It also acted as an advisory body to the prime minister Eisaku Sato and formed the central node for governing the scattered space activities. In February 1964 the NSAC presented a report to Sato stressing that cooperation among the various government minis­tries and agencies alone was not enough to attain success in the development of launching vehicles, the construction of satellites, rocket launchings, and research on related matters. It recommended the establishment of a central executive organ on space development to promote comprehensively and efficiently the development of techniques in various fields.11 Thus was the NSDC born, both to foster inter­national collaboration and to create an alternative technological path to that being pursued by Itokawa with a view to launching telecommunications satellites.

The attempt to centralize space-related activities in Japan was not only a response to domestic divisions; external factors also influenced the shape of the institutional structure. First, the desire to be a player/participant in the emerging field of space sciences and applications was motivated by seeing the advances made by the United States and the Soviet Union. Second, officials in Japan felt obliged to participate constructively in international negotiations over the Outer Space Treaty that was opened for signature in January 1967. And finally, the creation of a governmental body was invoked by government officials so as to position the country favorably in the negotiations over the definitive Intelsat agreements that got under way in 1969 and that would define the terms of access to a global telecommunications satellite system (see chapter 5). Though Japan was keen to be party to the Intelsat agreements, its officials were cautious not to accept any unfavorable conditions that would jeopardize their own technological capabilities in satellite development or the domestic and regional use of comsats.12

Much of this book concentrates on the first 30-40 years of NASA’s interna­tional collaboration, concluding with brief overviews of the International Space Station and of ITAR today. The aim has been to throw light on the general policies that informed the agency’s actions in select regions of the globe, and to illustrate their application in practice in specific and important cases. The vast scope of NASA’s international activities demanded that choices be made. Those choices, in turn, were constrained by the usual factors: the availability of sources, the capacities and interests of the authors, and the time foreseen to complete the work, which competed with many other responsibilities.

The book is divided into three major sections, and a conclusion. It deals suc­cessively with NASA’s relations with Western Europe, with the Soviet Union and Russia, and with two countries in Asia—Japan and India.

John Krige’s section on Western Europe distinguishes collaboration in space science (chapter 2) from technological collaboration (chapters 3-6). This distinc­tion reflects the very different issues that arise in the two domains. Clean inter­faces and no exchange of funds are relatively easy to respect in space science; the management of knowledge and dollar flows is far more contentious in advanced technological collaboration. Here working with foreign partners engages mul­tiple arms of the administration in NASA’s programmatic affairs—the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, most obviously. It can also raise eyebrows in Congress. For a leading space power like the United States, the desire of some to promote international collaboration by sharing technology is in a state of dynamic equilibrium with the determination of others to deny technology in the interests of national security, economic com­petitiveness, and American global leadership.

Chapter 2 complements national studies of four major Western European coun­tries, Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany, with two more detailed case stud­ies from the ESA period: the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM) and the Cassini-Huygens planetary probe. The core theme of the national studies, readily and warmly acknowledged by many actors of the day, is NASA’s generosity in catalyzing programs in countries in which the space community was small, indus­trial capacity was minimal, and political will was diffuse or nonexistent. The ISPM project, in which NASA withdrew its satellite from a joint venture with ESA, is important if only because of the shock that the agency’s move caused in Europe. Cassini-Huygens, by contrast, was not only a superb scientific achievement: its sur­vival in Goldin’s NASA, which was committed to “faster, better, cheaper” projects, was a tribute to the ability of international collaboration to protect a mission.

The exchange of sensitive technology is at the core of the next four chapters. The first treats NASA and the State Department’s attempts to save the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO) from collapse in the mid-1960s, describing their efforts to cope with restrictions on collaboration in this sensitive domain that had been imposed by various national security directives from the White House. The next three chapters are a detailed examination of the lengthy negotiations, initiated by NASA administrator Tom Paine in 1969, to engage Western Europe (and others, notably, Australia and Japan) in the post-Apollo program. This event is important for the light it throws on the perennial conflict between technological sharing and technological denial. It explores the crucial role that the parallel negotiations over the definitive Intelsat agreements played in the discussions between the United States and Europe over launcher avail­ability, and it studies the effects of the eventual decision to limit technological exchange to the barest minimum.

