CHAPTER 18

INTERNATIONAL TIES

Only a few years after Sputnik, the scope of space science reached beyond America’s shores to many other parts of the globe. The predisposing cause was doubtless the political interest of U.S. leaders in recapturing leadership in space while projecting an image of peaceful purpose and cooperativeness in the world. In this regard science could help to broaden the base of the space program.

A fundamental assumption underlying the practice of science is that the laws of nature hold throughout the universe. Nature itself makes science international in character and provides a strong basis for international cooperation in science. The history of science bears out the point, for the insights that gave rise to great new advances in science have come from all over the globe.

It was, therefore, to be expected that NASA would quickly be involved in international activities in space science. In fact, with roots in the International Geophysical Year, which had already generated a lively interest in the potential of satellites for scientific research, one might argue that the appearance of an international component in the NASA space science program was inevitable. The moment NASA took over responsibility for the Vanguard program from the Naval Research Laboratory, the agency acquired a number of international commitments, like those of the satellite geodesy program that proved so touchy for a while.

POLITICAL CONTEXT

Sputnik I got the attention of an entire world. In various ways political and scientific organizations made their interests in space research and applications known. It seemed natural, for example, for the staff of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to suggest cooperative efforts in space under the aegis of NATO. In spite of their superficial reasonableness, these overtures were not supported by Department of State or NASA managers, primarily because a cooperative program under NATO would reintroduce those military overtones Congress had already rejected in not assigning the U.S. space program to the Pentagon. Thus, in spite of his long association with NATO’s Advisory Group for Advanced Research and Development, Dryden, with guidance from the State Department, turned down these suggestions from the NATO staff, pointing out that individual NATO countries could cooperate with NASA on their own initiative without invoking the NATO name.

The United Nations was another matter. Here among a large number of the world’s nations, a deep interest was to be expected in activities that would fly rockets and spacecraft over the sovereign territories of U.N. members. On 19 November 1958, the United States and 19 other countries jointly introduced a resolution into the General Assembly of the United Nations calling for the creation of an ad hoc committee on the peaceful uses of outer space.¹ The committee was established in December and met from 6 May to 25 June 1959 at U.N. Headquarters in New York City to discuss a variety of subjects related to international interest in space matters.² It was soon realized that the United Nations was in no position to assume operational responsibilities in a space program -although for a brief period there was some discussion of such things as launching sites run by an organ of the United Nations. International competence in science resided in the International Council of Scientific Unions and its unions, while many aspects of practical applications of space would apparently fall under already existing U.N. organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization and the International Telecommunications Union. As a consequence the ad hoc committee recommended against the creation of either a new agency or any sort of central control for space activities. Instead it was suggested that there be a focal point-in the nature of an international secretariat-to facilitate international cooperation in the peaceful uses of space.³

Differences of view between the United States and the Soviet Union tended to dominate the discussions in the committee for the first two years or so. The Soviet Union wished to establish at the outset a set of general principles to guide space activities, while the United States preferred to develop an international policy by practice, moving step by step with individual, limited agreements. After extensive exploratory discussion, the way was clear to move ahead on a firmer basis, and General Assembly resolution 1721 created a permanent Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space with 28 members.⁴ The resolution became a basic document on space, among other things commending to member states that international law apply to outer space and celestial bodies, that both space and celestial bodies be free to all and not subject to national appropriation, and that member states should report space launchings to the U.N. for registration.⁵

The permanent committee provided for two subcommittees, one legal, the other scientific and technical. Although the deliberations of the Legal Subcommittee occasionally touched upon the interests of the scientists, the other subcommittee usually provided the forum for space science matters. The function of the committee and its subcommittees was regarded as one of aiding and encouraging members rather than one of getting into operational programs. In this vein, at the meeting of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee in Geneva in May and June 1962, the subcommittee gave special attention to helping the less developed countries to pursue some of their interests in space. Much discussion was devoted to training and education for scientists and engineers of the smaller countries, and various means of meeting this need were recommended. The subcommittee recommended publication of information on national space programs and of technical information needed by nations just beginning space research. A major recommendation asked for United Nations sponsorship of sounding rocket ranges that met prescribed conditions, including openness and accessibility to all member states.⁶

By the next year India, with assistance from a number of countries in supplying launchers, tracking equipment, computers, and aircraft, was well along in construction of a sounding rocket range on the geomagnetic equator at Thumba. Since the range was to be operated in keeping with the principles laid down by the United Nations, U.N. sponsorship was accorded the range, under which aegis India hosted a great many launchings by other nations.⁷

When, half a decade later, in August of 1968, the committee sponsored a symposium on the peaceful uses of outer space, space had become big business; and almost fourscore countries participated in one way or another. Administrator Webb considered the symposium of sufficient importance to attend in person. The United States, the Soviet Union, and numerous other countries could report on a wide variety of space science results. As a prelude to the imminent American manned flights to the moon, both the U.S. and the USSR reviewed results from their unmanned lunar spacecraft. On the science side problems were minimal; but some knotty questions were raised in space applications, such as international cooperation in commercial space communications systems and the delicate subject of space photography for earth-resource surveys. In earth-resource photography, the prospect of substantial benefits to themselves led the countries to acquiesce, at least as far as accepting research satellites. Operational satellites were a question that could be resolved later.⁸ These questions, bearing on international relations in space applications, are beyond the scope of this book.

