Why the Tug Was Withdrawn

The withdrawal of the orbiter was not too difficult to swallow; participation was of limited importance anyway. By contrast the unexpected removal of the tug came as a bitter blow. Thirty-five years later Causse still remembered the announcement as coming as a “shock.”23 Nothing could have been more indica­tive of the asymmetry in power between the two sides of the Atlantic, and of the still-massive disparity in the financial, technological, and industrial capabilities in space between the two “partners.” Pollack emphasized at the meeting on June 16 that it was “important that both sides keep in mind the basic, enduring nature of the ties that bind the United States and Europe.”24 He surely wanted to calm ruffled feathers: in reality, he probably only made matters worse.

To put this in perspective we must remember the history. In February 1971, and again as late as February 1972, the joint meeting of experts had made a number of decisions to promote phase A tug activity.25 NASA let it be known that, for financial reasons, it would only have limited funds available for tug studies and technology development. The preliminary mission model, on the other hand, indicated that the tug should be available soon after the shuttle became operational, as it was required for “over 50%” of the missions. The man­agement of the tug would be left to Europe, with NASA in a “supporting role.” An informal version of the proceedings in Paris in February 1972 by NASA’s European representative recorded that the agency was “very interested in having Europe consider undertaking the Tug as a Post-Apollo cooperation effort both for the over-all program needs and from the increased international cooperation that such a program would bring.”26 The joint experts group had decided that funds would be allocated to two phase A studies in European industry, that a technology development program would be started as soon as possible, and that the economics of the tug and the mission model would be refined.

Just a few weeks later Frutkin moved sharply away from this position, not­withstanding the advantages noted by the expert group. “The tug is given sec­ond place after the sortie module because it is far more difficult to develop and could conceivably give rise to performance difficulties which might impair relationships,” he suggested. The risks here were amplified by NASA’s decision not to devote substantial resources to the tug, even in the most challenging technological areas. As a result, Frutkin feared that the tug “could also stimulate European advances in technology beyond those of the sortie module.”27

The nature of those advances was specified in a report prepared by Causse and Dinkespiler for the European Space Conference in March in which they emphasized how important the tug would be for Europe. “The tug by its mis­sion partakes of the nature of a launcher, but by its ultra-light structure, big flight autonomy and automatic rendezvous capability is akin to a space vehicle and actually makes use of highly sophisticated satellite techniques,” they wrote. “It pushes propulsion techniques well beyond what is currently envisaged in Europe,” and by virtue of “its far-reaching integration with the shuttle and with the payload during operations will afford Europeans effective participation in most American missions.”28 They explicitly told NASA in mid-April that they saw the tug as “a very critical development which, maybe in the future, could be a stage in Europa III.”29 In other words by encouraging the tug NASA not only risked being charged with irresponsible technology transfer but, even worse, of proliferating booster technology.

Then there was the problem of use. Causse and Dinkespiler also sought reas­surances that NASA and the Air Force would not build tugs under license in the United States for their own use, and would at least undertake to buy European – built tugs for a certain period of time. NASA had certainly been open to this early in February. Going into the meeting of the joint expert group, Culbertson had written that “[i]f there is a European decision to develop the Tug, Sortie Can or RAM, NASA would expect to commit to use providing it meets our specifications.”30 By mid-April, however, NASA was posing the question dif­ferently. If before it was willing to buy tugs as needed—unless Europe failed to deliver—now “we were basically concerned about uncertainties in the definition of a tug, the difficulty of producing one, and the multiplicity of approaches to orbit-to-orbit capability.”31 There were also concerns in NASA about the safety of having a tug powered by cryogenic fuel lodged in the Shuttle’s cargo bay. In short, upstream of the question of use, NASA was now having doubts about the safety and the technological feasibility of the tug concept itself.

The Air Force’s evaluation of the costs and benefits of developing the tug abroad also struck a blow at European aspirations.32 It was recognized that contracting out the tug to Europe would save dollars. On the other hand, the Department of Defense was concerned about the dangers posed to national secu­rity by having foreign powers develop one of their key technologies. They would have to reveal the nature of their missions. Their requirements might be jeop­ardized by unilateral decisions, technological and industrial deficiencies, and a lack of operational support by the Europeans. Building the tug abroad would also undermine the domestic industrial base in an already-weakened sector that was crucial to national defense. Summarizing the situation, it seemed to NASA that the Air Force would be willing to use a tug developed in Europe if one were available, but would “undoubtedly” manufacture it under license in the United States. In addition, to secure its supply lines the Air Force would “also likely sup­port development of an alternate, expendable stage [that could perform the tug’s missions], based on Centaur or some other existing vehicle.”33 In short, there was no hope that the Air Force would only procure tugs built in Europe, so boosting the production lines of European firms with orders for US “military” technology. By June the tug was dead; indeed it was never built. Studies were terminated in mid-August. That left the Europeans to do the Sortie Module that was later called Spacelab.34

There was more to come. On the last day of the June meeting (June 16) Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson finally expressed the official American position on launching the Franco-German telecommunications satel­lite Symphonie. The Europeans had long sought clarification on whether the United States would be willing to support the Symphonie proposal in Intelsat, and by extension launch it for them. Johnson replied that he could only do so if the proposed satellite was shifted to a different orbital position to that foreseen, and if its geographic coverage was more restricted than planned.35 This was the last straw for many people in France who were keen to develop an independent launch capability in Europe “to maintain the base of their ballistic missile tech­nology capability and [. . . ] to maintain European independence of the US in space operations.”36 Washington’s pared down offer of restricted technological collaboration in the post-Apollo program, the cancellation of Aerosat, and the determination to place launch conditions on Symphonie played into the hands of those who were determined that the region needed to develop its own inde­pendent access to space. The new European launcher called Ariane rose from the ashes of the explosion of Europa II in November 1971, and was nourished by the hard line taken by the American negotiators in June 1972.