Category NASA in the World

Sweeping adjectives abound when one reads about the construction of the International Space Station in scholarly journals, newspapers and trade publications.

True to its name it brings together a team of international players—mostly devel­oped countries—to contribute components for assembling in orbit a platform for basic scientific research and for ambitious future exploratory missions (see chap­ter 14). Japan is one of the key partners in this international venture, and this col­laboration remains to date the largest space effort between Japan and the United States. By deciding to participate in the space station in the early 1980s Japan gained the needed visibility as a space-faring nation. The 1980s also saw Japan’s participation in many international scientific programs and joint science and tech­nology collaborations with the United States.

Japan’s main contribution to the Space Station comes in the form of an in-or­bit floating laboratory called the Japanese Experimental Module (JEM) or Kibo meaning “hope.” The first element was successfully added to the International Space Station in the spring of 2009, the complete package was assembled in fall 2009.41 Kibo’s main purpose was to create an ideal environment for the study of the earth’s environment and perform microgravity experiments.42 It will also house the world’s largest wide angle X-ray camera for galactic studies. The mod­ule consists of two facilities: the pressurized module that simulates a condition similar to what we experience on Earth and an exposed facility for long-term experiments in outer space.

Kibo was not the only contribution foreseen for the ISS. JAXA also planned to build a Centrifuge Accommodations Model (CAM). CAM’s core was a 2.5- meter-long centrifuge that would have provided controlled exposure of various biological specimens to a range of gravity levels from as little as 0.01 g to 2 g. The program was cancelled as part of NASA’s response to President Bush’s January 2004 Vision for Space Exploration.43 That vision called for the develop­ment of a Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) to take astronauts to and from the moon and the ISS, and a Crew Launch Vehicle (Ares I). It also directed NASA to restrict research on the ISS to elements that supported the vision. To meet these requirements NASA reduced the number of launches to the ISS before September 2010 from 28 to 16, and dropped plans to launch Russia’s Science Power Platform and Japan’s CAM, whose flight model, along with the engineer­ing model of the centrifuge rotor had already been manufactured.

The Japanese motivation to cooperate in the Space Station dates back to the early 1980s when Japan’s space program was still in its growth phase—it was yet to build its own application satellite and launch vehicles. The earlier invitation by the United States to cooperate with the space shuttle was turned down by Japan because of deep concerns about its own technological capabilities and the financial commitment involved in a cooperative endeavor when it was struggling with its fledgling space program. In the words of John Logsdon, “Japan, forced to sit on the sidelines during Shuttle development, was determined not to be left out of the next major cooperative opportunity.”44

Though the invitation to participate in the space station was made during President Reagan’s State of the Union address on January 25, 1984, the nego­tiations and planning started much earlier. Significant meetings were organized in 1982 and 1983 to plan for the space station with potential partners that included Japan. In May 1981, a special Space Station Task Force was formed under the Space Activities Commission in Japan to coordinate station-related activities through interaction with other government, semigovernment, and private agencies. Though Japan was positive about participating in the Space Station, the financial commitment to develop their own indigenous H-II launch vehicle demanded negotiations with their own space team for simultaneously committing resources for both projects—the H-II and the space station.

As Japan wanted to be an international player in human space flight, it committed itself to contributing to the Space Station. It efficiently allocated its resources and did the preparatory work well in advance. The Kibo module remained steadily on course throughout the period from approval in 1989 to arrival at the Tsukuba space center in 1997, weathering the storms of the trans­formation of the station from President Reagan’s Freedom to President Clinton’s International Space Station that included Russia. For Japan, the ISS in general and its own module in particular offered the opportunity for a permanent par­ticipation in manned space flight and a platform where research could be carried out into manufacturing technologies in weightlessness and vacuum.45

Japan’s participation in the space station was not welcomed by many scientists and policy analysts in the country. They saw it as a needless drain on resources when Japan should be concentrating on building a robust space program.46 As John Logsdon put it, this led the government to recognize that “it could not both accept the U. S. offer and satisfy its other space objectives without increas­ing its financial commitment to space.” Having decided to do so, a broad con­sensus was brokered between government and industry from 1982 to 1984 in favor of collaborating with the United States in exploring the potential of human space flight.47 Seen in this light, the Space Station has both increased resources for the Japanese space effort and contributed to building that autonomy in space that the country has pursued for the last 60 years.

NASA and the Politics of Delta Launch Vehicle Technology Transfer to Japan

As described in the previous chapter, Japan’s quest for the development of an indigenous launch capability began with the pioneering efforts of Itokawa and his team at IIS in the 1950s and at ISAS in the 1960s. Their program to develop solid propellant vehicles (Kappa, Lambda, Mu) for launching mini satellites to low earth orbit was thwarted in the late 1960s by three consecutive technologi­cal failures along with ongoing internal problems. These setbacks left the field open for the rival solid – and liquid-fuel program being undertaken by the NSDC, which progressed from developing a three-stage Q rocket in the 1960s to an N series constructed with American help in the 1970s. This was established with an intergovernmental agreement in which Washington undertook “to provide to the Japanese Government or to Japanese industry under contract with the Japanese Government, unclassified technology and equipment [. . .] for the development of Japanese Q and N launch vehicles and communications and other satellites for peaceful purposes.”1 This chapter focuses on the circumstances leading up to this arrangement, which was strongly promoted by the State Department, and the difficulties that NASA faced in interpreting its scope, and in cooperating with its implementation. That experience, in turn, enabled Japan to develop a “home­grown” H series of rockets in the 1980s, the latest being H-IIA capable of placing application satellites weighing more than two tons in geosynchronous orbit.2

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Hideo Itokawa’s determination to build solid-fuel rockets without foreign assistance caused some consternation in the United States. The State Department noted that the Japanese were not only offering these rockets for sale—which it “did not consider to be a sig­nificant source of proliferation of solid fuel technology”—but were also offer­ing licensing arrangements for their production abroad, especially to Indonesia and Yugoslavia—which was of considerable concern.3 The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) that was set up as an independent body by Congress is 1961, specifically to deal with all aspects of arms control, nonpro­liferation, and disarmament, emphasized the possibility that the rockets could morph into strategic nuclear-capable ballistic missiles within three years no mat­ter what America did. The United States, it suggested, could counter this devel­opment by offering Japan liquid-fuel rocket technology. As the ACDA put it in

September 1966, the United States had the “ability to influence the course of Japan’s rocket developments” by making “certain areas of space-rocket technol­ogy” that were less relevant to missiles “more attractive.”4 Such a move would also bolster Japan’s prestige and would be in line with the kind of support the United States was offering to the European program in ELDO (see chapter 3).

The moves made by the State Department in the mid-1960s to engage Japan in closer collaboration with the United States in the wake of the 1964 Chinese nuclear test (see previous chapter) were part and parcel of a general effort to contain Tokyo’s nuclear aspirations, if they should ever emerge. As a memo sent to the embassy in Tokyo put it, “[G]iven Japanese capability to develop—if it chose to change current policy—nuclear weapons delivery system unilaterally and without foreign assistance,” space cooperation could serve US policy objectives “of both discouraging proliferation tendencies in Japan and encouraging contin­ued Japanese focus on exclusively peaceful exploitation of space.” The alternative, “denying to Japan certain unclassified technology relating to space exploitation,” would, the State Department suggested, “encourage unilateral program and very nationalistic tendencies and suspicion of U. S. which could stimulate decision by the government of Japan over next decades to exercise its nuclear option.”5

These views were part and parcel of an evolving quest for collaboration with Japan, notwithstanding Kaneshige’s gloomy prognosis in summer 1966. An offi­cial visit by Prime Minister Sato in November 1967 provided the occasion for a collective reaffirmation of US policy by officials in NASA, the Department of Defense, the Office of Munitions Control, and the science team in the State Department. A white paper prepared in anticipation of the state visit expressed continuing concern regarding Japan’s determination to pursue an independent peaceful space program. It reiterated the advantages to Tokyo of working with the United States: savings in time and money, increased prestige in Asia vis-a-vis the People’s Republic of China. And it suggested that Sato’s visit provided an appropriate occasion for the United States to once again express its “willingness to broaden space cooperation with Japan.” There were, though, a couple of areas in which that cooperation would have to be qualified: the launching of comsats, which had to satisfy Intelsat’s conditions (see chapter 5), and “assistance in the development of Japanese launch vehicles including guidance systems [that was] limited by our policy against the proliferation of nuclear weapon systems.”6 In these areas, requests for technological support would be handled on a case-by­case basis: there could be no blanket technology transfer agreement.