The natural arena for international cooperation in space science was that of the International Council of Scientific Unions, which had sponsored the International Geophysical Year. As might have been expected, IGY spawned a number of continuing activities, for which special committees were formed, such as the Special Committee for Antarctic Research and the Special Committee for Oceanographic Research. Among them was the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR).⁹

For a brief period substantial difficulties loomed. Miffed at the high proportion of Western representation on the committee, the Soviet Union chose to introduce political considerations into sessions of the nonpolitical COSPAR. At the March 1959 meeting in The Hague, Prof. E. K. Federov a tough, hard-line negotiator, showed up instead of Anatoly Blagonravovto represent the USSR. Federov’s insistence that not only Soviet bloc countries, but also the Ukraine and Byelorussia, should be admitted to COSPAR as independent members evoked a general consternation. American attendees pointed out that this was like asking that a couple of states like Texas and New York be members in addition to the United States. The committee would not go along, and Federov read what was apparently a prepared statement that under the circumstances the USSR would not be able to participate in the Committee on Space Research.¹⁰

It looked as though COSPAR might have to proceed without the participation of one of the two major launching nations. But the U.S. delegate, Richard Porter, put forth a counterproposal that any nation interested in and engaged in some way in space activities could be a member of the committee. Porter’s motion was adopted, paving the way for admitting Soviet bloc countries. Also the committee agreed to accept on its Executive Committee a Soviet vice president and a U.S. vice president, thus assuring both countries of permanent positions on the executive body of COSPAR. With these compromises, the Soviets did not pull out, and for future meetings Blagonravov returned as the Soviet representative.

There were two kinds of membership in COS PAR-representation from a number of interested scientific unions, like the Unions of Geodesy and Geophysics, Scientific Radio, Astronomy, and Pure and Applied Physics; and national members. The former provided the ties with the international scientific organizations. But the ultimate strength of COSPAR lay in the national memberships, for, as with the International Geophysical Year, the individual countries would pay for and conduct research. When at the same March 1959 meeting attended by Federov the United States offered to assist COSPAR members in launching scientific experiments and satellites, the future of COSPAR seemed assured.¹¹

COSPAR met annually, varying the place of meeting to give different countries the opportunity to act as host. The sessions consisted normally of two parts, a scientific symposium on recent space science results or on some topic of importance to space science,¹² and discussions of plans and problems. To facilitate the latter, working groups were established with appropriate representation from interested countries and unions. Perhaps the most notable, and controversial, of these was the group set up to look into undesirable side effects of space activities. Because of concerns in the scientific community over possible compromise of other scientific activities by space research-for example, interference of radio signals from satellites with ground-based radio astronomy-the International Council of Scientific Unions passed a resolution in 1961 calling on COSPAR to examine proposed experiments that might have potentially undesirable effects on scientific activities and observations, and to make careful analyses and quantitative studies available to scientists and governments.¹³ COSPAR responded with resolution 1 (1962) setting up a Consultative Group on Potentially Harmful Effects of Space Experiments, under the chairmanship of Vikrarn Sarabhai, physicist and later head of India’s atomic energy agency.¹⁴ There were representatives from the two major launching countries, Russia and America, and several “neutral" members. The president of COSPAR, H. C. van de Hulst, felt the consultative group’s task sufficiently important that he himself should also serve. The group plunged into a study of such matters as the effects of rocket exhausts on the atmosphere and of high-altitude nuclear explosions on the earth’s radiation belts.

The purpose of the consultative group was initially scientific but the subject was bound in time to bring in political considerations. At the May 1963 meetings of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Soviet Delegate Blagonravov kept bringing up the matter of U.S. high-altitude nuclear tests and the West Ford experiment, which placed clouds of tiny copper needles in orbit to test their usefulness for reflecting radio signals from one point on the ground to another.¹⁵ On 20 May 1963 he delivered a blast against the United States, accusing it of fostering war and ignoring the welfare of the world and world science. His remarks were utterly cynical in that the Soviet nuclear tests had put much more radiation into the lower atmosphere than had U.S. experiments. Also, careful analyses of West Ford had shown that the metallic dipoles would not adversely affect ground-based radio astronomy, a conclusion that the Soviet Union did not refute. Continuing to press the matter, on 21 May 1963 Blagonravov submitted a paper on contamination of outer space, urging that the U.N. committee ask the Committee on Space Research to study the harmful effects of such experiments in outer space.¹⁶ Again the cynicism of the Soviet delegates was apparent in that they consistently showed little interest in the COSPAR consultative group and had a very poor attendance record at its meetings. Their greater concern with the political issues than with the scientific aspects of the subject was apparent.

The most persistent task of the consultative group had to do with the protection of the moon and planets from biological contamination. If there was life, or evidence of past life, or evidence of how the chemistry of a planet evolves toward the formation of life, on any other planetary body, life scientists wanted to preserve the opportunity to study that evidence uncompromised by any form of terrestrial contamination.

