The 1990s and Beyond

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

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

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

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

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