On November 15, 1967, President Johnson and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato agreed that the two countries should look more closely into the possibilities for space cooperation. Possible avenues for collaboration were then reviewed thoroughly in Washington. A policy statement outlining the nature of prospective cooperation with the Japanese was agreed by State, NASA, Defense, ACDA, and the White House. It was forwarded to the US ambassador in Tokyo, U. Alexis Johnson, on January 5, 1968, with authorization to inform the Japanese government of the readiness to negotiate a space agreement. The offer was conveyed to the prime minister shortly thereafter, and 18 months later, on July 31, 1969, an exchange of diplomatic notes confirmed the terms of a new US-Japanese collaborative space project. It explicitly narrowed the scope of collaboration to technology and equip­ment for the peaceful development of launch vehicles and communications and other satellites.7

This arrangement deviated significantly from the white paper drafted in inter­agency discussions before Sato’s visit. Not only did it identify as core items for collaboration just those items that had been singled out as particularly sensitive— launchers and comsats—, but it also made no explicit mention that technology sharing in these two areas would be decided on a case-by-case basis, as NASA had insisted.

Privileging launchers was defended in general terms by the State Department as essential to curbing potential militaristic ambitions in Japan. As one official put it to the secretary of state, “[T]o deny cooperation in unclassified technology oth­erwise available to European partners would stimulate suspicion of U. S. motives, encourage nationalistic tendencies and could well contribute to an eventual deci­sion by the Japanese government to exercise its option to develop a military deliv­ery capability.”8 U. Alexis Johnson himself later reiterated the argument in his biography: as he put it there, “since space launchers always presented the possibil­ity of conversion to military rockets [. . .] we would be much smarter to be in bed with Japan from the outset rather than have it develop a new rocket of which we would be ignorant.”9 The deal would also “benefit U. S. business interests and help with our balance of payments.”10 Johnson stressed this aspect in response to the criticism that the United States was “gratuitously providing the Japanese with scientific and technological data of inestimable worth”: US industries who were “interested in this matter estimate that the return to them and our balance of payments should amount to a total of approximately $350 million by 1975.”11 This was a not insignificant sum when “by the mid-1960s the trade balance was beginning to swing in Japan’s direction as its manufactured goods, especially elec­tronics, began to make big inroads in the wide-open American market.”12 There was, then, more than one good reason for agreeing to share launcher technology with Japan: it was quite another matter, of course, to explicitly encourage Japan to develop with American help the most sensitive components that had been identi­fied as candidates for technology sharing, namely, launchers and comsats.

Needless to say, neither NASA nor the Department of Defense were happy with this arrangement: Frutkin in particular “resisted it as strongly as I could [. . .].”13 The State Department was able to override their objections by arguing that it was in the overall foreign policy and national security interests to foster closer collabora­tion with Japan in these crucial technological sectors. They did have to make one concession to their opponents however: the US government undertook “to per­mit United States industry to provide to the Japanese Government or to Japanese industry under contract to the Japanese government” access to the unclassified technologies mentioned earlier.14 By identifying US industry as the agent of the exchange Washington effectively construed the agreement as a commercial arrange­ment between the Japanese and the manufacturer of the Thor-Delta rocket.

There is no doubt that U. Alexis Johnson, ambassador to Japan from 1966 to 1969, and then undersecretary of state for political affairs from 1969 to 1973, was the driving force behind the agreement. Frutkin was explicit about this in interviews:

See, the prime advocate of a generous hand to Japan on a vehicle was Alex Johnson.

He worked awfully hard for that in all the positions he had, first as ambassador to Japan, then in State, and then this ultra special committee dealing with intel­ligence and so on. I felt it was wrong for policy to be pushed by a single person. He was very much interested in the Japanese interest in launch vehicle technology and tried to encourage us to be more forthcoming to them. Now, in my opinion, he should have known a lot better, because he was a member of the little intelligence group, an interagency intelligence group, that would have known far better than I did that the U. S. was not interested in Japanese access to launch vehicle technology [at that time].15

Johnson himself was unambiguous about the importance he attached to the agree­ment. Writing to Robert Seamans, the secretary of the Air Force, in 1969, he emphasized that “[t]his is a project close to my heart on which I did the original spade work with Prime Minister Sato.” He added that, “on balance, I think it is very much in our national interest to proceed with the project as rapidly as we can.”16 U. Alexis Johnson made an immense contribution to the growth ofUS-Japanese relations during his tenure first as ambassador to Tokyo and then as undersec­retary of state for political affairs. In both positions, he played a crucial role in facilitating the return of Okinawa to Japan and in space cooperation. In an inter­view with John Logsdon he stated that “he had always wanted to find a way to counter balance what he perceived as a pro-European bias in U. S. foreign pol­icy by increasing U. S. interactions with Asia, and particularly Japan.”17 Johnson chaired the Space Council subcommittee on international cooperation between May and October 1966 and thus was quite familiar with the discussion regarding increased US-Japan space interactions. When Johnson was named US ambassador to Japan in October 1966, he carried with him the desire to use space coopera­tion as one way of strengthening the overall Japanese-US alliance. He was sensi­tive to Japanese “national pride” and its “technology capacity” to develop launch vehicles and satellites. Seeing the earlier overtures toward space cooperation from the United States to be ill-defined—“we had offered several times in general terms to cooperate with Japan but never spelled out what we meant”—he began work­ing closely with Washington for a “specific proposal” to engage with the Japanese space effort.18 During the spring and summer of 1969 in anticipation of the July 1969 exchange of notes, Johnson worked hard for such a specific agreement with the Japanese, something that would entice them and give substance to the more general proposals that had been in the air since 1965. Seeing no progress made by the staff of the undersecretary’s committee, he emphatically stated that

[t]he present course can have no result other than the Japanese going it alone or forcing them into the arms of the Europeans. As you know, I deeply feel that this would be contrary to every interest that we have with the Japanese; also, it is obvi­ously urgent that this matter be resolved before the Cabinet Committee meeting in Tokyo at the end of July.19

In the event it was resolved to his satisfaction, and thanks to his passionate and determined pursuit of his objective. Indeed as Johnson explained in an oral interview in 1975, he was a “great believer in getting things done, going to the core of the problem. It’s been very, very rare in my career that I ever write a memorandum to anybody or do a ‘think-piece’ about something. [. . .] I like to sit down and write the telegram” giving instructions to the ambassador in the field.20 This close identification with the project and his determination to “write the telegram” rather than draft policy papers surely helps to account for

Johnson’s tenacity in bringing the US-Japan agreement to fruition on terms that strongly favored Tokyo, against strong opposition in other arms of the adminis­tration, and in NASA in particular.

The European collaborative space program went through a number of crises in the early 1970s that were resolved by making some important institutional and programmatic changes. ESRO’s mission was broadened to include both applications and scientific satellites.77 The European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO) was dissolved, France took the lead in providing Europe with an autonomous launch capability, and a new body, the European Space Agency (ESA), was formed. ESA, like NASA, was now responsible for all aspects of the collaborative European space program (though countries could still pursue bi – and multilateral programs in parallel). To satisfy the diverse and sometimes conflicting needs of its member states, however, no single country was obliged to participate in a program if it did not want to. The exception to this was the science program that was mandatory: no government could opt out of it.78

This section discusses two programs to illustrate NASA-ESA relations in this period, the contribution to the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM), which was renamed Ulysses. While the former can be counted a success, the latter, in which NASA withdrew its spacecraft from a two-satellite mission, has been regarded by Europeans as a cooperative failure never to be repeated. As Roger Bonnet, who became director of ESA’s Scientific Programme in 1983, puts it, “No one can deny that the ISPM crisis had a pro­found and lasting effect on the attitude of ESA toward NASA and on interna­tional cooperation in general.”79 For this reason alone it commands more space than the Hubble.

The Hubble Space Telescope was, as its historian Robert Smith tells us, “designed to be the most powerful optical telescope ever constructed.”80 Its centerpiece was a 2.4-meter primary mirror, whose collected light was reflected back through a hole in the mirror to be analyzed by five instruments and the telescope’s fine guidance system, which served as the sixth instrument. The main scientific justification for the Hubble was “the large increase in capability promised by the instrument’s resolving power, rather than its ability to tackle any particular scientific questions”81 Free from the interference of atmospheric absorption, the giant telescope made observations at wavelengths ranging from 120 nanometers to 1 millimeter, covering the ultraviolet, infrared, submillime­ter, and optical regions of the spectrum. The telescope was approved by Congress and the White House in 1974, construction began in 1977, and it was launched by the Space Shuttle in 1990.

During the planning stages of the Hubble (the famous astronomer’s name was actually only added in 1983) NASA discussed a possible contribution from Europe. A Faint Object Spectrograph was one interesting candidate for European participation that NASA quickly ruled out: it was seen as one of the most impor­tant instruments on the telescope and the major partner was obviously not going to hand it over to a junior participant. The alternative that emerged was a Faint Object Camera (FOC) that made use of a technique called the Imaging Photon Counting System developed by University College, London. The FOC’s task was to examine exceptionally faint objects that could only be “seen” by collect­ing light during many orbits of observation time. NASA agreed that this instru­ment could be one of those included in the system. What is more it was willing to accept Europe’s demand that this contribution need not be subject to open competition with other instrument proposals coming from the space science community. A place on board was guaranteed—on condition that NASA was satisfied that the Europeans had the technological capability required to build such a sophisticated piece of equipment.