In this matter the consultative group by no means had to start from scratch. As far back as 1956 the International Astronautical Federation had begun to worry about interplanetary contamination. Sputnik I called forth similar concerns in the U.S. Academy of Sciences, and on 8 February 1958 the academy passed a resolution urging that “scientists plan lunar and planetary studies with great care and deep concern so that initial operations do not compromise and make impossible forever after critical scientific experiments.” Lloyd Berkner, president of the International Council of Scientific Unions, carried the resolution to ICSU, which in March of 1958 established an ad hoc Committee on Contamination by Extraterrestrial Exploration, with Marcel Florkin, Belgian biologist, as president. The committee developed a code of conduct for space missions and continued for a number of years to work and advise on problems. The COSPAR consultative group inherited the mantle along with the work and thinking of the ad hoc committee.

The aims were simple, but the problems were exceedingly complex and difficult to resolve. One could not ask for 100 percent sterility in planetary and interplanetary spacecraft. To seek such an unachievable goal would be prohibitively expensive. It was necessary, therefore, to deal with probabilities, and to seek to keep at an acceptably low figure the probability that planets of interest might be contaminated. The scientists had to work out a compromise between asking for so low a probability that the costs of engineering spacecraft to prescribed standards would be forbiddingly high and allowing so high a probability that the chances of compromising scientific research were too great. Unfortunately, as with many questions dealing with probabilities, there were a great many opinions as to what probabilities were reasonable and as to how to go about the engineering. The interminable discussions of the scientists were a vexation to the engineers who had to translate prescribed standards into engineering criteria. All in all, it took a decade to agree on an international set of objectives. At its 12th plenary session in Prague, 11-24. May 1969, the Committee on Space Research reaffirmed the basic objective of keeping the probability of contaminating Mars and other planets at or below one part in a thousand an anticipated period of biological exploration. The period was taken or to be 20 years, extending through 1988, during which period it was estimated that approximately 100 missions would be flown.¹⁷

Requirements were more easily stated than met. Unsterilized. Space probes meant to fly by planets in the period concerned had to be so aimed that their combined probabilities of hitting and contaminating the planets should remain within the stated limit. Also, spacecraft to land on a planet had to be so designed and treated-by exposure to lethal radiations, chemical cleansing, or heating-that again the combined probabilities of producing contamination for all spacecraft landed during the period should remain within the established limit.

Opinions differed considerably as to how the evolving requirements should be translated into engineering criteria for the construction and processing of spacecraft. The United States tried to facilitate the discussion of this complex subject at COSPAR meetings by describing in detail the processing of its spacecraft. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, consistently refused to give details, saying only that it would decontaminate its spacecraft. This refusal to participate openly generated considerable uneasiness among scientists from the other countries, for proper protection of the planets from contamination could be achieved only by the full cooperation of all. Laxness on the part of only one country could vitiate the efforts of others to preserve this scientific opportunity, which once lost could never be recovered.

The United States spent many millions of dollars developing materials, components, and techniques for producing planetary spacecraft that were as close to sterile as possible. One had to accept on faith that the USSR was doing the same sort of thing. But when it came to the moon, after some initial attempts to develop sterile or nearly sterile spacecraft, a revolt set in. The extremely low probability of finding any lunar life, or of propagating any terrestrial life deposited on the moon, led NASA, vigorously supported by the physicists, to insist that “cleanliness" as opposed to sterility was enough. Although the life scientists objected, this policy prevailed for the moon.

Such were the problems taken up in the various COSPAR working groups, although most problems did not have the drama associated with them that those of the consultative group displayed. Members developed plans for cooperative meteorological programs, solar studies including eclipse expeditions, geodetic observations, and the like. But, as with the International Geophysical Year, it would be the member nations that would carry out the planned programs. Accordingly most actual cooperative projects took place between pairs or small groups of nations.

NASA INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM

That was how most of NASA’s international program developed. As has been seen, NASA quickly became involved with the United Nations and the Committee on Space Research. But those served more as a backdrop than as the arena for NASA’s international activities. By far the most frequent arrangement was a bilateral one between NASA and a counterpart agency in another country, sometimes with a covering government-to-government agreement. The State Department provided guidance and a considerable amount of assistance and in the dealings with the United Nations took the lead. But except for U.N. matters, NASA, while keeping contact with the State Department, was pretty much on its own.

The variety of the program was remarkable. By 1962, 55 nations plus the European Preparatory Commission for Space Research were engaged with NASA in various space activities.¹⁸ Twenty-four were helping with operational support to NASA missions through the Minitrack, Mercury, and Deep Space tracking networks; the optical tracking network inherited from the International Geophysical Year; the volunteer program of satellite observations called Moonwatch; and data acquisition. Assistance varied all the way from simply providing the real estate on which to erect and operate ground stations, to assuming a substantial responsibility for their staffing and operation.

Thirty-four nations were working with NASA in cooperative projects using satellites, sounding rockets, and ground-based work in meteorology and communications. As in the United Nations space committee, many nations expressed a great need for scientific and technical training related to space. By 1962 13 foreign Resident Research Associates were at NASA centers, 5 foreign students were being trained in American universities under NASA sponsorship, and 13 engineers or technicians were training at NASA centers or ground stations. Visitors from 42 countries plus the European Preparatory Commission had come to explore their interests in the space program. By the 1970s 94 countries or international organizations were cooperating in some form with NASA.¹⁹

By the time Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden, Arnold Frutkin (who had become head of NASA’s Office of International Programs), and the author journeyed to Aachen in September 1959 to attend meetings of the NATO Advisory Group for Advanced Research and Development, the guidelines for NASA’s international activities were pretty much in mind. They were referred to time and again in discussions with dozens of scientists from the different countries who sought out the NASA people to explore ways of participating in the space program. In any cooperative project that might develop, the guidelines called for:

• Designation by each participating government of a central agency for the negotiation and supervision of joint activities;
• Agreement on specific projects rather than generalized programs;
• Acceptance of financial responsibility by each participating country for its own contributions to joint projects;
• Projects of mutual scientific interest;
• General publication of scientific results.