The two chapters by Angelina Long Callahan on the Soviet Union, its collapse, and the emergence of Russia as a major space player span a collaborative regime that might appear to have moved from one extreme to another. Collaboration in the 1960s was, in some respects, arm’s length; the 1990s did indeed bring about increasing dependence on Russia for construction, design, and access to the ISS. However, the notion of a wholesale shift between two extremes of criticality is to some extent artificial, an artifact of Cold War thinking. Historiography has often eclipsed parallel efforts made to maintain dialog and some measure of trust. What we learn from this section is that, embedded in the upheavals that have marked the history of the Soviet empire in the past 50 years, and the tension that has so marked its relationships with the rest of the free world, there lies a slow, cumulative attempt to build durable relationships in space. NASA policymakers often initiated these efforts; the Soviet Union typically made critical technological contributions. Low-key initiatives—meteorology, the Bion satellites, atmospheric sciences—and the odd space spectacular like the ASTP (chapter 7) were a forerunner of the full­blown effort in technological collaboration in the 1990s when Russia’s experience in human spaceflight in the Shuttle-Mir and ISS program led to its integration into the core of the space station (chapter 8). It is emphasized that that process was one element in the sweeping measures embarked on by the US administration to rebuild and to reintegrate a transformed group of nations into the capitalist world economy, dismantling their military infrastructure and sealing their allegiance to international agreements concerning the proliferation of military technology.

The third section of the book, written by Ashok Maharaj, looks at NASA’s rela­tionships with Japan and India. A longitudinal overview of each (chapters 9 and 11) is supplemented with case studies of particularly important joint ventures. The first is the controversial decision, spearheaded by the State Department, that the United States should share Thor-Delta launcher technology with Japan (chapter 10). The second case study is the marvelous SITE project that was so near and dear to Frutkin’s heart: the use of an ATS-6 communications technology satellite to beam educational and other programs to about 2,200 villages in rural India (chapter 12).

As I have said, there is an inherent contradiction in NASA’s twin missions to maintain leadership and to foster international collaboration. By helping others acquire space capabilities NASA at once enhances the capacity, visibility, and reach of the US space program, and contributes to the efforts of those who may eventually compete with it. The dilemma is particularly acute when collabora­tion involves managing dual-use technologies that are of both commercial and military significance. Chapters 13 and 14 discuss the contradictory forces now at work on international collaboration in the civilian aerospace sector. The new interdependence between partners embodied in the International Space Station (ISS) is contrasted with the stricter implementation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) in the rest of the civilian space sector. It is impossi­ble to know which of the two models—closer interdependence or retreat behind high technological walls—will prevail. The recent tectonic shifts in the global world order, the emergence of new space powers, many of them perceived as a threat to the United States, the increasing pressure for the commercialization of space, and the growing importance of space technologies as force-multipliers in war define the contours of a transition whose future it is difficult to predict.

Export licenses were required for sharing sensitive technology in the shuttle program. This included items that facilitated national comsat abilities (specifi­cally picked out for tight control in NSAM 338), including the acquisition of launchers, or that contributed to independent national strategic weapons sys­tems (NSAM 294, under review in terms of NSSM 71). The limits to what was permissible were quickly tested by McDonnell Douglas in April 1970. The firm wanted an export license allowing it to share “A Proposal to Accomplish Phase B Shuttle Program” with potential industrial partners in England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, and Japan.32 NASA wanted the Office of Munitions Control in the State Department to accord a license to the firm. The Department of Defense wanted the export license withheld.

NASA recognized that McDonnell Douglas’s Proposal contained technical material in a number of potentially sensitive areas—“thermal protection, aero­dynamics, avionics, structures, cryogenics, materials, propulsion, flight control, and so forth.” However it claimed that most of this material was available in the open literature. It would not significantly contribute in any way to either strategic delivery or comsat capability “beyond that already existing in the receiving coun­try, nor would its release be prejudicial to the interests of the United States.”33 It insisted too that the mere release of this documentation had to be distinguished from the possible transfer of hardware in any subsequent phase of active foreign participation. A license now was essential if a foreign entity was to be able to evaluate whether or not to participate in the post-Apollo program at all.