A “tiger team” of US engineers and astronomers visited the laboratories and industrial plants engaged in the project to see for themselves. They concluded that the technology, the facilities, and the expertise required to build an FOC existed in Europe. But they were unhappy with the design being proposed. They felt that the inclusion on the camera of two possible light paths and a spectro­graph complicated the device’s mechanism unnecessarily and might cause cata­strophic failure in orbit. It was an FOC “with bells and whistles attached.”82

The negotiations over the space telescope were not without conflict. Some European scientists felt that it was unnecessary to use scarce resources for an expensive, dedicated instrument when NASA was soliciting proposals for experi­ments in open competition. Others resented the implication in the United States that European industry was not up to building a device as complex as the FOC. In any event it took an “unaccountable number of meetings” to find a suitable agreement.83 Nancy Roman, who was responsible for astronomy at NASA, was a central figure in these negotiations and is fondly remembered by the Europeans for her generous hospitality. The final arrangement gave ESA 15 percent of the observing time on all instruments in return for contributing one of them. This has been more than respected: in fact Europe’s share of observing time has been closer to 20 percent after proposal selection through NASA’s competitive peer review system (and thanks to their additional contribution of solar arrays, later replaced by the United States).84

The ISPM “was born to be the paradigm of ideal cooperation between NASA and ESA.”85 Its aim was to send two spacecraft, symmetrical with respect to the plane of the ecliptic, to simultaneously fly above the opposite poles of the sun. Each agency would develop its own satellite, and scientific instruments from both sides of the Atlantic would be accommodated on each in open competition after peer review. There would be no exchange of funds, and both were to be launched together on the Shuttle in February 1983.

In November 1977 the ESA space science community selected its satellite, along with participation in the Hubble, rejecting four other proposals. One of the reasons ISPM won out was that “the dual mission, to which ESA with its spacecraft would make a major contribution, offers the basis for a clean interface and fruitful cooperation with NASA.”86 The experiments were jointly chosen in February 1978, offering a place on the payloads to more than 200 scientists from 65 universities and research institutes in 13 countries.

The funding procedures were very different. Funding was secured on ESA’s side by the policy of ensuring cost-to-completion for projects once they were accepted by the member states. Budgetary control was exercised by demanding that the cost for the development of the satellite, its launch, and its operation did not exceed 20 percent of the envelope estimated at Phase B (project definition phase). In short, once ISPM was accepted it was extremely likely that Europe would maintain funding to completion. On the US side Congress gave the go – ahead for the ISPM by including the satellite in the FY1979 budget. At this stage of development this was, of course no more than a statement of intent, not a commitment to complete. NASA’s appropriation is renegotiated annually in what is sometimes a bruising battle with the White House, the Senate, and the House. The agency is obviously never granted all the funds that it applies for, and sometimes has to make hard choices that can seriously impact the viability of some missions. In the United States, in other words, there is no guarantee that a project will be funded to completion when start-up funds are allocated to NASA. Budgetary control takes place annually.

The Europeans were aware of this. They hoped, though, that the interna­tional MoU detailing their respective obligations in the ISPM mission, while not having the force of a treaty, would bind NASA and the US administration tightly into the collaboration, and protect ISPM from the annual vagaries of the budget allocation process in Washington. This despite the clause in the MoU stipulating that the execution of the project was “subject to the availability of funds” by both partners. “Unfortunately,” as Bonnet and Manno put it, “the events which followed shattered this quiet conviction and initiated a new era in the relations between ESA and NASA.”87

NASA’s difficulties with this mission were created by the need to complete the Shuttle and by increasingly deep cuts to its space science budgets by suc­cessive administrations. The warnings were there when NASA was instructed by the Carter administration to slash its budget for FY1981 in advance of the elections. One measure that it took was to postpone the launch of ISPM by two years to 1985. This decision was discussed with the Europeans, who reluctantly accepted it. Once President Reagan entered office in 1982 the downward pressure on NASA’s budget increased further. David Stockman, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was determined to reign in federal spending. NASA responded to his cuts by reducing its budget for space science by 30 percent. In doing so it eliminated its ISPM satellite without consulting ESA.

ESA’s director general and the director of the science program objected strongly. The cancellation of NASA’s spacecraft degraded the scientific objec­tives of the dual mission and eliminated about 80 European and American inves­tigators at a stroke. If ESA followed suit and cancelled its mission it stood to lose about $100 million. NASA stood firm. It would continue to provide the launch, a radioisotopic thermal generator that was on the payload, and the retrieval and dissemination of data from ESA’s satellite.

Faced with this situation, ESA officials came up with a new idea: that Dornier, the prime contractor on the European spacecraft, should produce a second unit for NASA at little additional cost to the agency. It would not be as sophisticated as the original American satellite but most of the scientific mission would be salvaged. In a desperate attempt to save the dual mission, the ESA executive visited Congress, the State Department, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of Management and Budget. Congress was sympathetic, and NASA was willing to reinstate the ISPM, but only if it was granted addi­tional money by the OMB. It had other international obligations—to Galileo (with West Germany) and to the Hubble Space Telescope (with ESA). It was not prepared to jeopardize either to save ISPM. NASA administrator James Beggs delivered the coup de grace in September 1982: he informed ESA director gen­eral Erik Quistgaard that the agency would not include any request for a second ISPM spacecraft in its new budget request. ESA decided to go it alone with one spacecraft, renamed Ulysses, whose launch was further delayed by four years by the Challenger accident in January 1986.

In their account of this unfortunate affair, Roger Bonnet and Vittorio Manno are uncompromising in their critique of the way NASA and the US administration handled matters, notably the failure to consult.8 8 NASA offi­cial Lynn Cline understands the frustration but noted that the European view doesn’t capture the full picture of what NASA faced on its side. As she put it,

We were going through our budget review between NASA and Office of Management and Budget. NASA was directed to take a large cut in its budget, and we were told that we weren’t allowed to take the cut in certain areas. So that left us with some science programs as the particular area that was under debate. So the question was, did we take a budget cut in Hubble Space Telescope, [that] was one of the options. That happened to be a cooperative project with the European Space Agency, and obviously, for our science community, a very prestigious, high – priority project. The second option was to take a cut in the Galileo mission, and I happened to be the German desk officer, so that was the one I was working on, [and I saw] all the reasons why we shouldn’t do that. And then the third option was to take the budget cut from the International Solar Polar Mission. All three of those were international missions, two with ESA, one with Germany.89

Why then was the ISPM cut? Cline explains:

One reason was that you could cut out one spacecraft and not terminate the entire mission. Secondly, NASA would still be able to provide the launch and all of the tracking capabilities, as well as its science instruments, for the one remaining spacecraft. So while we were losing a portion of the mission by eliminating one of the spacecraft and losing some of the flight opportunities for science instruments, that was less severe than lose a Hubble mission or lose a Galileo mission, and so that was the lesser of the evils, if you will.

Why did NASA not discuss this decision with the Europeans before it was made public? Why the failure to consult? Cline points out that this procedure was not of the agency’s choosing:

NASA went to the Office of Management and Budget and asked for permission to talk with Europe about this, and we were told by the administration that the bud­get was embargoed and we were not allowed to consult with the European Space Agency on this. So the first time we were able to directly address it with Europe was when it was broadly [. . .] public and a fait accompli, which obviously was not well received, and we went through all of the protests from Europe about not consulting and weren’t there other options and can we restore this, and a whole series of activities.

The legacy of the ISPM affair lives on in relationships between the United States and Europe, notwithstanding the fact that Ulysses mission was carried out, and, more generally, that this was an isolated, if unfortunate case, and did not in any way signify a retreat from a commitment to international cooperation. As Lynn Cline put it,

Now fast-forward to years later when I was lead negotiator for the Solar Terrestrial Physics Program, which was a NASA-ESA collaboration, at virtually every nego­tiating session I was treated to a lecture from the Europeans on how horrible we were as a partner, and new language they needed in the agreements to guarantee some greater protection for them on consultations and follow-through from the U. S., as a result of that experience. I heard about it again when I did Cassini, and I heard about it again when I did the International Space Station negotiations.

It has to be admitted that the United States handled the ISPM situation badly through lack of consultation, though even here NASA had its hands tied by the administration. More fundamentally, though, this kind of situation is always possible because the budget of the US space program is subject to annual review and cuts. The central lesson of the ISPM affair is that this procedure cannot be overridden by legal instruments like a memorandum of understanding, even at the international level. Hard choices are imposed by the funding regime under which NASA is obliged to operate and—as the ISPM affair illustrates—no inter­national partner can count on their collaborative project being immune to unex­pected budget cuts, or even to cancellation.

