European Participation in the Post-Apollo. Program, 1969-1970: The Paine Years

The negotiations over European contributions to the post-Apollo program concerned the biggest single attempt to integrate a foreign nation or region into the technological core of the American space program during the first decades of NASA’s existence.1 These discussions were carried on for about three years, and engaged several NASA administrators: Thomas Paine, from October 1969 until he left NASA in September 1970; George Low, who temporarily led the organization while a successor was found; and then James C. Fletcher. They also engaged multiple arms of the administration: NASA of course, as the lead agency, but also the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Office of Telecommunications Policy, the National Security Council, and, hovering in the wings, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which assumed extensive powers in the Nixon administration.2 They were of deep concern to industry. And they were dominated by issues of technology transfer and launcher policy, here embedded in a framework that touched on matters of international diplo­macy, national security, and American technological, commercial, and political leadership of the free world.

In a speech to the United Nations in September 1969 President Nixon called for the “internationalization of man’s epic venture in space.” Feeling himself mandated to broaden the base of the post-Apollo program, Paine made a con­certed effort to seek international partners, and made his case with passion to the Australians, the Canadians, the Japanese, and the West Europeans. It was the last who were best positioned to take advantage of it. European engineers, managers, and policymakers, who had learnt so much from NASA in the early 1960s, were deeply impressed by the Apollo missions: the United States, it seemed, could do anything it wanted in space. The gap in technological, engineering, and mana­gerial capacity that had opened up between the two sides of the Atlantic in the space sector had now become a chasm—and yet here they were being invited to join in NASA’s next major program. Their reactions combined awe at American achievements, with pride that they were deemed worthy of inclusion in the next leap forward, and with fear born of uncertainty. Given their limited resources, if they made a major commitment to NASA’s post-Apollo program they risked sacrificing an indigenous space program of their own devising, above all an

autonomous launch capability. If they rejected the American offer they would be doomed to an inferior position, always collaborating from a position of weakness with the world’s space leaders. NSAM 294 and NSAM 398 were suggestive of what that could entail: a vulnerability to the constraints on international col­laboration imposed by US commercial, political, and security concerns, which could mean launchers denied, technology and managerial skills withheld, and prime contractors always based on US soil.

The account that follows will flesh out these more general considerations in greater detail. It is divided into three chapters. The first covers the period from the end of 1969 to early 1971, when the budget appropriations for FY1972 were finalized—and much to NASA’s distress, post-Apollo did not figure largely in them.3 The second chapter covers 1971. While some progress was made on defin­ing the parameters of US-European collaboration, the year was dominated by a separate if related concern: the implications of the definitive Intelsat agreements (accepted in principle by 73 governments on May 21, 1971) on the availability of US launchers for European telecommunications satellites. Finally, there is the period inaugurated by President’s Nixon’s statement on January 5, 1972, that the space shuttle (more precisely the STS, Space Transport System) would be the centerpiece of NASA’s post-Apollo program. Poised to move quickly, NASA rap­idly took advantage of the new situation. Plans for a major technological collab­orative project were refined in a series of meetings with experts from both sides of the Atlantic. A variety of possible platforms for a European contribution were explored, including the construction, under the guidance of an American prime contractor, of parts of the orbiter itself. Alternatives included the European- led construction of a “space tug,” an orbit-to-orbit vehicle intended to ferry hardware and people from the shuttle’s low-earth orbit to the moon, the geo­stationary orbit, and so on, and a Sortie Can or a RAM (Research Applications Module), a capsule or a palette for doing space science that would be lodged in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

The managerial, industrial, and technological complexities of direct par­ticipation in the orbiter soon overwhelmed NASA’s wish to have any partners directly engaged in building its new space transport system. The agency also started having grave doubts about the wisdom of developing the tug, which had emerged as Europe’s preferred contribution to the program. Taking the bull by the horns, in June 1972 it was announced, to the distress not to say anger of many of its partners, that the United States could only support a European effort to build a “sortie can” for space science experiments, while encouraging international participation in the use of the shuttle system. Germany decided to take advantage of this offer, and took the lead in developing what later became known as Spacelab. The French, by contrast, were now even more emphatic that meaningful technological collaboration with the United States was impossible. The withdrawal of the tug, and the conditions under which the United States would launch foreign communication satellites, played into the hands of those who were seeking political justification for an independent European launcher program. The French authorities, yielding to pressures from engineers in their national space agency and the Gaullist wings of the political elite, took prime responsibility for developing a European heavy launcher called Ariane, which made its first successful maiden flight on Christmas eve, 1979.