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Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop (2009)

Chapter: Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 48
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 49
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 50
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 55
Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War--Lessons Learned." National Research Council. 2009. Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12694.
×
Page 56

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E Session 1 Keynote: Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War⎯Lessons Learned Roger D. Launius National Air and Space Museum Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. INTRODUCTION In many respects, the history of U.S. cooperation and collaboration in space activities mirrors the larger story of how the United States and its allies have interrelated since the conclusion of World War II. If one were to characterize it accurately throughout the last 50-plus years, the undeniable conclusion is that both parties have enjoyed an uneasy relationship in which they have recognized that they were better off cooperating rather than competing, and in which they constantly jockeyed, even while cooperating, for a superior position vis-à-vis the other nations in partnership. Certainly, that has been the case among senior officials of the United States⎯many over the years viewing the nation’s effort in non-military space activities at a fundamental level as a program aimed, at least in part, at ensuring foreign policy objectives. If securing those objectives required cooperative relations in space, such was most assuredly acceptable and supportable as a national objective.1 Having said that, it is important to note that in the first part of the 21st century U.S./European cooperative efforts in space have been overall quite successful. I conclude that, despite the very real difficulties encountered in the various projects undertaken and the many twists and turns in the geopolitical climate. Indeed, the process of collaboration has continued nearly unabated, notwithstanding significant political, cultural, economic, social, and technological changes on both the European and the North American continents. These efforts have survived the rise and fall of the Cold War, budget pressures in the various space-faring nations, questions of national sovereignty, the replacement of ideological with economic competition, and the rise of the global community. Both the United States and their partners in space have learned from each other and advanced the cause of space exploration and use beyond the dreams of all but the most idealistic advocates. Perhaps most important, the decades of cooperative ventures in space have prompted into being a fellowship of scientists, engineers, and managers who have a global vision of spaceflight for the benefit of humanity that is on the verge of full realization. 1 A.W. Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965; J.M. Logsdon, “U.S.-European cooperation in space science: A 25-year perspective,” Science 223:11-16, 1984; U.S. Senate, United States International Space Programs: Texts of Executive Agreements, Memoranda of Understanding, and Other International Arrangements, 1959-1965, Senate Document No. 44, 89th Congress, 1st session, U.S. Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, July 30, 1965. 47

COOPERATION IN AN ERA OF COMPETITION For years the issue of international competition and cooperation in space has dominated much space exploration policy. Indeed, it is impossible to write the history of spaceflight without discussing these themes in detail.2 The U.S. space exploration program for its first decade and a half was dominated by international rivalry and world prestige, and international relations have remained a powerful shaper of the program ever since. Indeed, all of NASA’s human spaceflight projects, from the creation of the agency until the present—the Apollo program, the space shuttle, and the space station—have enjoyed as major reasons for their conduct the furtherance of U.S. foreign-policy goals. At first there was the Moon race—intensely competitive—in which the two superpowers locked in Cold War struggle sought to outdo each other. No cost seemed too high; no opportunity to “best” the other seemed too slight. The astronauts planted the American flag on the surface of the Moon when the great moment came in 1969, not unlike the Spanish flag planted by Columbus in America, although they did not claim the Moon for their nation. The irony of planting that flag, coupled with the statement that “we came in peace for all mankind,” was not lost on the leaders of the Soviet Union who realized that they were not considered in this context a part of the “all mankind” mentioned. The Cold War context in which the U.S. civil space program arose in 1958 ensured that foreign policy objectives dominated the nature of the activity. This naturally led to the need for cooperative ventures with other nations. The U.S. Congress said as much in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the legislation creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In this chartering legislation, Congress inserted a clause mandating the new space agency to engage in international cooperation with other nations for the betterment of all humankind. This 1958 legislation provided authority for international agreements in the broad range of projects essential for the development of space science and technology in a naturally international field. The United States has a variety of methods for accomplishing such objectives: treaties, executive agreements, agency-to-agency agreements, memoranda of understanding, and letter agreements. NASA’s charter provided the widest possible latitude to the agency in undertaking international activities as the means by which the agreed goal could be reached. The scope of NASA’s international program has been fortified since that time by repeated involvement with the United Nations, bilateral and multilateral treaties, and a host of less formal international agreements.3 But with the successful termination of the Apollo program, everyone realized that the United States was the unquestioned world leader in scientific and technological virtuosity, and continued international competition seemed pointless. Certainly President Richard M. Nixon, who took office in January 1969, made it clear that there would be during his leadership no more Apollo-like space efforts. Couple this with the great desire of those working for a continuation of an aggressive space exploration effort, and the result could only be the search for a new model. While successfully continuing to tie space exploration to foreign relations objectives, now the linkage would be based more on cooperation with allies rather than competition with the nation’s Cold War rival. The exploration of space increasingly emphasized visible and exacting international programs. All of the major human spaceflight efforts, and increasingly as time progressed minor projects, have been identified since the 1970s with international partnerships. 2 Representative works include Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space, 1965; R. Handberg and J. Johnson- Freese, The Prestige Trap: A Comparative Study of the U.S., European, and Japanese Space Programs, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., Dubuque, Ia., 1994; D.L. Harvey and L.C. Ciccoritti, U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space, Monographs in International Affairs, Center for Advance International Studies at the University of Miami, Miami, Fla., 1974; J. Johnson-Freese, Changing Patterns of International Cooperation in Space, Orbit Books, Malabar, Fla., 1990; R.M. Bonnet and V. Manno, International Cooperation in Space: The Example of the European Space Agency, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1994. 3 J.M. Logsdon, moderator, The Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958: Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop, Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 8, Washington, D.C., 1998, pp. 58- 59. 48