Bumps on the Road to Engaged Collaboration

On February 5, 1971, the Apollo XIV Lunar Module touched down on the surface of the moon. This was followed a few weeks later by the release of the President’s Report to Congress on Foreign Policy in the 1970s.1 The report used the successful completion of the Apollo XIV mission to reiterate that the achievement was not simply a reflection of American scientific and technological capability. “It is equally a measure of an older American tradition, the compul­sion to cross the next mountain chain. The pressurized space suit is, in a very real sense, today’s equivalent of the buckskin jacket and the buffalo robe. Apollo XIV is the latest packhorse, and its crew the most recent in a long line of American pioneers.” It ingeniously introduced the international dimension by stressing that “mutual help and cooperation” was “essential to life on the American fron­tier.” In a reference to the new climate of detente it noted that NASA and the State Department had been instructed to pursue broader collaborative projects with Moscow “with the utmost seriousness.“ Congress was also advised that while “substantial participation” was being sought in the post-Apollo program, “the result is uncertain, for there are very real difficulties to be solved.”2 Two of those concerned the scope of NASA’s international commitments.

White House staffer Tom Whitehead was particularly outspoken in this regard.3 In a memo to Peter Flanigan, who had oversight responsibilities for NASA’s budget, he wrote that the agency was failing to “make a transition from rapid razzle-dazzle growth and glamour to organizational maturity and more stable operations in the long-term.” Its overheads were too high. The agency lacked direction. Above all its pursuit of European funding for post-Apollo had not been thought through. The White House had not yet decided what the shape of the program would be, yet if the Europeans were to commit $1 billion to it, “the President and the Congress will have been locked into NASA’s grand plans because the political cost of reneging would be too high.” What is more,

“the kind of cooperation now being talked up will have the effect of giving away our space launch, space operations, and related know-how at 10 cents on the dollar,” to the disadvantage of US business. Whitehead, in fact, thought that it would be better to take space operations out of the political realm and anchor them more firmly in the commercial area, where they would be free from “inter­national bickering” and better serve the needs of American high-technology industry. What NASA needed now, he wrote, was “a new Administrator who will turn down NASA’s empire-building fervor,” and present the OMB and the White House with “broad but concrete alternatives.” “In short,” Whitehead wrote, “we need someone who will work with us rather than against us, [. . .] and will shape the program to reflect credit on the President rather than embarrass­ment.” The man eventually chosen for that job was James C. Fletcher, who took over as NASA’s administrator in April 1971.

Comsat leveled additional criticism of NASA and the State Department’s handling of European collaboration. In a sharply worded letter to U. Alexis Johnson dated December 29, 1970, Comsat president Joseph Charyk spelt out his concerns.4 Charyk noted that, in the negotiations over the definitive Intelsat agreements that were drawing to a close, “we had assumed that the United States would refuse to provide launch services for a separate regional system unless the Assembly of Parties, with the concurrence of the United States, found that the proposed system would be technically compatible with the Intelsat system and would not do significant economic harm to that system” (a positive finding, as explained in chapter 4). From what he had heard, however, it seemed that the United States would be prepared to launch regional satellites for Europe under a quite different set of conditions (a negative finding). Comsat’s entire strategy and, in particular, its willingness to retreat from its initial negotiating position— that no separate system should be tolerated at all—was being undermined by the kind of concessions Johnson was making to the Europeans (see table 5.1).

For Charyk the only condition under which the United States should launch a separate system would be if the Assembly of Parties, by the required two-thirds vote and with the concurrence of the United States, made a positive finding.5 Anything else would “appear to us to be indefensible” (table 5.1). He ended by asking the government “to clarify its intentions,” and to provide Comsat and the US delegation with the “clearest possible assurances” on the conditions for launcher availability. This would have a “direct bearing” on the US delegation’s willingness to accept the very diluted version of Article XIV(d) in the definitive agreements due to be signed soon. Put bluntly, what Comsat could not achieve at the negotiating table it wanted the State Department to achieve by exploiting the United States’ monopoly of access to space to deny launcher availability to regional comsat systems unless they could be shown to do no economic harm to the single global system.

Comsat’s “attack,” as Pollack called it, placed NASA and the State Department in an acutely difficult position.6 It took several weeks for Johnson to work out his position in discussion with Low, Charyk, Frutkin, and Whitehead. To draw closer to Charyk, Johnson decided to reverse the position he had discussed with Lefevre in October, and to align himself (partially) with Charyk (table 5.1). As Johnson explained, this meant that if earlier Intelsat had to prove that the sepa­rate system did do it economic harm (i. e., the presumption was that it did not),

now “the proponent(s) of a regional system [would] bear the burden of persuad­ing two-thirds of the Assembly that the proposal will not cause significant eco­nomic harm to Intelsat and will not prejudice the establishment of direct links to the global system.”7

Johnson would not go all the way with Charyk, however. He insisted that the international structure of Intelsat obliged the United States to accept an affirmative vote that achieved the required majority, even if the United States was in the minority position (table 5.1). Nor would the State Department yield on this point: a two-thirds positive finding, with or without US support, was “absolutely necessary in order to reach any agreement with the Europeans.”8 To reassure Charyk and the Comsat Board, Johnson pointed out that it was very unlikely that a regional system could achieve a two-thirds favorable finding if the United States was opposed to it.

NASA was not happy with this concession to Charyk. The Europeans would obviously be furious. Low feared that the reversal of the more flexible position previously suggested to Lefevre “will effectively kill the chances for post-Apollo participation by Europe.”9 The only way to “soften the blow,” he said, would be to make an advance commitment to launch Europe’s planned operational satel­lite system, Eurosat, foreseen for the early 1980s. This decision had to be taken before the next Lefevre mission to Washington, scheduled for early February. Low felt so strongly about this that, according to Frutkin, “if we could not arrive at a policy decision and so inform the Europeans, he would feel obliged to tell the President that he could not expect to carry out the President’s charge to NASA to develop post-Apollo participation.”

Eurosat, to be situated in a geostationary orbit at longitude 5°E, would have 3,000-5,000 circuits by 1980, and 8,000-20,000 circuits by 1990.10 It would carry part of the intra-European traffic in telephony, telegraphy, and telex of the CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations) and Eurovision TV programs on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Coverage would include Western Europe and the Mediterranean basin, and extend to the five Nordic countries as well as Turkey. NASA concluded that Eurosat would do significant economic harm to Intelsat only if it provided televi­sion as well as voice, record and data services between all of these countries. If, however, it provided television to the Mediterranean basin exclusively, and a full range of services to the remaining countries, it would cause “measurable but not significant economic harm.”11 This was the configuration of the satellite that, in Low’s view, Johnson would have to launch for Europe if he did not want the rever­sal of his position to sabotage all hope for post-Apollo negotiation. Unfortunately, Johnson made no mention of Eurosat in his conciliatory letter to Charyk.12

Johnson’s leaving the White House in 1969 did not necessarily end a decade of unflagging executive support to NASA. In their determination to maintain the Apollo landing deadline of 1969, the Johnson administration wound up trim­ming or eliminating other scientifically meaningful projects from the NASA program. As numerous historians have noted, this placed NASA administrator James Webb in a complicated position, forced to prioritize among the Apollo timetable, post-Apollo projects, earth science, planetary exploration, and NASA’s many other pursuits. James Webb fought bitterly for the funds to sustain robotic planetary exploration, fundamental research, the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application, all the while concerned for the minimum requirements for the Apollo mission.25

As development of Apollo spacecraft neared completion in the mid-1960s, operating budgets dwindled and initiatives cut back. Webb and his colleagues had anticipated flagging support and when negotiations commenced regarding post-Apollo priorities and funding they adopted a cautiously defensive posture. Former NASA chief historian Roger Launius observes that when the Johnson administration pressed Webb for post-Apollo objectives, “Webb was quite reluc­tant to commit NASA to specific goals and priorities in advance of any expres­sion of political support.”26 In his 1965 “Summary Report: Future Programs Task Group” the administrator’s only recommendation was that NASA plot out a “continued balanced program, steadily pursuing continued advancement in aeronautics, space sciences, manned space flight, and lunar and planetary exploration, adequately supported by a broad basic research and technology development program.”27 Webb emphasized that he saw no need to require an “overriding emphasis” in any of the aforementioned fields, nor did he believe that a new Apollo-style space race would secure the administration’s future. NASA required a balanced (if self-contradictory) program, one that would meet demands for cost-effective administration, meanwhile maintaining a “pre-emi­nent role in aeronautics and space.”28

By the mid-1960s and into the years following Apollo, lawmakers and the pub­lic alike frequently questioned the fiscal and political sustainability of speed-driven “crash” programs. Some critics voiced their doubts regarding the worth of space sprints such as Apollo or the rush to respond to Sputnik. Still others questioned the opportunity costs of space exploration as a whole—believing that the same funds that put men on the moon might somehow be reallocated to “urban blight,” for­eign aid, or be forfeited altogether to reduce tax expenditures.29 In such a political environment, projects emphasizing the cost-benefit analysis of spin-off technolo­gies or good stewardship of the earth’s resources promised a logical counter to the harshest criticisms against “space spectaculars” both at home and abroad.

