Category NASA in the World

We know that right now your options at home are limited and outlaw regimes and terrorists may try to exploit your situation and influence you to build new weapons of war. [the physicists and engineers scribbled in tiny notebooks] But I think we should talk about a brain gain solution, and that is a solution of putting you to the work of peace, to accelerate reform and build democracy here, to help your people live better lives for decades to come.

—James A. Baker III,

US secretary of state to Soviet Nuclear Weapons Lab employees,

February 1992105

This chapter, by illustrating the broad scope of technical cooperation in trade, environmental regulation, scientific research, and space policy has demonstrated how the new conditions of cooperation placed both the Russian and American space programs in new positions of accountability (and vulnerability) to one another. Americans invested capital and credibility in exchange for regimes of sur­veillance of the aerospace industry, weapons trade, and the environment. At the same time, Russians agreed to become liable to American inspections, answerable to American contracts, and subject in limited degrees to American prescriptions for trade and business organization. Compliance was another matter.

In the 1990s, several (at times conflicting) post-Cold War objectives shaped the discourses and intercourses of space work. These included pressures for reduced budget expenditures, a new elan for streamlined budgets, desires to reduce nuclear arsenals, as well as a new science policy that often encouraged private industry to invest in its own R&D. The waning of the Cold War did not render space coopera­tion inevitable, neither did it necessitate amicable relations. Instead, Russian design philosophies of adaptability, variability, and compatibility combined with the abun­dance of Soviet era defense spending, providing NASA and American firms with a number of prospective bargains. The globalizing aerospace industry and 1990s trade liberalization both facilitated these transactions and benefited from them.

While Soviet-American competition in space no longer operated as quite the same driver to funding and political consensus as was characteristic of the 1960s, the people and artifacts of the Cold War continued to shape policy. Thus, for the Russians, idle productive capacity and surplus launch vehicles took on a new meaning in a new geopolitical environment.

For Americans, international scientific and technological collaboration in space were used in an attempt to promote American interests abroad with Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) regulations and later the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA). Clinton officials anticipated that ISS contributions and US leadership would facilitate the emergence of a consensus for a new US-led Western Alliance— one that co-opted the former Soviet republics against a new block of adversaries: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan, and other “rogue states.”

Between 1994 and 1998, the United States paid out approximately $800 mil­lion through ISS-related activities. The Congressional Reporting Service states that in 1996 “reports surfaced of Russian entities providing ballistic missile assis­tance to Iran, including training; testing and laser equipment; materials; guidance, rocket engine, and fuel technology; machine tools; and maintenance manuals (see CRS Report RL30551).” In 1998, George Tenet, director of Central Intelligence, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russian aid had, “brought Iran further along in ballistic missile development than previously estimated.”106

These revelations set Congress at odds with the White House, kicking Section 6 of the INA into action, threatening to cut off funding associated with the ISS, and leaving NASA’s largest program potentially dead in the water. Controversy ensued regarding what elements of ISS collaboration applied to the “crew safety” excep­tion of the INA, allowing for a minimum continuation of funds to the program in the interest of US astronaut safety. These discussions became all the more heated following the orbiter Columbia’s tragic accident in 2003, when NASA became completely dependent upon Soviet transport and again when President George H. W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration cancelled US plans for a Crew Return Vehicle, again, increasing dependence on the Soviets for access to the ISS.

Critics of the INA (including the CIA) questioned whether or not it was realis­tic to presume that the Russian Space Agency could be held accountable for prolif­eration activities that could take place among any number of firms, the Ministry of Defense, or the Ministry of Atomic Energy (which for all appearances had indeed committed proliferation “crimes” associated with Iran). INA compliance rested upon the apparently naive presumption that a carrot offered to the Russian Space Agency might (influence) behavior of the Russian government writ large. The Russian citizens responded with a range of improvisations including acquiescence and alignment as well as extortion, illusion, and outright noncompliance.

Foreign policy and national security considerations have always played lead­ing roles in the principles and guidelines of Soviet-American space projects. Yet from 1992 onward they were executed in very different manners. Before then, high-profile collaboration in space followed nonproliferation regimes such as the 1963 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (which made a joint lunar mission offer plausible) and the 1969 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (which made the ASTP plausible). In both instances, abstinence from bilateral security regimes could thwart collaboration, but by no means was collaboration offered as an explicit incentive for enlistment in nonproliferation regimes.