For years such issues have affected the relations of the United States and its partners, as the various national organizations jockey and cajole each other and seek to gain advantage⎯competitive or otherwise⎯in space activities. John Krige has explained this issue in the context of the nations involved in the European Space Agency (ESA): Any collaborative venture involves a partial loss of sovereignty for a nation. Inevitably, the question arises as to whether the benefits accruing from working with others outweigh the costs. Generally speaking, European governments have four main motives for collaborating scientifically and technologically: 1. The field of science is worth pursuing. 2. The technology developed is of importance for their industry. 3. Material need (the savings in human and financial resources deriving from pooling efforts). 4. Political advantage.4 Such issues have prompted various nations to go their own way in space, notably in ESA’s decision in the 1970s not to accept the offer in toto of NASA to cooperate in a post-Apollo human space program.5 APOLLO: PRIDE AND PRESTIGE Central to any discussion of Apollo is its role as an engine of national pride and international prestige for the United States in the context of Cold War rivalries. Prestige, for all of its ubiquitousness in the literature of human spaceflight, is an imprecise term, and it perhaps obscures more than it illuminates. At sum it signifies a demonstration of U.S. superiority. But this superiority has many facets and audiences. It elicits both a “gut-level” reaction and calls for a more sophisticated explication. It is driven by politics of many sorts—international, bureaucratic, and domestic—none of them sufficient on their own to explain the primacy of human spaceflight in American culture, but all complexly intertwined. Vernon Van Dyke’s 1964 book, Pride and Power: The Rationale of the Space Program epitomized this perspective, making the case with scholarly detachment that there were only five reasons for the United States to undertake an expansive Moon landing effort.6 In the words of reviewer John P. Lovell, Van Dyke classifies these reasons as “military security,” “peace,” “progress in science and technology,” “economic and social benefits,” and “national prestige.” Without impugning the sincerity of those who profess such rationales, Van Dyke marshals convincing evidence in support of the thesis that “national pride” has served as the goal value most central to the motivation of those who have given the space program its major impetus.7 Although his research is certainly dated, Van Dyke’s conclusions hold up surprisingly well after the passage of more than 40 years. At a fundamental level U.S. presidents have consciously used these 4 J. Krige, “The politics of European collaboration in space,” Space Times: Magazine of the American Astronautical Society 36(September-October):4-9, 1997, p. 4. 5 L. Sebesta, “The politics of technological cooperation in space: U.S.-European negotiations on the post-Apollo programme,” History and Technology: An International Journal 11:317-341, 1994; R.D. Launius, “NASA, the space shuttle, and the quest for primacy in space in an era of increasing international competition,” pp. 35-61 in L’Ambition Technologique: Naissance d-Ariane, E. Chadeau, ed., Institute d-Histoire de l’Industrie, Paris, France, 1995. 6 V. Van Dyke, Pride and Power: The Rationale of the Space Program, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill., 1964. 7 J.P. Lovell, “Review of Pride and Power: The Rationale of the Space Program,” in Midwest Journal of Political Science 9:118-120, 1965, p. 119. 49

