NASA and the Shifting Political Climate, 1968-1972

Following this rocky period, between 1968 and 1972 Soviet-American relations encountered a point of departure at which the two maintained coordinated activ­ities—be it even on one or two projects—until the present. In 1968, the World Weather Watch entered its operational phase (the World Weather Program), at which point both Soviet Meteor satellites and US TIROS satellites circled the earth providing continuous data to researchers and forecasters alike. In 1969 the United States cancelled its biosatellite program, making the Soviet offer for coop­eration on the Bion biosatellites all the more attractive five years later. In the fall of 1970, Soviet academician Keldysh wrote NASA administrator Paine acknowl­edging that cooperation was to date “limited in character,” leading eventually to the 1970-1971 agreement for an Apollo-Soyuz docking in orbit.19

The moon race, as it were, ended. NASA, which for many had come to be viewed as a single-issue agency, was now seeking new purpose in Spacelab, the Shuttle Program, hopes for additional planetary exploration, as well as sustained research and development in remote sensing. Congress reduced NASA’s budget and priorities year after year, leading in part to the resignation of Administrator James Webb in October of 1968.20 In March of 1969, Thomas Paine took over duties as NASA administrator, but remained in office a mere 19 months. James C. Fletcher followed as NASA administrator in April 1971, remaining through May of 1977.

During this time, initiatives for bilateral collaboration were in some regards a “bottom-up” phenomena. Historian Yuri Karash indicates that in late 1969 and early 1970, cosmonauts began making rare visits to the United States. At that time, Mikhail Millionshchikiov, a vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, spoke at the Second National Convocation on the Challenge of Building Peace in New York City, expressing the sentiment that the time was favorable for renewed talks in collaboration. In a remarkably short period of time, October 1970, leading officials from both US and Soviet space programs met in Moscow to discuss the possibility of joint ventures.21

In January 1971, NASA’s acting administrator George Low and Arnold Frutkin met with Nixon’s foreign policy advisor, Henry Kissinger. In their meeting, Low broached the possibility of formally inviting the Soviet Union to take part in a test mission involving an Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. Kissinger assured Low, “As long as you stick to space, do anything you want to do. You are free to commit—in fact, I want you to tell your counterparts in Moscow that the President has sent you on this mission.” (Kissinger’s condition “as long as you stick to space” stemmed from the fact that astronauts had been quoted, indicating that bilateral negotiations at the national level ought to be as easy as those for space collaboration.)22 With the Nixon administration’s blessing, negotiations led eventually to the January 21, 1971, US-USSR Science and Applications Agreement.

These individuals signify shifting political climates—as both drivers and con­sequences of their times. The competition of the early Cold War gave way to detente, and a cautiously cooperative climate shaped the character of NASA – Soviet programs in the 1970s and early 1980s. This is not to say that the thaw in US-Soviet relations overwhelmed all other challenges to collaboration: what was possible in practice was determined at once by scientific direction, security restrictions, technical limitations, and fiscal realities. Thus a study of coopera­tive work in the fields of biosatellites, atmospheric science, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project will illustrate the structural flexibility inherent to NASA’s principles and guidelines for international projects—how a wide variety of scientific and engineering communities managed to work under these adaptable guidelines, yielding scientifically and (to many) culturally meaningful returns.23

Under the 1971 US-USSR Science and Applications Agreement (renewed in 1974 and 1977), Soviet and US space researchers agreed to exchange lunar soil samples, share biomedical results from human spaceflight, and compare findings from Mars and Venus probes. In addition to this, they set up five joint working groups that supported the continuation of meteorological sounding rocket net­works, coordinated maritime studies, joint vegetation surveys, and called for the flight of Soviet life sciences experiments on Skylab.24 A number of these opera­tions were, or led to, multilateral ventures.

Indeed, several multilateral endeavors overlapped with 1971, 1974, and 1977 arrangements between the United States and the Soviet Union. Realizing that it was in their best interest to invite the participation of other nations, policymakers on both sides of the Iron Curtain proposed cooperation in their research or at the very least opened a substantial amount of data to the public domain. Both Soviet and US lunar samples were distributed to a number of nations. Likewise research­ers released results of biomedical and planetary research to international colleagues and continued to contribute standardized data and specialized observations to World Meteorological Organization data centers. In all cases the United States, it must be said, was far more forthcoming than the Soviet Union, in line with its far more positive commitment to international collaboration and openness.

In each of these fields, Presidential initiative per se appears to have played a limited role in sustaining cooperation. Indeed, several projects carried on in spite of executive policy intended to snub the opposing superpower. Following the initial thrust of the Kennedy administration, repeatedly pressuring Premier Khrushchev to work with NASA in space, bilateral collaboration operated for the most part under the inclination of NASA headquarters, NASA centers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and researchers located at various universities. Nevertheless, presidential administrations and the Congress together shaped NASA policy by setting budget priorities, demanding rigorous justification for innovative programs, or as in the case of the Carter and Reagan administrations, opting to not openly pursue joint objectives with the Soviets, but simply tolerating collaborative projects that were less prone to publicity.