Specifically because collaboration in space was linked to a multitude of other cultural, bureaucratic, and capitalistic linkages, enrollment in the ISS became a plausible reward ex post facto. Thus, into the 1990s, cooperation in space con­tinued to function (to varying degrees) as one of America’s tools for legitimating power, spreading democratic ideologies, reproducing cultures of regulation, and teaching the mores of liberalized trade. How successfully?

Given the near incomprehensibility and near catastrophic disorder of the for­mer Soviet military industrial complex, is it surprising that weapons technolo­gies did in fact leak out? Instead we might ask, parallel to the much-debated “achievements” of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, to what degree did ISS and its associated attempts at post-Soviet order prompt at least a minority of Soviet representatives to “show their hand”—delineating industrial capabilities, iden­tifying the critical state of their R&D institutions, and ultimately, reappraising their own bureaucratic potency if only to increase their legibility to the West? While the entire exercise was a categorically unsuccessful replication of Western structures and ideals, it did present at least an extension of Western capitalist order into the post-Soviet world and, therefore, a useful glimpse into the logic of American international leadership as well.

The context of international cooperation changed importantly in the 1980s. In essence the technological gap between NASA and its traditional partners began to close in a variety of space sectors. At the same time the Soviet Union began to be more open to international collaboration. NASA had to find ways to retain leadership while collaborating with partners who were also competitors in many space sectors.

Launchers were at the cutting edge of this transformation. On Christmas Eve 1979 the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully tested its first Ariane rocket. After overcoming the normal teething troubles Ariane soon proved to be a spectac­ular success. Arianespace (the company that commercialized Ariane) had acquired about 50 percent of the commercial market for satellites by the end 1985, helped on by the lower-than-expected launch rate of the US space shuttle. A second major new player entered the field of rocketry in the late 1980s. Japan developed its H-series to replace the N-series built under American tutelage (see chapter 10). China’s Long March 3 placed a satellite in geostationary orbit in April 1984; the authorities imme­diately announced that they too were keen to find clients abroad. Finally the Soviet Union was showing a greater willingness to offer its previously closed and secretive launcher system for commercial use, and was even seeking a contract to launch a sat­ellite for the International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT), some­thing that was simply inconceivable several years before (see chapter 8).

Launch technology was not the only area where American leadership was being challenged. Advanced communications satellites and remote sensing satel­lites with technologies more sophisticated than those available in the civil sector in the United States were being built in Europe, Japan, and Canada. The French had taken the lead in commercializing images from SPOT, an earth remote sens­ing satellite that technologically outstripped the earlier NASA Landsat system, then bogged down in negotiations over privatization. Australia as well as a num­ber of rapidly industrializing countries—Brazil, China, India—had constructed solid national space programs, and many Third World countries, along with the Soviet Union (in a reversal of its historic policy), were clamoring for a greater say in international bodies such as Intelsat, which governed the global satellite tele­communications system. Summing up the situation, a special task force of the NASA Advisory Council reported in November 1987 “that there is in process an accelerating equalization of competence in launching capability, satellite manu­facturing and management for communications, remote sensing and scientific activity, and in the prospective use of space for commercial purposes.”41 For Pedersen writing in 1986 this meant that for NASA now “‘power’ is much more likely to mean the power to persuade than the power to prescribe.”42

On October 13-15, 1969, Paine met with the ministers of science and senior space program officials of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. He also described to a distinguished committee of senior officials of the European Space Conference (ESC) the details of what he called the “President’s new space pro­gram,” which would be presented to Congress for funding in FY1971.18

The ESC was a gathering of ministers or their delegates in the several coun­tries in Europe interested in defining a European space policy for the 1970s. It first met in 1966. The national representatives got together when needed, and very frequently in times of crisis. The ESC was superseded when the European Space Agency (ESA) came into being in 1975, when its key functions passed to the ESA Council.

Paine spelt out the STG proposals in considerable detail to his European audience (as well as to authorities in Australia, Canada, and Japan).19 He sug­gested that NASA could achieve its goals within its then-current levels of fund­ing ($4-6 billion annually). And he welcomed European participation. He had come to Europe, he said, to “personally make it as clear as I can that it is the desire of America not only to continue but indeed to expand the cooperation which from our standpoint has proved so fruitful and which we hope, from your standpoint, has also been significant.”