activities as a symbol of national excellence to enhance the prestige of the United States throughout the world.8 There may well be four distinct attributes of the pride and prestige issue in Apollo, as follows: • Prestige on the international stage⎯using Apollo as a means for enhancing the attitudes of others towards the United States; • Pride at the national level⎯drawing the nation and its many peoples, priorities, and perspectives together; • Defining national identity⎯offering important ingredients into the national narrative celebrating exceptionalism among all else in the world; and • Embracing the idea of progress⎯using the Apollo program as a symbol for U.S. forward- thinking. This application of prestige is a classic application of what analysts often refer to as “soft power.” Coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, the term gave a name to an alternative to threats and other forms of “hard power” in international relations.9 As Nye contends: Soft power is the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals. It differs from hard power, the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will. Both hard and soft power are important . . . but attraction is much cheaper than coercion, and an asset that needs to be nourished.10 In essence, such activities as Apollo represented a form of soft power⎯the ability to influence other nations through intangibles such as an impressive show of technological capability. It granted to the nation achieving it first an authenticity and gravitas not previously enjoyed among the world community. At sum, this was an argument buttressing the role of spaceflight as a means of enhancing prestige on the world stage. There is no question that the Apollo program in particular, but also all of the human spaceflight efforts of the United States, was firstly about establishing U.S. primacy in technology. Apollo served as a surrogate for war, challenging the Soviet Union head-on in a demonstration of technological virtuosity. The desire to win international support for the “American way” became the raison d’etre for the Apollo program, and it served that purpose far better than anyone imagined when the program was first envisioned. Apollo became first and foremost a Cold War initiative and aided in demonstrating the mastery of the United States before the world. This may be seen in a succession of Gallup polls conducted during the 1960s in which the question was asked: “Is the Soviet Union ahead of the U.S. in Space?” Until the middle part of the decade, about the time that the Gemini program began to demonstrate U.S. prowess in space, the answer was always that the United States trailed the Soviets. At the height of the Apollo Moon landings, world opinion had shifted overwhelmingly in favor of the United States.11 The importance of Apollo as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy—which is not necessarily identical with national prestige and geopolitics but is closely allied—should not be overlooked in this discussion. It served, and continues to do so, as an instrument for projecting the image of a positive, open, dynamic American society abroad. 8 See R.D. Launius and H.E. McCurdy, eds., Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill., 1997, especially Chapters 2, 3, 6, and 7. 9 The term was coined in J.S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, Basic Books, New York, N.Y., 1990. See also J.S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, PublicAffairs, New York, N.Y., 2004. 10 J.S. Nye, “Propaganda isn’t the way: Soft power,” The International Herald Tribune, January 10, 2003. 11 Gallup polls on October 1, 1957; August 1, 1958; December 1, 1959; December 1, 1960; May 1, 1961; August 1, 1962; February 1, 1963; June 1, 1963; May 1, 1964; June 1, 1965; July 1, 1969; and May 1, 1971. 50