A decade later virtually the same guidelines were still in force.²⁰

Generally the guidelines were readily accepted. Only the third, calling for no exchange of funds, occasioned some expressions of dismay. Accustomed to being funded by the U.S. for a variety of things, some had hoped that they might be supported in space research by American dollars. But Dryden and Frutkin pointed out that a project in which a country was willing to invest some of its own money was more likely to be of genuine interest and value than one that was undertaken simply because someone else was willing to pay for it. In time the policy came to be accepted as natural and proper, and in fact one could sense-possibly because one wished to-a greater feeling of satisfaction and pride on the part of those who were paying their own way.

There was a decided difference between the East and the West in space cooperation. By far the greater part of NASA’s international program was between NASA and Western countries. While some cooperative projects were agreed upon between Blagonravov and Dryden, which were confirmed by the two governments, these were of very limited scope. Moreover, in Soviet-American cooperation during the 1960s it proved generally impossible to achieve the kind of openness and freedom necessary for more than arm’s length relations.

COOPERATION WITH WESTERN COUNTRIES

A sizable portion of NASA’s cooperative programs in the first decade-that is, programs with other countries in pursuit of common objectives, in contrast to activities like the operation of satellite tracking stations that were purely in support of NASA’s own program-was devoted to space science. The tacit recognition that this would be true can be seen in the guidelines cited earlier, which were oriented toward scientific projects. Under those guidelines, which were sufficiently flexible to admit of a broad range of endeavors, many different kinds of cooperative projects sprang up. A few examples will illustrate.

Sounding Rockets

Sounding rockets were a popular medium for entering into space science. They were inexpensive, handling and launching them was simple compared to the large launch vehicles, and they afforded the means for accomplishing some significant research. As more than a decade of research in the United States and the USSR had shown, sounding rockets could be used to attack problems of the atmosphere and ionosphere, the magnetosphere, solar physics and astronomy, cosmic rays and interplanetary physics, and biology. Supplementing the U.S. and Soviet ranges, including that at Fort Churchill in Canada, throughout the 1960s new sounding rocket ranges appeared around the world-at Woomera, Australia; Sardinia in the Mediterranean; Andöya, Norway; Jokkmokk, Kronogfird, and Kiruna, Sweden; Chamical, Argentina; Natal, Brazil; Hammaguir, Algeria; Kourou, French Guiana; Thumba, India; Sonmiani Beach, Pakistan; and Huelva, Spain.

At the same time NASA joined with other countries in a variety of cooperative rocket soundings, some from U.S. ranges, others from ranges overseas. For example, in Australia in the fall of 1961 ultraviolet-astronomy experiments used the British Skylark rocket to obtain data on the southern skies to compare with northern hemisphere data. During 1961 and 1962 NASA and the Italian Space Commission cooperated on a series of rocket firings in Sardinia to measure upper atmospheric winds by tracking glowing clouds of sodium vapor released at altitude from the rockets. Through out the 1960s and into the 1970s launchings at Andöya studied the aurora and also the ionosphere within and near the auroral zone. From time to time there were special expeditions, like that to Cassino, Brazil, in November 1966, in which 17 sounding rockets were fired to investigate solar x-rays and the effect of the solar eclipse of 12 November 1966 on the earth’s upper atmosphere. Occasionally ships were used, as with the solar eclipse expedition to a spot near Koroni, Greece, in May 1966. All in all, by the early 1970s some 19 countries spanning the globe had engaged with NASA in a productive program of sounding rocket research, much of which required the special geographic locations afforded by the different ranges.²¹

Ariel

Throughout the 1960s the United Kingdom also cooperated with the United States in conducting sounding rocket experiments at various locations around the world. But the scientific satellite exerted an even greater attraction than the sounding rocket, and the countries that could afford it quickly approached NASA with ideas for cooperative satellite projects. The United Kingdom was among the first to seek such cooperation, and the U.K. satellite Ariel 1 was the first international satellite that NASA put into orbit-on 26 April 1962.²² Every few years thereafter additional Ariels followed, the fourth going into orbit from the Western Test Range in California on 11 December 1971. In addition, British experimenters were successful in competing for space on U.S. satellites. By 1973, 13 British scientists had put experiments on Explorers; on solar, geophysical, and astronomical observatories; and on Nimbus weather satellites.²³

NASA’s association with the United Kingdom was typical of many of the international cooperative programs in that by and large the British experiments were primarily of interest to British scientists. The mutuality of interest was there, of course, and NASA considered the U.K. experiments to be a valuable supplement to U.S. space science. But the ionospheric research conducted in the Canadian satellites Alouette and Isis was more intimately related to the NASA program.

