An Alternative Collaborative Project: Aerosat

Kissinger’s insistence that NASA should not restrict its options for collaborat­ing with Europe to the post-Apollo program brought the ongoing negotiations over a jointly developed aeronautical satellite system into focus at the end of 1971. The idea of a NASA/ESRO suite of satellites to handle air traffic over the Atlantic was one of the collaborative ventures promoted by NASA administrator Tom Paine in his early enthusiasm for international projects in the post-Apollo period.78 By August 1971, and notwithstanding the multiple stakeholders and conflicting interests involved, it was agreed in Madrid (to cite the European report of the meeting) that a preoperational aeronautical satellite system would be “jointly developed, funded, managed, implemented and evaluated” by Europe through ESRO and by the United States through the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), along with other interested governments.79 Europe was pre­pared to assume 50 percent of the full program cost, and although the prime contractor would be chosen by open competitive bidding (and might well not be European), it was stipulated that European partners be included in the scheme and would obtain a “fair and reasonable” share of the contracts. Liberal provi­sion was made for technology sharing. “For the first time,” wrote the science correspondent of the prestigious French daily Le Monde, “co-operation with the United States in the field of application satellites seems to be getting under way under conditions of equality.”80

The assault on this project was again spearheaded by the OMB, along with Whitehead and Flanigan.81 They wanted American industry to drive space activities, and they were hostile to the idea that the FAA and ESRO would be co-owners of the system. They wanted it to be owned privately and leased to governments. In line with the associated concern to restrict technology transfer, they would have no truck with the idea that if the Europeans paid half the pro­gram costs they should be entitled to their fair share of industrial work. There was to be no constraint on US industry’s competitive advantage and no transfer of technology from the United States to Europe, as would be inevitable in a joint program. They also objected to the idea that the satellite should be restricted to aircraft, citing economic efficiency: the Office of Telecommunications Policy wanted a single system for both maritime and aviation services. Thus armed, Whitehead and his allies demanded an in-depth policy review before ratifica­tion of the FAA-ESRO memorandum of understanding (MoU) that had been drafted in Washington on August 20, 1971. As Frutkin noted in his diary in October, “European confidence in cooperative projects has been dented by the long delay in our responding to the Lefevre letter, by the obvious uncertainty of the shuttle’s future and by US behavior on an aeronautical satellite.”82 In November Johnson warned Kissinger that if the United States withdrew from Aerosat at this stage it would have serious repercussions “not only our future co-operation in post-Apollo and other space related activities, but on overall US-European relations.”83

In 1971 the enthusiasm for post-Apollo cooperation that Tom Paine had injected into US-European relations began to wane. The gap widened between the considerable progress made at the technical level between joint groups of experts spearheaded by NASA and the increasing doubts raised at the level of high policy. Whitehead and Flanigan, with the support of David and Fletcher, became increasingly and effectively vocal in their opposition to close collabora­tion. Their fear that the United States would sacrifice its technological lead, and that US industry would be harmed, was mingled with the White House staffers’ distrust of NASA. In their eyes NASA wanted Europe in the shuttle program to protect it from domestic political cuts, even cancellation, and was accord­ingly willing to give away American technology at ten cents on the dollar, as Whitehead put it. Their pressure on NASA was amplified by Charyk’s demand on behalf of Comsat that Johnson tighten up the conditions under which the United States would launch foreign telecommunication satellites before the definitive Intelsat agreements were signed in May.

The European position was summed up by Secretary of State Rogers in a memo to the president in January 1972. As he put it, “[T]he prospects for sub­stantial European contributions to the post-Apollo program are clouded [. . .] by residual European doubts about whether our offer of launch assistance is suf­ficiently adequate to permit Europe to forgo the development of its own large and expensive rockets.” Delays in reaching agreement on the Aerosat project were also being read “as an ominous sign concerning our future intentions on space cooperation.”84 In fact the Europeans had now realized that they would not be treated as privileged partners under the Intelsat framework. The State Department would be flexible, but it would not give them a formal cast-iron guarantee to launch a separate European comsat system. European space policy for the next decade was further complicated by the disastrous failure of the Europa rocket in November. Divisions were emerging between those who felt it was important to work with the United States in an advanced technological proj­ect come what may (led by Germany) and those who saw little or no advantage in it (like Britain and France, for different reasons). An important policy initiative was needed to energize the decision-making process. The official authorization of the shuttle program in 1972 by President Nixon did just that.