OBJECTIVES OF U.S. COOPERATIVE SPACE VENTURES IN THE COLD WAR The central question for the United States has always been how best to use space exploration as a meaningful foreign-policy instrument, and at times an odd assemblage of political, economic, and scientific/technological objectives emerged to guide the development of international programs. First, there were the overarching geopolitical considerations⎯without them there would have been no space exploration program at all, much less a cooperative effort. Four unified features have informed this political decision to cooperate in space projects with European nations. Cooperative projects in space: • Create a positive image of the United States in the international setting. In the early years of the space age this was very much related to the larger battle to “win the hearts and minds” of the world to the democratic/capitalistic agenda. More recently it has been mobilized to help ensure continued good will between the United States and the European community.12 • Encourage both European unity and U.S. relations to collective European entities.13 • Reinforce the perception of U.S. openness to outside nations and collective organizations. This was especially important during the Cold War when American openness could be juxtaposed to Soviet secrecy.14 • Expand the use of space technology as a tool of diplomacy to serve broader foreign-policy goals for the United States. Equally important, the United States pursued two overarching economic objectives with its cooperative space efforts. First, cooperative projects expanded the investment for any space project beyond that committed by the United States. Kenneth S. Pedersen, NASA director of international programs in the early 1980s, opined that “by sharing leadership for exploring the heavens with other qualified space-faring nations, NASA stretches its own resources and is free to pursue projects which, in the absence of such sharing and cooperation, might not be initiated.”15 Second, cooperative projects might help to improve the balance of trade by creating new markets for U.S. aerospace products.16 Finally, there is a set of important scientific and technological objectives that have motivated the United States’ international cooperative efforts in space. In this context cooperation: • Enhances the intellectual horsepower applied to any scientific question, thereby increasing the likelihood of reaching fuller understanding in less time. • Helps to shape European space projects along lines compatible with U.S. efforts and limits European efforts in space that are competitive with U.S. efforts. • Encourages the development of complementary but different experiments from European scientists. • Ensures that multiple investigators throughout the international partnership make observations contributing toward a single objective.17 12 Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space, 1965, p. 73; H.E. McCurdy, The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technological Choice, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 1990, p. 101. 13 Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space, 1965, p. 78. 14 A.W. Frutkin, NASA’s associate administrator for international programs for many years, made the observation that “when NASA was organized . . . the keystone of Government space policy was to give dramatic substance to the claim of openness—and, at the same time, to seek credibility for the nation’s assertion that it entered space for peaceful, scientific purposes. This was done . . . most importantly, by inviting foreign scientists to participate extensively and substantively in space projects themselves” (A.W. Frutkin, IEEE Spectrum 20(9):70, 1983). 15 K.S. Pedersen, testimony to Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, March 18, 1982, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, Washington, D.C. 16 S.M. Shaffer and L.R. Shaffer, The Politics of International Cooperation: A Comparison of U.S. Experience in Space and Security, University of Denver, Graduate School of International Relations, Denver, Colo., 1980, p. 17. 17 Ibid., pp. 17 and 50; Logsdon, “U.S.-European cooperation in space science,” 1984, p. 13. 51

In light of these macro-national priorities, NASA has always wrestled with how best to implement the broad international prospects mandated in legislation and polity. NASA leaders developed very early a set of essential features that have guided the agency’s international arrangements with European partners. These features remained in place until the partnership to build the International Space Station (ISS) in the early 1990s: • Cooperation is undertaken on a project-by-project basis, not on an on-going basis for a specific discipline, general effort, and so on. • Each cooperative project must be both mutually beneficial and scientifically valid. • Scientific/technical agreement must precede any political commitment. • Funds transfers will not take place between partners, but each will be responsible for its own contribution to the project. • All partners will carry out their part of the project without technical or managerial expertise provided by the other. • Scientific data will be made available to researchers of all nations involved in the project for early analysis.18 From the point of view of U.S. leaders, moreover, cooperative projects offered two very significant advantages to the agency in the national political arena. First, at least by the time of the lunar landings, they recognized that every international partnership brought greater legitimacy to the overall project. This important fact was not lost on NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine in 1970, for instance, when he was seeking outside sponsorship of the space shuttle program and negotiating international agreements for parts of the effort.19 Second, although far from being a coldly-calculating move, agreements with foreign nations could also help to insulate space projects from drastic budgetary and political changes. U.S. politics, as notoriously rambunctious and short-sighted—looking not much beyond the next scheduled election—as it is, is also enormously pragmatic. Dealing with what might be a serious international incident resulting from some technological program change is something neither U.S. diplomats nor politicians relish, and that fact could be the difference between letting the project continue as previously agreed on or dickering with it in Congress and thereby changing funding, schedule, or other factors in response to short-term political or budgetary needs. The international partners, then, could be a stabilizing factor for any space project, in essence a bulwark to weather difficult domestic storms.20 Perhaps Fritjof Capra’s representative definition of a social paradigm is appropriate when considering the requirements for space projects in the United States in the aftermath of the Apollo Moon landings. While Apollo had been an enormous success from a geopolitical and technological standpoint, NASA had to contend with a new set of domestic political realities for its projects thereafter, and a radical alteration had taken place in the “constellation of concepts, values, perceptions and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself.”21 International cooperative projects helped NASA to cope with that changing social paradigm. 18 S.M. Shaffer and L.R. Shaffer, Politics of International Cooperation, 1980, p. 18. 19 A. Galloway, “Does the space shuttle need military backing?” Interavia 27:1327-1331, 1972; R. Gillette, “Space shuttle: A giant step for NASA and the military?” Science 171:991-993, 1971. 20 This has clearly been the case with the Space Station Freedom program of the 1980s. See J.M. Logsdon, Together in Orbit: The Origins of International Participation in Space Station Freedom, NASA Contractor Report 4237, Washington, D.C., 1991. 21 F. Capra, “Paradigms and paradigm shifts,” ReVision 9(Summer/Fall):11, 1986. Capra’s definition was closely related to T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1970, especially pp. 175ff. 52