The Department of Defense felt that McDonnell Douglas’s proposal provided a “broad display of advanced technological capability” that seemed to be “well in excess of what might be required to secure international participation in the space shuttle.” It recognized that the shuttle itself had “no significant strategic delivery implications at this point.” Yet it feared that “an unrestricted flow of the best US technology in a number of areas would in time lead to concern regarding the development of independent strategic delivery capabilities.” It wanted NASA to secure government-to-government agreement on areas of international participa­tion before industry was involved. That agreement would provide a legal umbrella under which the flow of technology from US contractors to foreign industrial partners could be “properly managed on a case-by-case basis.”34 As NASA’s legal counsel explained, the DoD did not dispute the fact that the information con­tained in the McDonnell-Douglas proposal was available in the open literature, and it agreed that the shuttle itself had no strategic delivery implications: “it objects on the grounds that the mere flow of technology would be harmful.”35

The restrictions on technology transfer frustrated Frutkin. He pointed out to Paine that these objections overlooked the fact that “military missile technology has been widely exported under various rationales and with certain assurances.” He compiled a list of “controversial” technology transfer cases with Europe that were still pending in the Office of Munitions Control, one going back to September 1969 for technical assistance for Helios (see chapter 2 ) .36 In July 1970 he wrote, despairingly, that “the present attitudes and practices of the DOD and Department of State fraternity concerned with the export of unclas­sified technology in the space area would present virtually insuperable problems for us and make it extremely difficult to get satisfactory solutions in such a time frame as to establish credibility with the Europeans.”37 He called for a proce­dure that “should be as automatic as possible, should not be established on a case-by-case basis since this would entail unacceptable delays and uncertainties, should be premised on the establishment of adequate safeguards (guarantees and assurances) rather than on excluding particular items of technology, and should apply to NASA as well as to its contractors.”38 This framework for collaboration required, in Frutkin’s view, a radical shift in perception by those who drew back from technological sharing: rather than see the risks to the United States they should focus on the benefits. These were several.

First, Frutkin stressed that “our principal objective will be to obtain a foreign technical contribution, rather than to provide technology. Thus we do not mean to export tug technology; we expect foreign cooperation to develop it for us.” Of course he recognized that “anything we do by way of serious cooperation with other countries will inevitably enhance their capabilities should they wish to divert them to military purposes.”39 The choice was therefore between no technological exchange at all, or some degree of exchange with safeguards built into it.

Frutkin was emphatic that even though European participation would involve a degree of technological exchange, it would be biased in favor of the United States in two ways. The United States would get hardware from Europe, say, contributions to the avionics system of the tug. Europe, on the other hand would mostly have access to US technology through documentation and visits, a “second-order kind of exposure” that would not “produce the level of know­how that working in the technology imparts, nor that receiving actual opera­tional hardware does.” In any case, the “total technology base” of foreigners was “so much smaller than ours that they have much less opportunity to assimilate and apply technology they get from us” than is the converse.40 In sum, wrote Frutkin, “the risk we take in broadening the flow of technology to our Western alliance partners is a very, very small risk and totally appropriate to the gain that we make in international participation and in direct program contribution.”41 To strengthen the case NASA studied the extent of technology transfer in different collaborative programs, canvassing the views of experienced officials in the agency, the DoD, and in major US aerospace corporations.42 The study considered two extreme cases: certain parts of the shuttle, and the separable tug. Regarding the first, it concluded that Europeans could usefully contribute to the development of the vertical tail of the shuttle and to some elements of the attitude control system to the advantage of both partners. The ensuing “transfer of critical technology to Europe would be a relatively small percentage of the program value.” At the other extreme, the tug, even though a more indepen­dent system, would call for considerable technology transfer. It comprised two main components, a propulsion module and an avionics module. Europe lacked experience in some aspects of the former (e. g., cryogenic storage for long peri­ods). It had only “limited experience and know-how in navigation, guidance, power distribution, instrumentation and data management systems” as required by the avionics module. To control technology flows here the United States could furnish subsystem components rather than state-of-the-art technological know-how. Reviewing the situation, NASA suggested that technology transfer to Europe, be it through “integrated” or “coordinated” participation, was rela­tively unimportant and controllable. What Europeans sought most of all was program management and systems engineering experience rather than specific tasks. In any event before it was agreed to collaborate on such tasks the United States would need to make a more refined study of European capabilities so as to identify strengths, from which domestic corporations could benefit, and weak­nesses, where technology transfer had to be carefully controlled.