Alouette and Isis

For a time a race was on between Britain’s Ariel and Canada’s Alouette to see which would be the first in orbit. Ariel won, and Alouette 1 followed half a year later, going into a nearly polar orbit so that its revolution above the earth would bring it repeatedly in range of Canadian ground stations.²⁴ Once in orbit Alouette proceeded to establish a record (for its time) of 10 years of successful operation on orbit.

The major purpose of the Alouette experiments was to investigate the ionosphere, particularly by sounding the ionosphere from above. Following the experiments of Breit and Tuve in 1926,²⁵ ionospheric sounding had been made from the ground by sending pulsed signals upward and recording the returned signal on film as a function of time after the initial transmission. The effect of the ionosphere was to spread the reflected signal out in time, and from the shape of the returned signal one could estimate ionospheric heights and ionization intensities. But the uppermost regions of the ionosphere could not be sounded from the ground. Also, the complexities of the ionosphere often produced confusing signals, and experimenters hoped that soundings from above would help to resolve some of the ambiguities.

This important research lay at the heart of NASA’s plans for studying the ionosphere. Since the Canadians proposed to do it, NASA scientists proceeded to build their own ionospheric program around that of Canada. The Canadian work thus not merely supplemented, but actually supplanted research that NASA scientists would otherwise have done. In monetary terms the Canadian contribution to the ionospheric program freed some tens of millions of dollars that could be used on other projects. Moreover, the Canadian researchers working on Alouette added to the total competence of the ionospheric team.

Following a second Alouette in November of 1965, Canada and the United States moved on to Isis-International Satellite for Ionospheric Studies-an improved satellite that would carry the topside ionospheric sounders plus 8 to 10 additional experiments furnished by both Canadian and American scientists. The first Isis went aloft on 30 January 1969 into a polar orbit, the second on 31 March 1971 into a nearly polar orbit.

Pencil and Its Descendants

Cooperation with Japan was of an entirely different character from that with European nations. Although there were many meetings and much discussion about cooperation, it gradually became apparent that the Japanese were firmly committed, emotionally as well as politically, to developing a space capability for themselves. But the realization by NASA scientists that this commitment existed came only after extensive exchanges on various possibilities of working together. The first indication of possible interest in cooperative projects came from some exploratory discussions of William Nordberg and William Stroud of the Goddard Space Flight Center with Japanese scientists. The NASA scientists, who in their previous positions at the Army’s Signal Engineering Laboratories in New Jersey had pioneered the use of grenade explosions at high altitude to measure upper-atmosphere temperatures, had aroused the interest of Japanese scientists in the possibility of a joint program of atmospheric research using sounding rockets carrying grenades. But they had also left the impression that NASA might be willing to furnish funds to the Japanese for the work. NASA Headquarters was somewhat embarrassed, since the policy not to exchange funds on cooperative projects had already been established.

Since, however, there seemed to be considerable Japanese interest-above and beyond the grenade-rocket work-in the possibility of cooperating on space projects, the author visited Japan in May 1960 for a series of conversations with scientists and administrators. Professor Hideo Itokawa of the University of Tokyo showed some of the progress that had been made in developing Japanese sounding rockets. Starting with Pencil, a rocket about 30 cm long and 2.5 cm in diameter, and a miniature tiny roc launching range no bigger than some American back yards, the engineers had conducted horizontal firings, testing small-scale launchers, multistage combinations of Pencil, and techniques for separating stages during flight. From these exploratory tests engineers had gone on to larger rockets, which were being flown from a launching pad at Akita on the western coast facing the Sea of Japan. In step by step fashion, they planned to work up to the multistage Kappa, Lambda, and Mu rockets, some of which would eventually be capable of putting satellites into orbit. The first objective, however, was to produce a reliable high-altitude sounding rocket.²⁶

On the political side were extensive conversations with members of the Science and Technics Agency. Minister Nakasone, head of the agency, was most desirous of working out some kind of cooperative agreement, and it seemed as though a great deal of progress were being made.²⁷ Subsequent conversations with Professor Hatanaka, astronomer at the University of Tokyo, and other scientists, however, revealed that Japan was torn by internal strife between the Science and Technics Agency and the university community, which accorded its allegiance to the Ministry of Education.²⁸ It suddenly became apparent that NASA could easily find itself in the middle, and one wondered what could come of the talks with Nakasone and his people. As it happened, within weeks after the author had returned to Washington Prime Minister Kishi’s government fell, Nakasone was out, and negotiations with Japan were set back momentarily.

The talks, however, had cleared the air and NASA was in a much better position to understand the Japanese situation when delegations soon thereafter came to Washington. The groundwork had been laid in Tokyo for cooperating on some sounding rocket firings to compare results from American and Japanese ionospheric instruments, and an agreement was soon completed. The first firings took place at NASA’s Wallops Island facility in Virginia in April and May 1962, and continued in the autumns of 1963 and 1964.²⁹ Every few years thereafter the United States and Japan cooperated on rocket soundings, joint firings in 1968 and 1969 taking place from the Indian range at Thumba.