POST-COLD WAR ISSUES FOR U.S. INTERNATIONAL SPACE COOPERATION In the 1990s the United States collaborative space policy entered an extended period of transition from the earlier era of Cold War, one in which NASA has been compelled to deal with international partners on a much more even footing than ever before. This was true for several reasons. U.S. preeminence in space technology was coming to an end as ESA developed and made operational its superb Ariane launcher, and other nations developed ancillary space capabilities that made it increasingly possible for them to “go it alone.”22 U.S. commitment to sustained “preeminence” in space activities also waned and significantly less public monies went into NASA missions.23 U.S. political commitment to cooperative projects seemingly waned as well. The United States refrained from developing a probe for the international armada of spacecraft that were launched toward Comet Halley and withdrew support from the controversial International Solar-Polar Mission.24 Of those cooperative projects that remained, NASA increasingly acceded to the demands of collaborators to develop critical systems and technologies. This overturned the policy of not allowing partners onto the critical path, something that had been flirted with but not accepted in the shuttle development project. This was in large measure a pragmatic decision on the part of U.S. officials. Because of the increasing size and complexity of projects, according to Kenneth Pedersen, more recent projects have produced “numerous critical paths whose upkeep costs alone will defeat U.S. efforts to control and supply them.” He added, “It seems unrealistic today to believe that other nations possessing advanced technical capabilities and harboring their own economic competitiveness objectives will be amenable to funding and developing only ancillary systems.”25 In addition to these important developments, the rise of competitive economic activities in space has mitigated the prospects for future collaborations. The brutal competition for launch business, the cutthroat nature of space applications, and the rich possibilities for space-based economic activities have created a climate in which international ventures may once again become the exception.26 John Krige astutely commented of late that “collaboration has worked most smoothly when the science or technology concerned is not of direct strategic (used here to mean commercial or military) importance. As soon as a government feels that its national interests are directly involved in a field of R&D, it would prefer to go it alone.” He also noted that the success of cooperative projects may take as their central characteristic that they have “no practical application in at least the short to medium term.”27 I would add that the sole exception to this perspective might be when nations decide that for prestige or diplomatic purposes it is appropriate to cooperate in space.28 22 Sebesta, “The politics of technological cooperation in space,” 1994, pp. 317-341. 23 W.J. Clinton, “National Space Policy,” September 29, 1996, NASA Historical Reference Collection. 24 J.M. Logsdon, “International cooperation in the space station programme: Assessing the experience to date,” Space Policy 7:35-45, 1991; W.D. Kay, “Where no nation has gone before: Domestic politics and the first international space science mission,” Journal of Policy History 5:435-452, 1993; J. Johnson-Freese, “From Halley’s Comet to solar terrestrial science: The evolution of the Inter-Agency Consultative Group,” Space Policy 8:245-255, 1992; J.M. Logsdon, “Missing Halley’s Comet: The politics of big science,” Isis 80:268-270, 1989. 25 K.S. Pedersen, “Thoughts on international space cooperation and interests in the post-Cold War world,” Space Policy 8:217, 1992. 26 See R. Handberg, International Space Commerce: Building from Scratch, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Fla., 2006. 27 Krige, “The politics of European collaboration in space,” 1997, p. 6. 28 A superb example of this is the effort beginning in 1997 to shift U.S. launch operations to the private sector by contracting out the majority of activities at NASA Kennedy Space Center to the USA Corporation. For an excellent account of the process whereby commercial activities were initiated, see W.D. Kay, “Space policy redefined: The Reagan administration and the commercialization of space,” Business and Economic History 27(Fall):237-247, 1998. 53