Aerospace leaders agreed that technology transfer posed few dangers.43 They favored partnership on the grounds that it would stabilize the program absent an “assurance of adequate and steady funding” from Congress and that it would curb the “stimulation of independent and competing programs in Europe.” They were also persuaded that the program would be so challenging that the US aerospace industry would benefit far more from its 90 percent share than the Europeans would from their 10 percent effort, emerging “from the post-Apollo enterprise even further ahead of the Europeans than when we started.”44

On July 17, 1970, National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM) 72 was released.45 It addressed the “Exchange of Technical Data between the United States and the International Space Community.” It established an interagency group, to be chaired by a NASA representative, to review policy and proce­dure for technical data exchange between the United States and foreign gov­ernments and agencies, beginning with Europe. And it specifically asked that those guidelines and procedures “be designed to provide for timely and effective interchange of technical information between the parties, while at the same time insuring the protection of U. S. national interest.”

In response to this directive, an “Ad-hoc Interagency Group on NSDM-72” was established to formalize policy. It had the important role of both strength­ening NASA’s leadership, and of providing a forum for interagency consulta­tion that could help avoid internal “polarization” and protect NASA from being “pictured as advocating giving away national values while the other agencies strive to protect them as required by Statute and Executive Order.”46 The group met weekly in August, it was chaired by Frutkin, and it included representatives from the DoD, the State Department, and the National Security Council.47

The group agreed that technological exchange should be handled in two phases. Phase A was a period of consultation before an intergovernmental agreement was signed. Phase B was implemented after such an agreement was adopted. “In Phase A we are releasing information so that foreign governments can assess whether or not to participate with us; the information is not too sensitive and the risks are not very great.”48 Requests for material would be authorized by NASA, after con­sultation with the Department of Defense when appropriate. If no objection was raised by the DoD within 72 hours the requested information would be released to foreign governments interested in participating in the post-Apollo program.49 (This “Phase A” mapped onto Phases A and B in the NASA project development schedule.) In Phase B, by contrast (corresponding to Phases C and D of NASA’s project schedule), the United States “would be dealing frequently with hard secu­rity and sensitive data,” involving “definitive designs, know-how or hardware,” and a more restrictive regime would be implemented to control it.50

This section has provided a quick look at how the flow of scientific, techno­logical, and managerial knowledge between NASA and its contractors, on the one hand, and foreign entities on the other, was handled in the early days of the post-Apollo program. The object of the exercise was to streamline the procedure for obtaining licenses or assistance agreements before any partner had even com­mitted to participate. NASA wanted the definition of the post-Apollo program, and the areas in which collaboration was possible to be as transparent as possible, so enabling foreign entities to decide for themselves where they might best con­tribute to the American program. As Frutkin stressed, foreign participation was being sought, above all, where there was an existing indigenous technological and industrial strength abroad. The aim was not to give technology away, but to creatively combine what others had to offer into NASA’s effort. The implementa­tion of this philosophy in 1970 and 1971, and the growing conviction in 1972 that it was impracticable, will be described in subsequent chapters.

The offer by NASA to build a Sortie Module as Europe’s contribution to the post – Apollo program was taken up by West Germany. On August 14, 1973, NASA administrator James Fletcher and ESRO director general Alexander Hocker signed an MoU for a “Cooperative Programme Concerning Development, Procurement and Use of a Space Laboratory in Conjunction With the Space Shuttle System.”37 The project, which would be spearheaded by the Federal Republic, foresaw the construction of a human-rated laboratory and a number of pallets that would be housed in the shuttle’s payload bay. NASA agreed to provide technical support, to manage the operational uses of the laboratory, and to develop essential technological items such as the access tunnel between Spacelab, as it was called, and the orbiter’s cabin.