Although Japan might have gained something from a joint satellite project with the United States, Japan preferred to go it alone. Work continued on a Japanese launch vehicle, and on 11 February 1971 a Lambda multistage rocket successfully placed the 0hsumi satellite in orbit, making Japan the fourth nation-France had been the third-to orbit a satellite with its own launch vehicle.³⁰ The U.S. assisted in tracking 0hsumi and other Japanese satellites that followed in 1971 and 1972.³¹

San Marco

Italy also wished to launch its own satellites, but was willing to use an American launch vehicle for the purpose. Out of this desire Project San Marco was born. The project was conducted in three phases. In the first phase an Italian team, under the supervision of NASA engineers, became familiar with the Scout rocket by conducting suborbital launches from Wallops Island in April and August 1963. In the second phase the Italian team launched the satellite San Marco 1 on a Scout 15 December 1964, also from Wallops Island. For the third phase, the project moved to the coast of Kenya, where the Italians had constructed a launching pad on a towable platform of the kind used in drilling for oil beneath the ocean. Located on the equator, the San Marco platform was anchored off shore in the Indian Ocean. Here San Marco 2 went aloft 26 April 1967, and San Marco 3 24 April 1971, to investigate the atmosphere and ionosphere above the earth’s equator.³²

The San Marco platform had special value in making it possible to launch satellites directly into orbits above the earth’s equator. For this reason NASA requested use of the platform for launching a number of U.S. satellites. With costs reimbursed by NASA, Explorers 42, 45, and 48 were sent up from the platform in 1970, 1971, and 1972. The first of these, named Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom, produced exciting data on celestial x-ray sources.³³

Ground-Based Projects

Not all cooperative programs in space science involved direct participation in sounding rockets or spacecraft launches. Many countries cooperated in ground-based projects. A number of nations cooperated in ionospheric research by making observations from the ground, to be coordinated with satellite experiments. Twenty-seven foreign stations in 13 countries photographed GEOS and PAGEOS geodetic satellites to help improve the accuracy of geodetic results. France participated with NASA in analyzing data obtained by tracking French and U.S. geodetic satellites with lasers. Such ground-based cooperation was even more extensive in the applications area, where many countries undertook ground-based observations or the analysis and use of satellite data in meteorology, communications, and earth-resource surveys.³⁴

On the scientific side the outstanding example of this kind of cooperation has to be that associated with the analysis of samples of the moon obtained by the Apollo astronauts. In the United States hundreds of scientists turned their attention to deciphering from lunar samples and other Apollo data what could be learned about the moon and its origin and by inference about the earth. They were joined in these efforts by 89 principal investigators and more than 260 foreign coinvestigators from 19 different countries. The coinvestigators were associated with both foreign and American principal investigators. From 24 countries 97 foreign scientists took part in the lunar science conference held in Houston in January 1970; 90 from 16 countries attended the 1971 conference; and 108 from 15 countries plus the European Space Research Organization came to the third lunar science conference in 1972.³⁵

For a while the study of the lunar samples made the investigation of the moon and planets appear like the hottest field in science. It was a far cry from the 1950s, when a graduate student in astronomy who confessed to an interest in studying the planets was inviting disdain. The big change, of course, was the abundance of new data. Some idea of the extent of the change can be obtained by looking at the almost overwhelming mass of results published in the proceedings of the lunar science conferences.³⁶

THE SOVIET UNION

An entirely different climate surrounded the efforts of NASA to cooperate with the Soviet Union. In this case competition, born of the Cold War, went far beyond mere rivalry and militated against the free and open cooperation that was readily possible with Western countries. Moved by an inherent idealism, U.S. scientists thought of cooperation in space science as a good means for reducing tension between the two countries, whereas the more realistic Soviet scientists every so often would have to point out to their U.S. colleagues that it was the other way round. Intimate or large-scale cooperation would have to await the resolution of political difficulties.

Nevertheless, it was an American trait to cling to the idealistic approach, and scientists made persistent efforts to encourage exchanges with. the Soviet Union.³⁷ None of these overtures, however, bore any fruit until in February and March 1962 President Kennedy provided a basis-not a very firm one, but a basis nevertheless-for exploring more intimately ways in which to cooperate. In an exchange of letters with Nikita Khrushchev. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Kennedy expressed the hope that representatives of the two countries might meet at an early date to discuss ideas “for immediate projects of common action.”³⁸

Working mainly with the State Department, NASA assembled a long list of possibilities for cooperation. From that list four main proposals- cooperation in satellite meteorology, spacecraft tracking, studies of the earth’s magnetic field, and communications satellites-were selected and dispatched along with a number of other ideas to Khrushchev 7 March 1962. With uncharacteristic speed for the Russians, he replied within two weeks, furnishing a list of proposals and agreeing to a meeting of appropriate representatives to discuss the matter.³⁹ President Kennedy named Hugh Dryden, deputy administrator of NASA, as the U.S. delegate. The USSR was represented by Anatoly A. Blagonravov. Between 27 and 29 March 1962, exploratory talks were held in New York City. More definitive talks in Geneva-which went on in May and June simultaneously with, but outside of, meetings of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space-led to a draft agreement 8 June 1962.⁴⁰ After a period of review, both governments approved the agreement, and James Webb, administrator of NASA, and President Keldysh of the Soviet Academy of Sciences exchanged letters putting the agreement into effect on an agency-to-agency level. The initial agreement called for working together on three separate projects: (1) exchange of satellite weather data over a communications link to be set up between Washington and Moscow; (2) each country to launch a satellite instrumented with magnetometers to study the earth’s magnetic field during the International Years of the Quiet Sun beginning in 1965, coordinating their orbits and exchanging magnetic field data including those obtained from ground-based instruments; and (3) cooperative communications experiments using the next U.S. Echo satellite to be launched.⁴¹

Responding to a Soviet initiative in May 1964, a fourth project was added-to publish a book, prepared jointly, reviewing past Soviet and U.S. work in space biology and medicine, also giving some attention to future problems.⁴² There was, however, no Soviet response to a suggestion Kennedy had put forth in a 20 September 1963 speech at the United Nations that the two countries consider joining forces to put a man on the moon. In this case the Soviet negativism was matched by that of the U.S. Congress, which quickly made known its distaste for the idea.

