Sky & Telescope January 1989 [antikvár]

FOCAL POINTCooperation in Space: The Real WorldWE'VE BEEN HEARING a lot about international cooperation in space. Carl Sagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have urged joint American-Soviet flights to Mars. Others are calling on all spacefaring nations to band together for a "mission to planet Earth" to study our world from space. Last September agreements governing international participation in the space station Freedom were finalized after three years of negotiation. In addition, preparations are under way for the International Space Year in 1992.Why should nations cooperate in space? It is not just a fuzzy-minded expression of goodwill. The civilian space agenda has become heavy with plans for marvelous but expensive projects like space stations, Moon bases, Mars missions, outer-planet explorers, and giant orbiting observatories. Even the United States recognizes that it cannot afford everything desirable and technologically feasible. The national space policy adopted by the Reagan administration last year says, for the first time, that space leadership does not require us to be first in every area of space activity.Space power is becoming decentralized. Just 20 years ago the United States and the Soviet Union were the only significant players. Now they have been joined by Western Europe, China, Japan, India, and Israel. Other countries, such as Brazil, are also working on their own rockets and satellites. These new members of the "space club" can make real contributions toward shared goals in Earth orbit and beyond.We could have decided to build the space station Freedom on our own, but it would have been smaller and less capable than the complex now envisioned. By including the Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians, we guarantee ourselves the world's premier orbiting laboratory.Cooperation also can increase the scientific and technical returns from space projects, both by bringing more minds and abilities to bear and by increasing our access to data and information. For example, the United States played only a supporting role in the missions to Halley's comet, yet U. S. scientists got a rich harvest of data from other nations' spacecraft. A similar arrangement exists for the Soviet Phobos mission to Mars.In some cases cooperation enables us toreduce duplication of effort and to agree on a division of labor. There is no better example than Earth observation, which will see the deployment of impressive capabilities during the next five years by the United States, Western Europe, Japan, India, and probably the Soviet Union. A network of coordinating mechanisms already exists, and cooperation is likely to intensify in the 1990's.At the same time, there are real-world limitations on international cooperation in space. The most important is the desire for autonomy in space, a stated goal of both the Europeans and the Japanese.Then there is the oft-cited concern about technology transfer, not only for traditional national-security reasons, but also because of growing worry about American technological and economic competitiveness. Consider the Soviet and Chinese offers to launch U. S. satellites: they represent not space cooperation, but heavily subsidized competition to Western commercial launch services.Another limitation is political change, both domestic and international, which can undermine cooperative arrangements. Finally, there is the more subtle problem of learning how to manage large multinational projects. Freedom, the largest collaborative science and technology venture in history, will give us an important experience base.While attractive in many respects, the proposal for a joint American-Soviet human mission to Mars stands on political shifting sands: the ups and downs of relations between the two countries. It may be better to conduct parallel or complementary space missions, as is already being done under the 1987 Ameri-can-Soviet space cooperation agreement.At the Moscow summit last year, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev agreed that we would fly each other's instruments on both nations' spacecraft. They also agreed to exchange studies of future robotic solar system missions to assess the prospects for cooperation (see page 10). The robotic exploration of Mars could provide a testing ground for complementary missions that would not leave one side stranded if the other side pulled out. But if we need the direct participation of other nations to send astronauts to Mars or to construct a Moon base, it would be more practical to build on the space station partnership.Other areas of space activity call out for joint missions or a sensible global division of labor. They could make the 1990's the landmark decade for international space cooperation. We should approach that decade with a sharp eye for opportunities and a realistic appreciation of the promise and limitations of teamwork in space.International space cooperation will not transform world politics overnight. But it will speed advances in space science, planetary exploration, and the expansion of human presence and activity into the solar system.We need to be cleverer and more thoughtful to make this work. An America sophisticated in leading international cooperative efforts will be an America better equipped for space leadership.MICHAEL A. G. MICHAUDThe author directs the Office of Advanced Technology at the U. S. Department of State. His book Reaching for the High Frontier woi reviewed on page 507 o/ Sky & Telescope for May, 1987. The views expressed in this essay do nor necessarily represent those of the State Department.4 Sky & Telescope, January. 1989