INTERNATIONAL SPACE COOPERATION AND THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS Perhaps the hardest part of spaceflight is not the scientific and technological challenges of operating in an exceptionally foreign and hostile environment but in the down-to-Earth environment of rough-and-tumble international and domestic politics. But even so, cooperative space endeavors have been richly rewarding and overwhelmingly useful from all manner of scientific, technical, social, and political perspectives. Just as surely as the Apollo program helped the United States from a foreign policy standpoint, so too have the many international collaborations in space activities in the post-Cold War world.29 With international tensions remaining, even as the Cold War ended, collaborative space ventures may prove just as important in the quest to maintain U.S. hegemony—political, technological, and economic—in the world as Apollo had been at the height of the Cold War. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a different set of priorities has replaced the powerful secular ideologies of democracy, communism, nationalism, fascism, and socialism that dominated international politics since the Enlightenment. These were not so much new priorities as ancient traditions based on ethnic, religious, kinship, or tribal loyalties that reemerged full-blown in the 1990s as all the great ideologies, save democracy, collapsed worldwide⎯and even democracy was none too stable outside the West.30 Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington developed a powerful thesis to explain what has happened in the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of a bipolar world. The thrust of Huntington’s argument rejects the notion that the world will inevitably succumb to Western values. On the contrary, Huntington contends that the West’s influence in the world is waning because of growing resistance to its values and the reassertion by non-Westerners of their own cultures. He argues that the world will see in the 21st century an increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts among countries and cultures basing their identities on long-held traditions. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures—Western, Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African—in current struggles across the globe. In so doing, Huntington successfully shifts the discussion of the post-Cold War world from ideology, ethnicity, politics, and economics to culture—especially to the religious basis of culture. Huntington rightly warns against facile generalizations about the world becoming one, so common in the 1990s, and points out the resilience of civilizations to foreign secular influences.31 In the clash of civilizations of the 21st century, such collaborative ventures as the ISS offer a test- bed for civilizational alliances. At some level this has already begun. From the beginning the West adopted the ISS project and brought in a second great civilization in Japan. In 1993 the Orthodox civilization, using Huntington’s terminology for Russia and other Slavic peoples, joined the program. Perhaps the difficulty of working with the Russians has been largely the result of these strikingly different civilizations. Brazil and other nations of the Latin American civilization also want to join the program, as does India. China has also made overtures about the desire to become a part of the effort. Despite the very 29 R.D. Launius, “Perceptions of Apollo: Myth, nostalgia, memory or all of the above?” Space Policy 21:129-139, 2005. 30 On the reorientation of world politics in the 1990s, see J.L. Gaddis, “Toward the post-Cold War world,” Foreign Affairs 70(Spring):101-114, 1991; J. Goldstein and R. O Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1993; F. Fucayama, “The end of history,” The National Interest 16(Summer):3-18, 1989; M. Singer and A. Wildavsky, The Real World Order: Zones of Peace, Zones of Turmoil, Chatham House, Chatham, N.J., 1993; J.M. Goldgeier and M. McFaul, “A tale of two worlds: Core and periphery in the post-Cold War era,” International Organization 46(Spring):467-491, 1992; K.N. Waltz, “The emerging structure of international politics,” International Security 18(Fall):44-79, 1993; Z. Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eave of the Twenty-first Century, Scribner, New York, 1993; D.P. Moynihan, Pandemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993; W.S. Lind, “North– South relations: Returning to a world of cultures in conflict,” Current World Leaders 35:1073-1080, 1993; D.J. Puchala, “The history of the future of international relations,” Ethics and International Affairs 8:177-202, 1994. 31 This provocative thesis is illuminated in S.P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster, New York, N.Y., 1997. 54