It is important to realize how radical Paine’s proposals were. Space was no longer being defined primarily as a strategic resource to be deployed in a com­petitive struggle for global technological supremacy with the Soviet Union. It was rather being seen as a new frontier to be explored and colonized, a place to live and work. “For us in America,” Paine said, “which has been called the new world, we feel that space may represent another new world, a seventh continent, which is now opening to mankind in the region 100 miles above the surface of the globe.”20 Europeans realized the revolutionary implications. A report to a committee of the ESC written by Jean-Pierre Causse (of ELDO) and Jean Dinkespiler (of ESRO) noted that “ [t]his really does mean a total metamorphosis of space activity” (emphasis in the original).21 The delegates to the ESC meeting “expressed the hope that European countries would soon have the necessary data to enable them to give as positive an answer as possible to the offers of cooperation made by the American authorities.”22

Paine was careful not to oversell cooperation. He avoided giving definitive schedules or firm commitments, talking instead in general terms of program directions, plans, hopes. This was not simply because the program was still some­what schematic, and would surely be implemented piecemeal, as Congressional and presidential approval was forthcoming. The most significant reason was that NASA did not want to steer Europeans down particular paths at the outset. Participation was not to be imposed from above but something that bubbled up from below because the Europeans wanted it. As Frutkin put it,

We would not wish to constrain imaginative European thinking and initiative regarding the structuring of participation, i. e., we want to give the fullest and fre­est reign to European proposals. [. . . ] Europeans must determine for themselves whether they are interested in participation and what is the nature of their interest.

It would then be a short and logical step for them to give thought to how that inter­est should be pursued and structured. (Emphasis in the original)23

To improve communications, it was agreed in February 1970 that ESRO and ELDO would together station a representative in Washington on a permanent basis. An ELDO team, headed by Causse, would make periodic visits to NASA and its contractors to keep abreast of developments in both the space shuttle and station. They would be invited to regular NASA “internal” three-month brief­ings, and NASA would provide for “full observation and participation opportuni­ties in the planned summer study activities on the space station in 1970-71.”24 Classification was another important obstacle that was quickly removed. Deputy Administrator George Low and Robert Seamans agreed at once “that the space shuttle program should be conducted on a generally unclassified basis” in the same sense that the Apollo program was unclassified, bearing in mind “the international flavor of the program.”25 In mid-February 1970 Paine and Seamans signed an official agreement between NASA and the Air Force estab­lishing a joint NASA/USAF committee whose task was to ensure that the shut­tle “be designed and developed to fulfill the objectives of both the NASA and the DOD” and confirmed that it “will be generally unclassified.”26

NASA was emphatic that collaboration would be pointless if Europe did not reciprocate, above all by increasing its space budgets. In 1969 ESRO’s annual budget was slightly over $50 million, ELDO’s was about $90 million, and the entire European effort, including that of individual nations, was about $300 mil­lion.27 Frutkin was quite blunt about it in his briefing for Paine before the admin­istrator’s trip to Europe in October. It was imperative, he wrote, for Europe to increase its level of financing several-fold if it had “substantial space ambitions and wishes to take hold of the opportunities of the future.” In any event, “signifi­cant participation in planning for future space exploration and use cannot really be considered, and would even be a waste of time,” he added, “if there is not an intention to seek much larger funding.”28

By the end of February 1972 Frutkin was persuaded that NASA should strongly discourage European participation in the shuttle. He was deeply concerned by the management difficulties, cost overruns on the European side, and the risk of delays involved in having Europeans subcontractors build integral parts of the main orbiter.14 His sentiments were confirmed at the meeting of an interagency group on March 17, 1972, reported on by Pollack to Secretary of State Rogers.15 Pollack noted that “Kissinger, Flanigan and David each had representatives on this group, and they were unanimous in reflecting the prevailing spirit in their home offices as one of deep skepticism as to the desirability of European par­ticipation in the development of the hardware for the space shuttle or other ele­ments of the post-Apollo space transportation system.” Their underlying reasons for this attitude, Pollack added, centered on “protecting the technological posi­tion of the U. S., maximizing balance of payments and employment benefits for the U. S., and avoiding managerial difficulties that may be encountered in inter­national cooperation in technological activities.” In their view, the only reason to continue with the Europeans now was that “we have gone so long and so far in our discussions with the Europeans as to be ‘stuck’ with their participation.” Ten days later, on March 27, Deputy Administrator George Low confirmed that, in his view, only pressing foreign policy concerns could now keep Europe in the post-Apollo program. In a memo to Fletcher that was transmitted to Flanigan in the White House Low wrote that

our position is that from a programmatic point of view we would like to develop the Shuttle and all of its ancillary equipments domestically. It would be NASA’s view to seek foreign participation in the use of the Shuttle, but not in its develop­ment. (When I say Shuttle, I also mean tug, sortie module, etc.). However, it is also NASA’s position that if there are overriding international reasons to invite foreign participation into the development of the Shuttle, we would be willing to do so provided certain conditions are met [to be specified in separate paper].16