To implement the program agreed to in 1962, Dryden and Blagonravov continued to meet, in Rome during March 1963 and in Geneva the following May. Appropriate working groups were established. But it should be emphasized that the joint efforts were not integrated projects; they did not require putting together joint teams for preparing hardware, conducting launchings, analyzing data, or any such arrangement that might adversely affect one program if the other country failed to perform. Instead the projects were coordinated; the two national programs proceeded separately, but were to be conducted in such a way as to facilitate cooperative tests, as with Echo, or the exchange of data and information, as with the meteorology and magnetic field projects.⁴³ The performance of the Soviet participants on these projects for many years is best described as indifferent.

The primary interest to space science lay the magnetic field studies and the book on space medicine and biology. In the magnetic field project a difficulty arose that was typical. American scientists considered it essential to the program to exchange data on the position of the satellites when measurements were taken. Otherwise, the field data could not be properly interpreted. But the Soviet Union consistently refused, shying away from providing any data that might reveal the capabilities of its electronic tracking equipment. The USSR had not, in fact, accepted another U.S. suggestion-to cooperate in the tracking of spacecraft. This difficulty also appeared to affect the communications project, in that finally the Soviet participants would agree only to receiving signals reflected to them from Echo, refusing to transmit any. Work on the book progressed exceedingly slowly, publication finally being achieved in 1975.

The difficulties that lay in the way of working with the Soviet Union in anything approaching the fashion of the cooperative projects with Western nations were formidable. Repeated frustrations led Arnold Frutkin in 1963 to prepare a set of internal NASA notes on Soviet deficiencies in their dealings with the Committee on Space Research. Frutkin listed eight ways in which the Soviet members appeared to be not forthcoming in their participation in COSPAR international activities: a lack of promised information on the Soviet sounding-rocket program; at one COSPAR meeting no papers on the sterilization of planetary probes, even though the Soviet Union had itself proposed that there be such a discussion; failure of Soviet members to attend the first two meetings of the COSPAR Consultative Group on Potentially Harmful Effects of Space Experiments; lack of any specific information on the Soviet Cosmos satellites; Soviet attempts to introduce political issues into COSPAR deliberations, e.g., nuclear testing; failure to provide information on radio tracking stations; and bypassing screening arrangements for papers to be presented at COSPAR. All of this Frutkin felt added up to a “retrogression in Soviet attitudes toward, and participation in, COSPAR.”⁴⁴

Two years later, in his book International Cooperation in Space,Frutkin moderated his assessment somewhat, noting modest progress and urging imaginative, aggressive efforts-tempered with a proper sense of realism-to “widen and deepen the cooperation which has already been won in the space field.”⁴⁵ In spite of this commendable positivism, Frutkin’s book brings out the stark contrast between the U.S. and Soviet space programs in openness and willingness to share with others. Frutkin once observed that he had written his book too early, a remark occasioned by the U.S.-Soviet cooperation of the 1970s, which included the joint docking mission of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. Certainly a book written in the late 1970s on U.S.-USSR cooperation on space projects would have many more positive elements to present than a book published in 1965. But there would also be a risk that the rockiness of the soil that had first to be tilled might be overlooked.

ESCALATION

Cooperation in space projects with the Western nations, while diverse and forthcoming, was nevertheless limited in scale. If it was true that a powerful benefit of the space program was to be gained from the management and conduct of large, complex projects, its Webb and French journalist J. J. Servan-Schreiber thought, these were benefits that other countries were not going to get from cooperation on individual experiments or even in the preparation of Explorer-class satellites. In December 1965 on the occasion of West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard’s visit to Washington, President Johnson, drawing on suggestions from NASA, invited European countries to pool their resources in a major spacecraft project as in advanced technological exercise of considerable scientific merit.⁴⁶ Following up on Johnson’s suggestion, Frutkin and the author went to Europe in February 1966 to begin discussions with European countries and the European Space Research Organization, exploring the possibility that these nations might find it to their advantage to step tip their space research to larger, more complex projects.

NASA suggested it spacecraft to send probes into the Jupiter atmosphere as the kind of project that was sufficiently advanced to task both management and industry and was bound to advance European technology in important ways. At the same time NASA emphasized that the Jupiter probe suggestion was only illustrative, and that other projects would serve the same purpose. Another possibility might be a solar probe to go very close to the sun to investigate magnetic fields and the interplanetary environment in the vicinity of our star. The NASA delegation spoke with groups from West Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the European Space Research Organization, beginning with scientists and government officials in Germany.⁴⁷ The reaction waits surprising.