real challenges that would result from incorporating these new partners into a collaborative space program, their inclusion would advance the cause of creating alliances with other civilizations. This could serve ultimately as a means of closing the gap between nations rather than widening it. At a fundamental level, space collaborations could serve the larger objectives of U.S. foreign policy better than many other initiatives that offer fewer prospects for success.32 All the promise held out for spaceflight in gaining scientific knowledge, advancing technology, and creating a hopeful future through exploration of the solar system may well pale in comparison to the very real possibility of enhancing cross-civilizational relations through this one act of working together to tackle an enormous challenge. The same may be true of the very real costs involved; it is a small price to pay for better international relations, and spending a larger share of the public treasury for the space exploration is eminently better than spending it for weapons of destruction. For all the difficulties involved in working with a large group of international partners, the knowledge gained in large-scale cooperative programs will serve the United States and the West well in the inter-civilizational rivalries of the 21st century. CONCLUSIONS One of the key conclusions that we might reach about both the course of international cooperation between the United States and its international collaborators in space is that it has been an enormously difficult process. I am reminded of the quote from Wernher von Braun, “We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”33 Even so, cooperative space endeavors have been richly rewarding and overwhelmingly useful, from all manner of scientific, technical, social, and political perspectives. Kenneth Pedersen observed in 1983, “International space cooperation is not a charitable enterprise; countries cooperate because they judge it in their interest to do so.”34 For continued cooperative efforts in space to proceed into the 21st century it is imperative that those desiring them define appropriate projects and ensure that sufficient national leaders judge them as being of interest and worthy of making them cooperative. The past 50 years have provided a wealth of experience in how to define, gain approval for, and execute the simplest of cooperative projects. Even those have been conducted only with much trial and considerable force of will. For those involved in space exploration in both the United States and other nations it is imperative that a coordinated approach to project definition, planning, funding, and conduct of future missions be undertaken. Only then will we be able to review the history of our international programs and speak with pride about all of their many accomplishments while omitting the huge “but” that must follow as we consider all of the challenges encountered in space cooperation. 32 Ibid., pp. 266-98; Voice of America News, “China publishes plans for space exploration,” November 22, 2000; M. Boucher, “Shenzhou 2 launch imminent, Chinese manned space program targets the Moon,” October 30, 2000; People’s Republic of China, The Information Office of the State Council, “China’s space activities,” November 22, 2000, all available in NASA’s Historical Reference Collection. 33 A.S. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, NASA SP-4102, Washington, D.C., 1982, p. v. 34 K.S. Pedersen, “International Aspects of Commercial Space Activities,” speech to Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing,” May 1983, NASA Historical Reference Collection. 55

Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop Get This Book
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Numerous countries and regions now have very active space programs, and the number is increasing. These maturing capabilities around the world create a plethora of potential partners for cooperative space endeavors, while at the same time heightening competitiveness in the international space arena.

This book summarizes a public workshop held in November 2008 for the purpose of reviewing past and present cooperation, coordination, and competition mechanisms for space and Earth science research and space exploration; identifying significant lessons learned; and discussing how those lessons could best be applied in the future, particularly in the areas of cooperation and collaboration.

Presentations and initial discussion focused on past and present experiences in international cooperation and competition to identify "lessons learned." Those lessons learned were then used as the starting point for subsequent discussions on the most effective ways for structuring future cooperation or coordination in space and Earth science research and space exploration. The goal of the workshop was not to develop a specific model for future cooperation or coordination, but rather to explore the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches and stimulate further deliberation on this important topic.

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