[Y]ou have to see this [space station] not as a tinker toy, not as particular project,

but as an infrastructure and as new kind of infrastructure.

—Clinton administration official42

With the Clinton administration, plans for the Shuttle-Mir flights adopted an important new meaning as “confidence building measures” between the United States and Soviet Union. Rather than being the end product, Shuttle-Mir became a means to more intensive cooperation in space that culminated in what eventu­ally came to be known as the International Space Station Program. Thus, after August 1993, the Shuttle-Mir flight planning came to be retroactively defined as Phase I of the ISS. The Shuttle-Mir and ISS projects were bound in part by a comprehensive $400-million contract between NASA and the Russian Space Agency as well as by administrative jurisdiction—both projects operated under the International Space Station Program Office.

To appreciate the greater significance of NASA’s collaborative work with the Russian Space Agency in Shuttle-Mir, and later the ISS, space exploration must be recognized as but one element within a clearly defined regime of the policy objectives of the Clinton administration. These fields fell under the jurisdiction of the 1993-1998 US-Russian Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation (also known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission or GCC). Through agreements reached by Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, the White House aimed to reshape Russian bureaucratic and free market relations for the protection of American investments, long-term political stability of Russia, and the control of weapons knowledge and hardware.

These objectives are evident in three fields. (1) They refined fiscal, admin­istrative, and insurance procedures to make international trade safer for inves­tors. (2) They set up bureaucratic mechanisms in the field of defense conversion and demobilization intended to aid Russia in the retooling of military produc­tion facilities for consumer goods and producer durables. (3) The commission introduced environmental measures enlisting Russian resources and personnel in the Mission to Planet Earth Joint Working Group (MTPE/JWG), the Earth Sciences JWG, and by founding a Russian Environmental Task Force. The point bears repeating: these working groups and task forces provided opportunities for collaboration in space as well as “non-space” activities.

Led by the Russian Academy of Science and NASA, the JWGs assembled entities that had since the early 1960s been swapping data and working in col­laborative research projects. In addition to the RAS and NASA, these included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, formerly the Weather Bureau), the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (also known as ROSGIDROMET, and formerly the Soviet HYDROMET), and the new authority on civil space, the Russian Space Agency. As of 1994, these agencies were engaged in approximately 22 activi­ties. The most notable included the world’s only orbiting ozone spectrometer, correlative measurement of the ozone layer, climatology studies, studies of the productivity of Russia’s Boreal Forest, health, fire risk, and context in the global carbon cycle, American watershed research by satellite, vulcanological studies of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, tectonics studies, a study of gravity and magnet­ics in Tibet and China, and ocean studies by satellite. One sign of the times: the agencies included joint work in Internet connectivity between NASA and Moscow’s Institute of Space Research (IKI).43

In a gesture coupling demobilization and environmentalism, the Russians agreed to assemble an Environmental Task Force (ETF), fashioned after the example set by the Americans. This task force worked to combine geophysi­cal research needs with data and images available only in classified systems and databases. Both the United States and Russia charged their ETF panels with “assessing the potential application of classified intelligence and defense systems and data to environmental studies.” Classified data and information holdings were then reviewed to see if they were relevant to environmental researchers.

Eventually, the United States and Russia would swap old reconnaissance images, but as of 1994, the partners agreed to operate autonomously. Indeed, in the 1994 draft terms, the Americans explicitly noted that this cooperation was by no means an exercise intended to open Russian classified data to the West.44

Another project joining demobilization and environmental policy was that concerning the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometers (TOMS). Flown on NASA craft since 1978, these instruments had monitored ozone concentrations and, in particular, annual depletion over the southern hemisphere and the Antarctic ozone hole.45

The first TOMS instrument to fly on a meteor was launched in 1991 from the Russian launch facility Plesetsk. Carried into orbit aboard a Cyclone launcher (designed as an ICBM during the Cold War), the TOMS was key to Soviet-American implementation of the Vienna convention on the protection of the ozone.

Unlike the earlier Bion satellites, TOMS instrument packages were not insu­lar passive passengers. Instead, they demanded compatibility of electrical power supply, control, synchronization, data transmission, mechanical, and thermal utilities.46 NASA engineers refurbished a Nimbus-7 TOMS Engineering Model, retrofitting it with an Interface Adapter Model (making it possible to “plug in” to the Russian Meteor-3).47 One unanticipated advantage was that the Meteor TOMS was able to record the effects of the Philipino volcano Mt. Pinatubo (which had erupted two months before the TOMS launch). For a full two years, the Meteor-3 TOMS indicated that ozone had been affected by the scattering effects of the stratospheric sulfate aerosol layer from the volcanic eruption.48

In addition to the policies here, the two nations agreed in principle to a joint conference to “help Russian environmental scientists establish their data needs and begin to match those needs to Russian sources of relevant information.” This conference would explore Russia’s highest priorities in the environment, equipping researchers for studies in radioactive pollution, air and water quality, methods for dealing with industrial/ecological disasters, the effects of defense conversion, soil degradation, and forest management/deforestation.49

The two nations entered into a joint technology development project explor­ing alternative energy sources that linked environmental initiatives with private innovation. The vice president and the prime minister instituted an Environmental Equipment Commodity Import Program, providing $125 million in grants for the export of US-manufactured equipment to Russia, seeking to improve energy efficiency in production, transport, and use.

In trade and investment, the White House helped reshape Russian tax and tariff structures to better protect American investors. Additionally, the US Export-Import Bank, the Russian Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank of Russia entered into a Project Incentive Agreement offering financial support for “project risk transac­tions” in all sectors of the economy. The two nations agreed to a new protocol for income taxation, intended to stimulate American investment in Russia. They implemented a memorandum of understanding for an American Business Center. Backed by $12 million, this program was intended to help US businesses invest capital, transfer technologies, and provide business-related training to Russians. The agreement provided $110 million in financing and insurance against transna­tional business deals for the Overseas Private Investments Corporation (as of 1993 centering on mineral companies and truck manufacturers). Similar plans abounded for “model” American gas stations, guidance in materials and product quality con­trol, all intended to aid the transfer of US business models and practice.

In the fields of the environment, energy, and the complicated task of keeping educated nuclear industry workers employed, Russia agreed to review the safety of its older nuclear reactors, enhance their integrity, and participate in studies for research and development in the field of nuclear power generation. At the same time the two nations set up a legal framework, protecting US firms from liability when supplying safety assistance to Russian nuclear power plants. In addition to this, they planned an Oil and Gas Technology Center Announcement to facilitate the exchange and use of technologies between the two nations, hoping to improve the recovery of oil and gas and reduce production costs in Russia. Both sides believed that facilitating Russia’s transition to a market economy still required that the US government adopt a degree of liability on behalf of American investors, Russian businessmen, and the ailing Russian state. Where tax revenues were not at stake, credibility was.

As the two countries methodically dismantled nuclear weapons arsenals under SALT-II, they drafted agreements on the principles and methods of defense conversion and the diversification of former defense industries. In addition to protocol for converting defense firms to civil production, the two parties set aside $20 million in Nunn-Lugar funds to help Russian industries retool for producing modular housing.50

Space exploration and research occupied a fourth field of collaboration, bridging the environment, trade, and science writ large. As noted earlier, most projects being pursued at this time (including the Shuttle-Mir, Phobos lander, Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometor-Cyclone, Konus, and WIND experiment) predated the Clinton administration but were in many regards appropriated into the defense conversion regimes of the Clinton White House. Table 8.2 illustrates the range of projects pursued and relative costs.51

Human spaceflight programs figure most prominently among these projects, though between FY1993 and 1997 the Bion 11 and 12 spaceflights accounted for $16 million.52 Meanwhile, the space sciences accounted for roughly 14.5 percent of all program costs, as detailed later. At the five-year anniversary of the GCC, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin reported that overall commodi­ties turnover between the two nations had doubled in the past five years and that American investment accounted for one-third of foreign investment in the Russian Federation.53

In 1995, the Office of Technology Assessment evaluated the situation. In his foreword, Director Roger Herdman noted that “much of the motiva­tion for the expansion of cooperation with Russia lies beyond programmatic considerations.”54 In particular, the report pointed out that continued coopera­tion, including large payments for Russian space goods and services, might help stabilize Russia’s economy and provide an incentive for some of Russia’s techno­logical elite to stay at home, so contributing to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Whether intended only to stabilize the internal structures, or to control the flow of weapons knowledge outside the former Soviet Union, the need to maintain vibrant research programs in Russia were “essential pro­gram justifications” for cooperation, linking the survival of scientific communi­ties with collective security.55

As early as 1992 collaborators had begun to take a new host of factors in international relations into account. Similar to the fields of trade, nuclear energy, and environmental regulation, space exploration and research became levers of reform. In 1998 Boris Yeltsin explained that the principle role of the Gore – Chernomyrdin Commission projects had been to “create a solid economic foundation for the system of relations between Russia moving along towards market reforms and the United States.” Yeltsin concluded that they had suc­ceeded, observing, “We are working very closely together in a number of key directions—the development of science, technology, health care, environmental protection, the peaceful use of space, and reduction of the nuclear threat.”56 Cooperation with the Russians supported growing bureaucratic, commercial, and intellectual infrastructures between the world’s two leading space programs. Thus, Russian-American cooperation on the International Space Station mapped on to administrative reform in the Russian space complex as well as NASA and its contractors. In 1993 and 1994 NASA narrowly managed to save the Space Station Freedom program from the White House and congress by streamlining management, cutting spending, and linking cooperation in space to post-Cold War regimes of international security—believing that space cooperation would keep Russian science workers employed, but also linking the promises of com­merce and ISS cooperation to treaties such as the Missile Technology Control Regime.