The history of Spacelab has been written from various angles: by Douglas Lord (NASA) and the many European and project managers and engineers who built it38; by historians Lorenza Sebesta and Arturo Russo from the point of the general policy framework and the user community, respectively39; by indus­trialists who were engaged in it40; and by some of the scientists who actually exploited it.41

Though the user communities were not enthusiastic about the venture, industry was more interested. Niklas Reinke has noted the “enormous value in terms of contracts: German industry anticipated no less than DM625 million in turnover from the transatlantic cooperation project.”42 The prime contrac­tor, ERNO (MESH) in Bremen, also gained considerable insight into American methods of systems management. All the same, these were just “add-ons, designed to make [Spacelab] more convincing,” according to Wolfgang Finke, a senior official in the Federal Ministry for Research and Development. For him, political considerations dominated Germany’s willingness to continue with an “appendix” to post-Apollo after NASA had drastically reduced the scope of col­laboration. Central to Bonn’s thinking was the need to reassure her Western allies that she was a reliable ally even as she opened up toward the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc (the so-called Ostpolitik). “The German government looked for opportunities to demonstrate her attachment to the Western camp and especially her reliance on the United States,” said Finke, “without jeopardising her new policy toward the USSR and her neighbours in Eastern Europe. Among other things cooperation in space technology seemed to offer such an opportunity.”43 German officials also hoped that participation in Spacelab, “an endeavour that was at the time considered to be the most advanced,” would reduce the technol­ogy gap and contain the brain drain.44

Spacelab was a collaborative success at the working level. On the other hand it cost far more than expected—$750 million, more than twice the 1973 esti­mate. The laboratory only flew 16 times between 1983 and 1998 and the overall scientific return was disappointing.45 ESA and Germany also came to regret the terms of use agreed with NASA in the MoU. Europe agreed to build the first module, to fly one of their astronauts on it along with sharing the payload with the United States, and then to hand it over to NASA who could use it free of charge. NASA only had an obligation to buy one more Spacelab—and it did that and no more. This was far less than Europe had originally hoped for (the sale of four-eight units).

Whatever the disappointments, Spacelab was a major technological project that involved considerable industrial learning and that enabled Europe to engage directly for the first time in human spaceflight. It provided an essential platform for subsequent participation in Space Station Freedom and the International Space Station (see chapter 13). The last word is best left to Reimar Lust:

International cooperation does indeed depend a lot on the actual balance of power, but the benefits of cooperation cannot always be explained solely in figures. Just as many European firms today [1989] spend a lot of money to buy themselves into joint ventures with American and Japanese high-tech companies, in order to get knowledge on new technologies transferred into their firms, so ESA had to pay the price of Spacelab to acquire the basics of manned spaceflight.46

Throughout the 1990s, the two nations retrofitted and reengineered launch vehicles, spacecraft, and their support systems for the Shuttle-Mir Program, the International Space Station (ISS), cooperation in remote sensing, as well as the commercial launch of communications satellites. The adaptive reuse of these Cold War artifacts reflected new priorities for the US and Russian governments: the acceptance (or criticisms) and use of these technologies were shaped by con­cerns for trade liberalization, nuclear disarmament, and Cold War budget con­straints. American fears over idle productive capacity and the lingering threat of postwar unemployment at home were coupled with the threat of Asian industrial ascendance in the 1990s.

In marshaling resources for cooperation, proponents of the ISS chose not to approach cooperation as a definitive set of one-time deals or off-the-shelf purchases. Instead, they suggested that the collaborative use and development of space technologies fostered relationships within and among governmental complexes—each in their own way coming to grips with the end of the Cold

War. The international policies of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore (in some ways an extension of the Bush administration) illustrate that Russian-American cooperation in space was but one element of many fields of postwar cooperation—each intended to foster enduring ties of trade, finance, technical development, and environmental stewardship.

That said, it was not inevitable that the United States and Russia join space programs a scant four years after the fall of the Soviet Union.