The Changing Context in the 1980s

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

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

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