When the 1969 Agreement was signed there were no less than 24 pending requests for the transfer of launcher technology from the United States to the Japanese fledgling N-program. Here is a typical example of one such case that was pending in June 1969. It indicates how difficult it was to decide what could reasonably be passed on to Japan, and the importance that NASA officials attached to the final terms of any agreement between the two nations21:

Case No Company

64-69 TRW

a. Commodity: Assistance in performing a “Sizing Study” of the Japanese N launch vehicle, including computer simulations.

b. Comments: NASA finds it difficult to evaluate the significance of this case. It recommends that a final decision should be left in abeyance until after the agree­ment. DOD, in an interim reply on the case, said it would not object to those parts of the assistance that are within the scope of the agreement. ACDA gave an unqualified no objection.

The agreement itself authorized American industry, with US government per­mission, to provide “unclassified technology and equipment [ . . . ] for the devel­opment of Japanese Q and N launch vehicles and communications and other satellites for peaceful applications.” As regards launchers, an attachment speci­fied that the agreement would hold “up to the level of the Thor-Delta vehicle systems, exclusive of reentry and related technology.”22

This was fine as far as it went, but it did not specify just which Thor-Delta con­figuration was to serve as a benchmark. Successful implementation, in the view of a State-DOD-NASA team, thus required the formulation of “a package guideline that a) would enable the Japanese to reach their objective of placing a synchro­nous satellite into orbit, b) would not raise any security problems for the U. S. and c) more importantly would serve as a yardstick to measure specific cases, as to whether they are within the scope of the agreement and therefore approvable.”23 The task of setting that yardstick was entrusted to a multibody group called the Technology Advisory Group (TAG). It was composed of representatives from the DOD, NASA, the State Department, and the OMC (Office of Munitions Control).24 First chaired by Mr. Vincent Johnson, deputy associate administrator of NASA for Space Science and Applications, the TAG broadly acted as a control mechanism for limiting the technology that was transferred and made sure that the equipment that was offered to Japan provided the bare minimum configura­tion to place a satellite in geostationary orbit.25

The immediate task before TAG was to clarify the wording of the agreement that was signed in 1969. This baseline would be used by the OMC to evaluate the licenses for exporting technology and equipment. However, as Vincent Johnson

put it, “[T]he task of generating an explicit, single faceted and easy to administer definition of the level of technology authorized and/or intended under the U. S./ Japanese Space agreement [was] not a simple one.” He pointed to the agreement providing “reasonable latitude in interpretation” notably as regards the “level” of the Thor-Delta technology that could be shared.26 Since the level could be interpreted differently depending on the specific set of conditions surrounding a particular situation, the TAG wanted to have an unambiguous baseline to use as a yardstick against which to evaluate specific requests for release. The TAG provided OMC with such a detailed Thor-Delta definition on October 30, 1970 (see table 10.1).

The TAG chose Thor-Delta 58 as the baseline launcher for collaborative pur­poses. This was the model that provided the first two stages of Thor-Delta 71, the vehicle in use when the US/Japan space cooperation Agreement was signed in July 1969, and it had a geosynchronous capability of 156 kilograms. Thor-Delta 58 was the least sophisticated launcher capable of achieving the geosynchronous target of 120-130 kilograms the Japanese had set for their first experimental test satellites. It had also been used in May 1969 to place an Intelsat III communi­cations satellite weighing about 145 kilograms into geostationary orbit. To the above baseline TAG inserted this caveat:

It should be clearly recognized that such a definition cannot be used as the sole criteria for approval or rejection of a given request. Many cases will arise where it is either impractical, undesirable, or not in our own best interest to provide the specific hardware and/or technology defined in the base line system. In these instances the judgment must be exercised as to the need, suitability and relation­ship to the general Thor-delta “level” or “class” of hardware and/or technology.

In these instances, a rationale should be provided setting forth the reasons for departure from the base line system.27

It is clear that Europe cannot allow itself to be reduced to a subordinate or subsid­iary role in space ventures if it is to maintain its current hard-won position [. . .] The need for international collaboration on major space undertakings is not disputed, but Europe wishes to enter such undertakings on an “equal partnership” basis, this concept applying at all levels, including operational control.

—Reimar Lust, 198790

The new determination by ESA to be taken seriously as an international partner by the United States required a change of approach in Europe. More resources were needed for space science along with a coherent plan that could be used to win the broad support of the multidisciplinary space science community and of potentially reluctant member states. Existing procedures for selecting experi­ments were creating some resentment in the United States and also had to be revised. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, whose launch in October 1997 by a Titan IV-Centaur vehicle was “regarded as a miracle by some people involved in the mission,” not only promised to be of immense scientific importance, it also benefited from these institutional reforms, along with the possibility of levering the Clinton administration’s commitment to international space collaboration in the mid-1990s.91

The Cassini mission extended the avenues opened up by the data from the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys of Saturn in 1980 and 1981. The mother craft that would approach Saturn was provided by NASA, and the probe that would land on Saturn’s moon, Titan, was provided by ESA. The Italian Space Agency provided telecommunications and microwave systems. US-European cost­sharing on Cassini-Huygens was about 70 : 30. Eighteen instruments would “conduct orbital remote sensing of Saturn’s atmosphere, icy satellites and rings; in situ orbital measurements of charged particles, dust particles, and magnetic fields; and detailed measurements [would be made] with six instruments on the Huygens probe during descent though Titan’s dense, nitrogen atmosphere to the surface.”92 The probe would also make surface science measurements if it survived impact. The range of questions addressed by the mission was such as to attract broad-based support in the planetary science community.

The intricacies of the decision-making processes and funding battles that accompanied the acceptance and development of the Cassini mission on both sides of the Atlantic have been adequately described elsewhere.93 This brief account will focus on those features of the mission—be they scientific, institutional, or political—that provide insight into the international aspect of the cooperation.94

When Roger Bonnet was nominated ESA’s director of the scientific program in 1983 he was determined to place it on a stable base. He believed that ESA required a long-term science plan that was ambitious enough to demand regional collaboration, and broad enough to satisfy the diverse needs of the European space science community. It also had to be challenging enough to attract inter­national cooperation with leading space powers, notably NASA, without being vulnerable to the kinds of setback that had bedeviled ISPM. Bonnet’s solution was Horizon 2000.95

Horizon 2000 emerged after intensive and extensive consultation with the European space science community. It comprised four costly, long-term “corner­stones.” Two were in the field of solar system exploration (solar-terrestrial phys­ics and cometary science), and two were in the field of astronomy/astrophysics (X-ray spectroscopy and a far-infrared telescope). These cornerstones were to be under ESA’s leadership and to be consistent with Europe’s own technical and financial means “in order for ESA to be master of its own future and not to be dependent upon decisions taken outside its own control.”96 The cornerstones were complemented by small – and medium-sized satellites with no a priori exclu­sion of disciplines, and were to be selected one by one. This introduced the flex­ibility needed to respond to changing scientific demand and to take advantage of opportunities for international cooperation.

The broad scientific support for Horizon 2000, the lucidity of its logic, and the scope that it gave national administrations to plan their financial appropria­tions in advance had an immediate effect. Meeting in Rome in January 1985, the ESA member states agreed to increase the science budget by 5 percent annually in real terms (i. e., after adjustment for inflation) for ten years. This was the first time that the science budget had been increased for fifteen years, and it made it possible not only to rationalize coordination between ESA and national science programs, but also to coordinate the agency’s initiatives more effectively with its international partners. With more money available for space science, and with a protective wall around the major ESA-led cornerstones, Horizon 2000 enabled the European community to engage with NASA from a position of strength that combined competition with cooperation.