By the end of March 1972, then, it was clear that NASA was no longer willing to fight for direct European participation in the STS system, notably the shuttle. Throughout 1971 it had struggled valiantly against those who argued that there would be a serious leakage of technology to Europe. It had devised managerial schemes that, it thought, would both contain technology transfer and be practi­cable and efficient. It had never persuaded David, Flanigan, or Whitehead of the merits of its case and, now that the shuttle had been authorized, it did not have the will to go on. Only the State Department, by appealing strongly to foreign policy concerns, could save significant post-Apollo cooperation. Johnson was persuaded that such participation “would be damn useful and valuable from a foreign policy and public-relations point of view.”17 Low implied that NASA would be cooperative. Fletcher concurred. “NASA is a service,” he told U. Alexis Johnson in January 1972. “We’ll do whatever the people want us to do.”18 But which “people”? Whose voice would prevail? Was a consensus possible?

On April 29, 1972, Secretary of State Rogers turned once again to his president detailing the foreign policy situation.19 Summarizing the history of US-European exchanges he pointed out that until recently the American authorities had “provided the Europeans every reason to believe that the U. S. was seriously interested in having them participate in the development of cer­tain parts of the Shuttle, in one or more of the RAMs and especially in the Tug.” In response Europeans had spent or committed $11.5 million on pre­liminary technical studies. Now all this was in jeopardy. He repeated the argu­ments that Pollack had reported to him as regards participation in the shuttle. He noted that there were objections that the tug was too difficult technically for the Europeans. That left the RAM. To reduce European involvement to one or two RAMs, however, would be “judged by them as a clear reversal of our previous policy,” and would “buy more trouble with the Europeans than can be justified by the ephemeral domestic advantages that we may gain by denying them participation.” America must not be seen to change tack now. Rogers sug­gested that the United States “accept, but not encourage” European participa­tion in the five shuttle tasks identified by NASA—on condition that they made a “prior commitment” to “undertake the subsequent development of one or more RAMs.” He also insisted that there was no need for the United States to reverse its position on the tug, since it would require several more years of design study. Instead, what the United States should do was to create an exit strategy for itself, in the event that one was needed, by bringing “the Europeans to agree that consideration of their undertaking of the development of the Tug will be deferred pending further study.”

NASA administrator Fletcher wrote to Kissinger a few days later comment­ing on Rogers’s memo. He took a harder line than did the secretary of state. As regards the shuttle work packages, “we continue to feel such European partici­pation is highly undesirable and that it would complicate our shuttle manage­ment problems.” These concerns could be overridden if the president insisted, but only on condition that the Europeans were responsible for both estimated costs and overruns and also built a sortie module. Fletcher also confirmed to Kissinger that, even if further studies established that a tug was feasible in Europe, NASA wanted “to reserve the right to escape from an agreement,” and did not anticipate “technical support of the European study” unless directed by the president to do otherwise. “For all of these reasons,” Fletcher wrote, NASA did “not recommend European involvement in the tug.”20

And then the president’s science adviser, Ed David, stepped in.21 He insisted that the Europeans understood American reservations about technology flow and management difficulties, and were pragmatic enough not to let these con­cerns in Washington drive them to abandon cooperation. He claimed that the French were going to propose anyway that Europeans give priority to Sortie or RAM modules to be carried in the shuttle payload bay, and that they may abandon plans to develop the tug or contribute to subsystems of the shuttle. In short the United States could drastically reduce the scale of its offer of post – Apollo cooperation without creating the foreign policy blowback that the State

Department feared. With that fear removed, David insisted that negotiations on participation in the orbiter and discussions of the tug should be terminated at once on the grounds that the United States now believed that “they would lead to excessive additional costs and managements complications that the U. S. is unwilling to accept.” The United States could accept European participation in the shuttle program, he added, but only “if limited to RAM and Sortie payload modules.”

David’s view prevailed. Pollack conveyed what was now official policy to a high-level ESC delegation that had come to Washington on June 16 to discuss post-Apollo cooperation. He informed his visitors that European participation in the development of the shuttle “can no longer be encouraged by us even on the limited scale we are still discussing.” He also killed “consideration of mutual development of the Tug,” which, he said, had “of necessity been set aside.” European participation in the development of Sortie modules and in the use of the shuttle system were, by contrast, warmly welcomed.22

NASA funding is very important to the Russian space program.