Most of those spoken to found the projects fascinating, but showed skepticism about the ultimate usefulness of such projects for advancing technology. Representatives in England were disbelieving and quite cool to the idea. At a time when the nation wits having great economic troubles, leaders could not bring themselves to recommend investing in projects so far removed from immediate needs of the country. Throughout Europe one encountered the feeling that it would be better to invest directly in applications satellite projects that would have clearly foreseeable benefits. In fact, the NASA delegates encountered more than mere skepticism: Europeans believed that NASA was seeking additional financing for large- scale projects that Congress was no longer eager to support. While admitting that the financial aspect was an important consideration, the NASA representatives stated that both the U.S. and Europe would realize an important return on an investment in the kind of project proposed. But there was also suspicion that America was dangling the Jupiter probe in front of Europe to divert attention toward science and away from more practical projects like communications satellites.

More basic was European concern about dependence upon American technology. Both the European Space Research Organization and the European Launcher Development Organization had been formally established in March of 1964 after two years of intensive debate over the need of Europe to master the technology of space.⁴⁸ The principal purpose of these two organizations was to foster the development of technical know-how, ELDO especially to develop a sufficient launch capability to make Europe independent of the United States for a good number of its space missions. Europeans were, for example, convinced that the United States would not launch applications satellites for European countries if those satellites appeared to compete undesirably with U.S. industry-as communications satellites might do.

Only West Germany was interested in an expanded program with the United States, and out of these discussions came several cooperative projects, one of which was the solar probe Helios, intended to make magnetic field and other measurements within the orbit of Mercury. Costing Germany more than $100 million for the satellites, Helios was a sizable project, certainly well beyond the Explorer class in technological difficulty. As its share the United States provided the two launchings; required and furnished some of the experiments. The first Helios probe was launched toward the sun in December 1974.⁴⁹ Other than the German projects, little came of the 1966 overtures to Europe. The proposals had, however, started a serious train of thought toward larger, more demanding programs, so that when the third administrator of NASA, Thomas Paine, began to press for some sort of cooperation in the Space Shuttle project that was being debated in the United States, a more receptive climate prevailed.

The same questions had to be faced again that had arisen earlier, and those concerning communications satellites had acquired an even greater force because of intensified airing of differences in the communications satellite consortium, where European members felt that the United States was dominating the consortium to the disadvantage of Europe. But cooperation on a Space Shuttle project was of a different character from joining in a scientific project like sending a probe to Jupiter. The Shuttle offered the opportunity, to join in the development of a whole new technology, which in the view of the promoters would completely revolutionize space operations of the future, outdating and supplanting most of the expendable boosters used in the 1960s and 1970s.

After a long-drawn-out, careful assessment of values and costs, European countries in the European Space Research Organization, soon to give way to a new organization called the European Space Agency, agreed in September 1973 to develop a manned laboratory -Spacelab, originally called a sortie module in the United States-to be carried aboard the Space Shuttle.⁵⁰ In this fashion the increased cooperation with Western countries initially sought in 1966 came about. While the kind of cooperation on space experiments and satellite research that had gone on before would continue, it would be colored during the 1970s by Space Shuttle and Spacelab developments and was slated to be fundamentally modified when the new vehicles came into operational use in the 1980s.

On the Soviet side escalation came about in a different manner. In international circles the openness of the U.S. space program and America’s readiness to enter into a variety of cooperative endeavors came in for a good deal of favorable comment. NASA people could sense a strong pressure on the Soviet scientists to do the same, a pressure that at times the Soviet delegates to international meetings seemed to find uncomfortable. Still, very little changed, except possibly some of the Eastern bloc countries found it a little easier to get assignments to support the Soviet program with ground-based observations. Also, in 1967 France, under de Gaulle’s anti-U.S. leadership, managed to enter into a cooperation with the Soviet Union that went on for a number of years.⁵¹ But for the United States to accomplish more, once again a change in the political climate was a prerequisite. In the move toward detente, political overtures on the part of the Nixon administration set the stage for new agreements in the space field.

In April 1970, Administrator Paine talked in New York with Anatoly Blagonravov about the possibility of combined docking operations in space. The idea was picked up by President Handler of the U.S. Academy of Sciences and discussed in Moscow in June with Mstislav Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In a letter to Keldysh, 31 July 1970, Paine made the first formal proposal for exploration of the subject.⁵² Discussions were held in Moscow in October, and agreement was reached to work together to design compatible equipment for rendezvous and docking in space. Work got under way at once and, although the first plans did not specifically include actual missions, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project to carry out a docking in space eventually emerged.⁵³

While the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which was carried out in 1975, did include some scientific experiments, the project goes beyond the planned scope of this book. But in the climate established by the discussions on rendezvous and docking, it was possible to broaden the cooperative agreements arrived at between Dryden and Blagonravov a decade before. During January 1971, George Low, acting administrator of NASA after Paine resigned, met with Keldysh in Moscow to discuss further possibilities for cooperation. They agreed to exchange lunar surface samples and agreed on procedures for expanding earlier cooperative activities.⁵⁴ These Low-Keldysh agreements, as they came to be called, established a basis for increased cooperation between the two countries in both space science and applications. It remained to be seen whether the agreements would lead to further integrated undertakings, such as Apollo-Soyuz, or would continue to produce coordinated programs like the lunar sample exchanges.