Another important source of friction between ESA and NASA was removed in 198 3.97 In line with the announcement at COSPAR in March 1959, NASA had a policy of allowing any interested party to respond to an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) on its space science satellites. This caused little difficulty when other programs were in their infancy. But as they matured, and more and better foreign proposals were received, some American scientists began to feel that the agency preferred payloads submitted from abroad because they were free of charge to the US, as opposed to US entities having to pay the cost of their experiments. This frustration was heightened by ESA’s restriction of its AO to proposals from

member state scientists, as required by its charter. Nor did ESA feel that it should be called upon to reciprocate each individual agreement that a member state had negotiated bilaterally with NASA without involving the European agency.

Bonnet was called upon to resolve this thorny issue as soon as he took up his new position at ESA in 198 3.98 The matter was resolved after a spirited discus­sion thanks to the previous progress made by a committee of “wise men” that ESA had set up to tackle the problem and make recommendations. To defuse the obvious ill-will that the European policy was causing it was agreed that ESA, like NASA, would open flight opportunities to foreign investigators.99

In November 1988 ESA’s Science Program Committee selected the Titan probe as the first medium-sized mission in the new Horizon 2000 paradigm, and baptized it Huygens to emphasize its European provenance. A year later the US Congress approved start-up funds for the Cassini and CRAF (Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby) missions, the latter a joint venture with Germany. ESA and NASA issued separate but coordinated AOs for their respective contri­butions to Cassini. Sixteen European countries and the United States provided 18 instruments distributed over both mother craft and probe, with two-ten countries providing parts of each instrument. The overall management of the program was based at NASA Headquarters. Project managers for the Cassini mother craft and the Huygens probe established offices at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and at ESTEC (the European Space Research and Technology Centre), respectively. They were advised by Project Science Groups that gathered together all principal investigators, scientists, and team leaders that had instru­ments on the parts of the spacecraft that they managed. These groups served as a valuable forum “to optimize scientific return and to resolve the usual conflicts between the engineering and science sides of the mission.”100

In fall 1991 the trajectory of the joint project hit a bump that threatened to sour the good relationships that had been established between the partners. A House-Senate committee cut the budget allocation to Cassini/CRAF for 1992 by $117 million, which NASA absorbed by deciding to delay the launch of Cassini from 1995 to 1997. The chairman of ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee, David Southwood, immediately contacted Berrien Moore, the chairman of NASA’s Space Science and Applications Advisory Committee. Southwood emphasized that the increase in the cost of the Huygens probe caused by the delay would create an “intolerable stress” on ESA’s program. It had not been easy to get the member states to agree on funding for the probe and for instrumentation for Huygens and Cassini. Their delegates had been “dragooned, cajoled and otherwise persuaded” to do so, “by emphasizing the importance of not delaying the NASA timetable.” A launch delay imposed by NASA “within a year of the selection” would increase costs by about 15 percent, and could seriously undermine the “climate of cooperation.”101 Southwood’s letter was quickly followed by one from ESA director general Jean Marie Luton to NASA administrator Richard H. Truly stressing that any delay in the launch date was “unacceptable” and would cost ESA a further $30 million.

In 1992 NASA and Germany agreed to cancel CRAF altogether. Responding to European objections, engineers at JPL in consultation with their European colleagues simplified the orbiter design to meet the domestic budget cut with­out delaying the launch. Instruments that were mounted on movable platforms that could be continuously pointed at their targets were bolted down so that the entire spacecraft had to be turned toward the target to take measurements. A separately steerable antenna intended to provide a communications link to the Huygens probe was removed, and just one antenna was used for the Cassini – Huygens link and for the Cassini-earth link. This meant that scientific data had to be stored in a buffer system until data-taking was suspended, whereupon the antenna could be turned toward the earth to transmit the stored information to ground stations. To absorb the increased operational costs of the program it was also decided to drop plans for the acquisition of scientific data in the journey through space to Saturn and its moon. While the scientific community was dis­tressed by the limitations imposed by these changes, they also realized that some “descoping” was imperative if there was going to be any mission at all.

Cassini almost suffered the axe again in preparation for the president’s budget request to Congress in January 1994, and the Congressional deliberations in the summer of that year. The threat-level was increased by the approach taken to satellite projects by a new NASA administrator collectively known as “faster, better, cheaper.” In 1992 the National Space Council, reestablished by President George H. W. Bush, engineered the removal of Richard Truly who they felt was too committed to NASA’s tradition of large and costly activities.102 He was replaced in April by Dan Goldin, then an executive of TRW who had the repu­tation of favoring small, inexpensive spacecraft. In his confirmation hearings Goldin did not suggest that “faster, better, cheaper” was necessarily the best way for NASA to operate, and he did not mention it at all in his first address to NASA employees. It was only when he got down to preparing the agency’s budget request for FY1994 that he felt that NASA had “unrealistic” expecta­tions. Goldin decided to “re-invent NASA” by miniaturizing technology and by streamlining project management. Let’s see, he said, how many satellites “we can build that weigh hundreds not thousands of pounds; that use cutting edge technology, not ten-year old technology that plays it safe; that cost tens and hundreds of millions, not billions; and take months and years, not decades, to build and arrive at their destination.” From henceforth larger spacecraft were to be the exception, not the rule for NASA projects.

Faced with pressure from the Senate to reduce the budget, Goldin cast a skep­tical eye over Cassini-Huygens in 1994. Indeed it was a prime example of the kind of mission that he wanted NASA to avoid. Howard McCurdy’s calculations of the cost and weight of the satellite and its probe from various NASA sources give one an idea of why Goldin was so concerned:

Cost Cassini. Launched 1997. Development, $1,422m; launch support, $422m; mission operations and data analysis, $755m; tracking and data support, $54m; foreign contribution, $660m; total, $3,313m (real-year dollars)

Weight Cassini. Orbiter, 4,685lbs; Huygens probe, 705lbs; launch vehicle adapter, 298lbs; propellant, 6,905lbs; total, 12,593lbs.103

Contrast the $3 billion plus for this mission that matured for fifteen years, and that needed another eight years after launch to begin taking data, with the cost and time of the satellites built by NASA respecting Goldin’s mantra. Beginning in 1992, the first sixteen missions flown under the new philosophy together cost less (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than did Cassini-Huygens alone. Nine of the first ten of these ventures were a success—though the initiative floundered in 1999 when four of the next five “faster, better, cheaper” missions failed.104

Given the inhospitable climate at NASA to a mission of this scale it is hardly surprising that a major effort was made on both sides of the Atlantic to save Cassini-Huygens from further damage. This time the scientific communities were united by their dependence on each other, as Roger Bonnet explained: “The Europeans wanted to put their probe on Cassini because they could not do the mission without it [. . .] For the Americans, the provision of the probe was a unique opportunity to do outstanding novel science.” In Bonnet’s view the Europeans also brought more, though: project stability. He remembers “Carl Sagan calling me on the phone from California asking for help because NASA was trying to stop the mission.” European ambassadors to Washington were asked to impress upon the State Department “that they could not stop Cassini, with such a big involvement of Europe, both on the payload of Cassini and with the Huygens probe.”105

European pressure over the satellite was given added leverage because the Clinton administration needed to make amends for its poor handling of the geopolitics of the International Space Station (ISS) that Canada, Europe, and Japan had joined in the 1980s. This is discussed in chapter 8 of this book and the thread is taken up again in chapter 13. For the present, suffice it to say that meet­ing in Vancouver in April 1993 the American and Russian presidents established the Gore-Chernomydin Commission comprising a number of working groups, including one on space, to advance bilateral cooperation. A year later, beginning around April 1994 stakeholders on both sides began to explore ways to integrate Russia into the ISS. This was formalized at a meeting in June 1994. NASA and the Russian Space Agency signed an interim agreement covering initial Russian participation in the ISS program. This included a $400-million contract with the new partner, 75 percent of the American money being for Russian space hardware, services, and data in support of the “Shuttle-Mir” project (a joint flight program leading to the development of the ISS). In doing so the agency not only suspended the principle of “no exchange of funds” that had been required of its traditional allies, but NASA also rode roughshod over their sentiments. As NASA official Lynn Cline put it to me, “This was another case where I don’t think we adequately consulted with our partners. People in charge at the time told Dan Goldin that we needed to consult with our partners. He didn’t want to hear it.”106

This attitude may well explain why the ESA director general, Jean Marie Luton, bypassed Goldin and wrote directly to the vice president ten days before the June 1994 meeting of the Gore-Chernomydin Commission to plead the case for Cassini. Luton upped the stakes by stressing that a negative deci­sion on Cassini could have implications far beyond this one case. As he put it, Europe “views any prospect of a unilateral withdrawal on the part of the United States as totally unacceptable. Such an action would call into question the reli­ability of the US as a partner in any future major scientific and technological collaboration.”107 A month later, in July 1994 President Clinton intervened to enable NASA to proceed with both the space station and its science program. All are agreed that in this case “the international aspect of the Cassini mission was an extremely important factor in reversing almost certain cancellation of the mission.”108 It must not be forgotten, though, that that “international aspect” coupled a satellite of predominantly scientific importance with a space station of immense technological and geopolitical significance. This strong coupling is probably what saved Cassini.