—US Congress, U. S. Soviet Cooperation in Space, 1985103

The possible eradication of NASA’s clean interface mode of cooperation with Russia raised a number of difficult quandaries for program officials regarding the relationships among private enterprise, the state, and the tenets of free mar­ket capitalism. Between 1990 and 1992, even as debates raged in newspaper editorial columns and on Capitol Hill on whether or not Americans ought to collaborate (more) with the Russians in space, policymakers questioned with whom, precisely, they ought to be negotiating. Often more than one bureau claimed ownership of hardware or intellectual property. NASA officials had dif­ficulty deciphering who precisely was in charge, what Soviet priorities were, and even which assets were up for sale. One report, released in October 1991, illus­trates the tenuous situation:

In his diminished leadership role, Mikhail Gorbachev has had little to say about the future of the Soviet space program. . . A reorganization has begun involving the major Soviet space design bureaus and installations, some of which will be transferred to new private industries. Yet to be sorted out is the degree of influ­ence and authority key personnel within the reconstituted bureaus, agencies, and industries will have.104

As indicated here, it was not merely the floundering Soviet state that the American government sought to regulate—it was the engineers who might defect, scientists who may market technical knowledge, or industrialists who might withdraw from weapons compliance. Table 7.3 illustrates the range of fields supported by collaborative work. 105

Chapter 8 describes how the pursuits of national and collective security figured prominently in a number of US federal agencies and departments. Deliberations regarding the purchase or lease of Russian aerospace equipment (much but not all of it factoring in to the ISS) took place in a variety of US state bodies includ­ing NASA, the National Space Council, the CIA, and the Departments of State, Commerce, Defense, and Transportation. Each exercised responsibility over its own corner of national—and international—security.

While the International Space Station figures most prominently among these projects between FY1993 and 1997 the Bion 11 and 12 spaceflights accounted for $16 million.106 Meanwhile, the space sciences writ large accounted roughly 14.5 percent of all program costs, as detailed earlier. The 1995 Office of Technology Assessment frankly assessed the situation. In his foreword to this report, the director Roger Herdman notes that “much of the motivation for the expansion of cooperation with Russia lies beyond programmatic considerations.” In particular, their report points out that continued cooperation, including large payments for Russian space goods and services, might help stabilize Russia’s economy and provide incentive for some of Russia’s technological elite to stay in Russia.

Often representatives of Glavkosmos used the justification of sunk costs to rationalize continued investment. (Glavkosmos was the Ministry of General Machine Building’s Main Directorate for the Development and Use of Space Technology for the National Economy and Science Research, known as the commercial arm of the Soviet space program.)107 Thus they carried on the hope that the sale of various elements and subassemblies already developed by the

Soviet space programs might provide foreign currency to the withering program. NASA officials likewise highlighted the thrift of collaboration, but with some important differences. In explaining these expenditures, OTA officials likened Bion to the ISS docking mechanism “and other minor goods and services” that “involve the use of unique Russian capabilities by NASA at a low cost compared with the cost of developing them indigenously.” Some believed themselves to be buying or selling products; others believed themselves to be initiating a long­term commitment, a process. These individuals sought to build relationships as buyers and sellers, scientific collaborators, or in preserving formerly Soviet resources.

Many individuals expressed a desire to not simply denude the Soviet space infrastructure of all its useful persons and ideas, but to preserve the organiza­tions and institutional memory within. Regardless of whether or not one views this monumental shift in NASA policy—the decision to pay the Russian space program for hardware and services—as an investment in the Russian space program or bargain for the United States, the OTA leaves us with one final thought-provoking observation. “[N]o other executive branch agency is trans­ferring funds to Russia at anything approaching this rate. US government funds obligated for assistance to Russia through September 30, 1994, total something over $3B, but over a third of that total is for in-kind goods (food shipments, principally in FY 1993).”108 While foreign policy, environmental, and national security considerations had always played roles in the principles and guidelines of joint projects, the next chapter describes how they were expressed in very dif­ferent manners. In years past, national security concerns centered primarily upon fears of technology transfer. Following this, notions of “national security” came to be characterized as “international security” as the United States attempted to control the flows of former Soviet researchers and engineers to potential bel­ligerent nations.

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.