Goldin did not give up his reservations about the program even after the dra­matic crisis of 1994 was resolved. In 1995, much to the distress of the European participants, the NASA administrator demanded that the entire project, includ­ing the foreign contributions be subjected to an external review. This not only struck a blow to the fine cooperative spirit that had prevailed at the scientific level, it was doubly infuriating because technical findings of the review panel that were deemed to touch on matters of national defense could not be conveyed to partners abroad. In the event the mission overcame this hurdle, but was then confronted with another: the “Stop Cassini” campaign by the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice. The coalition objected to the use of plutonium dioxide in three radio-isotopic thermoelectric generators and on heater units. This was a technological option that the designers of the spacecraft had invoked since solar power was not feasible for a deep-space mission. Rallies and demonstrations were held on both sides of the Atlantic, letters were sent to the US president for and against the mission, and protestors threatened a sit-in on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral to force a launch abort. Their objections were overruled by a safety evaluation made by the Department of Energy and the Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel.

Cassini-Huygens finally lifted into space on October 15, 1997. Its long journey was punctuated by difficulties that emerged in the radio relay link between the European probe and the American spacecraft. These were overcome by having Cassini fly by Titan at a far greater distance than foreseen, so that the Huygens probe had to travel 65,000 kilometers instead of just 1,200 kilometers to enter Titan’s atmosphere. Cassini went into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. The probe was separated from the mother craft six months later on Christmas Day, reaching Titan’s outer atmosphere on January 14, 2005. The descent of Huygens was slowed when its parachutes were deployed about 150 kilometers above the surface. It survived the impact and it continued to transmit data for over three hours. The first results were relayed via NASA’s Deep Space Tracking Network to the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, where “sci­entists waiting anxiously for the data to arrive [. . .] hugged each other when the first signals arrived during the morning, showing that the mission, 20 years in the planning and execution, was functioning.”109

The joint development of the Cassini mission was a fine example of interna­tional collaboration. That success only makes sense, though, if placed in his­torical context. The scientific importance of the trip to Saturn and Titan was as crucial as the historically maturing institutional and political factors: the new cohesion of the European space science community provided by Roger Bonnet’s Horizon-2000 long-term plan, the “institutional learning” that structured the joint management of the project, the determination by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic not to let a repeat of the ISPM experience sour their cooperation, and the political backbone provided by the opportunity for ESA and its member states to escalate a threat to Cassini into a threat to US-European collaboration in any future major scientific and technological project.

A European delegation led by Lefevre met again on February 10 and 11, 1971, at the State Department. They had prepared the ground with a lengthy let­ter sent the month before.13 They wanted, as the Belgian minister put it in his opening statement, to participate in post-Apollo in ways that “would facilitate mutual dependence,” “co-management,” in a “joint venture” in which the part­ners would have “equal rights” to information, even though Europe only con­tributed 10 percent of the budget.14 They sought associated benefits in terms of launcher availability and access to technology—Europe wanted to buy or build under license American launchers that could be launched from their new equato­rial base in Kourou, French Guiana. They also insisted that once the shuttle was built, or rather “jointly developed,” as they put it, it would be “available without restrictions to each of the partners for peaceful uses.” Lefevre reiterated that the Europeans sought access “to all the technology developed within the framework of the post-Apollo program, and not just that part of it which is necessary from [sic] executing the tasks accorded to Europe.”

These requests were strategic rather than realistic. A State Department brief­ing document emphasized again that “[t]he very marked asymmetry in the part­nership and the very advanced stage of US planning leave no alternative but to regard the post-Apollo program as a US program, not as a joint program.”15 As for the related request for technology sharing, the State Department emphasized that “[i]t is not possible in the world of commercial competition, congressional overview, and US industrial self-interest, to provide Europe full access to the commercial know-how developed in the post-Apollo program in return for a 10% contribution to that program.”16 As for launchers, the United States had no objection to Europe launching American rockets from foreign soil, or building Americans launchers abroad under license—but only if they respected “Intelsat – linked conditions” wherever they were launched.17 As NASA feared, U. Alexis Johnson’s new interpretation of those conditions was the biggest single blow to European hopes. And NASA was not alone. At a meeting of the senior staff of the National Security Council on the eve of the European visit, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger doubted whether the United States was being “reasonable” in refusing to give an “unequivocal commitment” to provide launch services for European communications satellites.18

Lefevre was incensed.19 Europe needed launchers “without political condi­tions,” he fumed; it could not participate in the post-Apollo program otherwise.

He reminded the State Department of its original interpretation of the Intelsat vote. He could not see why the United States was now demanding a positive finding in the Intelsat Assembly before it would agree to launch a regional European comsat. This new interpretation was against the spirit of cooperation that had prevailed until then.20 Resenting the insinuation that Europeans were behaving irresponsibly, Lefevre also pointed out that the Europeans were just as concerned as were the Americans to respect the definitive Intelsat agreements— but since the Assembly of Party’s recommendations were not legally binding, they could not stop a country or region launching a rival system even if the assembly made an adverse finding. In European eyes Johnson was reinterpreting a consultative recommendation as a binding determination. They were treating a relatively weak legal finding as a non-negotiable political constraint.

Johnson could not budge: his hands were tied by his commitment to Charyk. The meeting inevitably ended on a sour note on February 12. Lefevre “stated that the results of the discussion had been very disappointing,” and affirmed that “if the US position remains unchanged, Europe would have to have a negative view toward post-Apollo participation.”21 A stream of telegrams from embas­sies abroad confirmed Europeans’ puzzlement and anger. The member states of CETS, meeting on March 22, were unanimous in agreeing that the “proper interpretation” of Article XIV(d) was that enshrined in the “negative finding” (see table 5.1).22 One European speaker after the other, including those who were sensitive to the dilemmas faced by the United States, expressed their disap­pointment at the new turn of events.23 It was too much for Frutkin. Why was there so much criticism of the United States in this forum when it had done so much to promote international collaboration in space? Should one expect the leader in space technology to remedy the technological gap? How could one expect parity in technological exchange when the levels of contribution to a collaborative venture differed so greatly? Given the enormous benefits derived from collaboration over going it alone, could the Europeans not be “a little more relaxed about pressing for national advantage”?24

Secretary of State Dean Rusk had already anticipated these criticisms in 1966, when he distributed a paper to the Space Council, pondering post-Apollo objec­tives and concerns in a climate of detente. Therein he identified a “Twofold International Objective” for the 1970s. Rusk first urged that the United States take action to “de-fuse” the space race between America and the Soviet Union. Doing so would not simply eliminate the hypothetical waste implicit in compe­tition, but it would also thwart the sense of exclusivity and alienation imparted upon nonparticipants (i. e., Europe and the developing world). Second, he advised that for both the “technically unsophisticated as well as industrially advanced countries, the role of active participant offers a better route to awareness and understanding—and responsible conduct—than the role of passive beneficiary.”30 For Rusk, collaboration in space was never to take the form of “foreign aid.”

White House officials harbored high hopes for remote sensing in particular, predicting that it would

do more to establish the theme of using space as a resource for mankind. Earth resources surveying satellites, which we are now developing, should be of special help in this regard and open new routes to cooperation. By emphasizing such activities, we can not only help bridge the “have” versus “have not” gap but also begin the transition away from a race deeper and deeper into space toward a more (but not exclusively) earth-oriented program.31

In order to meet this objective the paper suggested educating and enlisting Western Europe and the developing world in space exploration. This alone would bridge the “technology gap” that loomed between the so-called space powers and others. The report continued, explaining that it was the United States’ responsi­bility to enlighten budding or potential space powers: “It is even more difficult for technically unsophisticated countries to grasp the meaning of changes now in train. Yet their reactions will be important if the international adjustment to these changes is to be responsive to our own interests. Accordingly, we will need to use our programs still more effectively to broaden the base of cooperation.”32 The point bears repeating: “Broadening the base of cooperation” not only provided additional data to networks or instruments to satellites to satisfy the demands of globally oriented programs. For some, multilateral partnerships were viewed as a method to sway international sentiment, aiming to yield coalitions more respon­sive to superpower interests and build institutions of space research and develop­ment that exhibited values complementary to those of NASA.

Moving from international policy to national, the remainder of this chapter illus­trates the variety and complexity of US national interests coupled to the Gore – Chernomyrdin agreements. It introduces the reader to the perceived doldrums the Space Station Freedom had fallen into, the financial savings at first antici­pated by ISS reorganization, criticisms and concerns as voiced by Congressional representatives wary of various elements of ISS collaboration. The subsection “On Being More Equal” illustrates alternative trajectories that the ISS partner­ship may have taken when Russian partners (and Energia in particular) raised questions of national autonomy. The final sections address the linkages between US national security and Russian defense industries, including other motiva­tions for trade liberalization.