The idea of international cooperation regarding space exploration was not a new concept that came out of the 1970s détente era. NASA was created with this in mind. The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which formed NASA had a clause that mandated this new space agency to engage in ―cooperation…with other nations and groups of nations.
Early attempts at cooperation include U.S.-European collaboration with Spacelab, while Canada was commissioned to construct the Remote Manipulator System, or Canadarm, on the shuttle. Known as the ―handshake in space, the Apollo-Soyuz Test was the first international manned spaceflight. This mission occurred in July 1975 and its success enhanced space relations between the U.S. and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR), which would eventually lead to future cooperation on the International Space Station(ISS). Following this mission, President Ford of USA predicted ―the day is not far off when space missions made possible by this first joint effort will be more or less commonplace.
Therefore, when discussion of building a space station began in the late 1970s, there was motivation to build it cooperatively due in part to the Space Act and previous cooperation attempts as well as cost concerns. In President Reagan‘s State of the Union Address on January 25, 1984, he made it abundantly clear that building a space station was the next great step in space and that it could not be done without international support.
A space station will permit quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, in metals, and in lifesaving medicines which could be manufactured only in space. We want our friends to help us meet these challenges and share in their benefits. NASA will invite other countries to participate so we can strengthen peace, build prosperity, and expand freedom for all who share our goals.
This invitation was not given or taken lightly, and the groundwork was already in place thanks to initial meetings. Accordingly, during the late spring to early summer of 1985, Canada, Japan and Europe (under ESA) formally agreed to partner with the U.S. in what is now the most extensive international technical project ever undertaken.
If we go through the historical background process, well before President Reagan‘s invitation and decree to build a space station, NASA had been setting the framework. In the post-Apollo era, it became evident that the major human spaceflight efforts were all now being considered as international partnerships, and the U.S. did alter its approach to cooperation to one that involved real participation instead of just data exchange and launch services. There were concerns on how sophisticated other spacefaring nations were and therefore whether or not to provide them access to sensitive or proprietary technology which then might be used to compete with the U.S.A. Even with these concerns, NASA asked Europe, Canada, Japan, (and much later the Russians) to participate in this new space era.
A permanent human presence in space with a station was perceived as the next logical step. In a change from earlier policy, NASA involved potential partners at a very early stage in the program. This early involvement allowed these potential partners‘ inputs to help influence NASA as well as aid it in understanding from the beginning what their roles would be. As early as 1982, representatives from Europe, Canada, and Japan were called together for a status update and a discussion of potential participation. There would be negotiations about long-term use as well as hardware development. Nowhere was it mentioned about who would manage the station.
The reason there was no mention of who would manage the space station was that NASA had already taken on this role by decreeing that the U.S. would develop a space station capable of functioning on its own. This meant that operationally, right from the start, Europe, Japan and Canada had to accept a junior role and become dependent on the U.S.A. However, the original principles declared that all station elements would be open to all participants with no jurisdiction issues. The decision to proceed by the international community was taken on the belief that because of the presidentially initiated invitation to cooperate, this program would have to have the political and financial support required for mutual success.
In late spring and early summer of 1985, the original potential partners (Europe, Canada and Japan) for this space station entered into three Memoranda of Understanding(MOU). The MOUs were to be the framework for cooperation as far as detailing the technical aspects as well as the managerial arrangements of the partnership. However, the MOUs were not as binding of a commitment as the potential international partners wanted from the U.S.A. Yet, on that basis on September 29, 1988, the parties reached a 30-year Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) for the space station. Europe, Canada, and Japan treated the IGA as a treaty. On the other hand, the U.S.A. Congress did not formally commit to any of the provisions in the IGA. Due to this, there was no means to force the U.S.A to honour its commitments in the MOUs or IGA if funding was not provided by Congress.
The Europeans were split on their decision to press forward with the U.S.A. They wanted to be a partner in this endeavour in order to have more of a voice in the management of the station and a guarantee that the U.S. would not back out. But there were also those in Europe that wanted a longer-term policy of developing their own autonomous capabilities. This hesitation can be traced back to the Europeans‘ previous displeasure with the outcome of its Symphonie satellite. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) is an organization ―whose main objective is to provide a commercial basis, the space segment‘ for international public telecommunications services. Originally, the U.S.A. Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) had 61% of the system with Europe only having 30.5%. The
Franco-German designed Symphonie was seen as a threat to INTELSAT and as Europe did not have a launcher of its own, it had to agree that Symphonie would only be used for experimental and not commercial purposes in order for the Americans to launch it. This led to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) decision to develop the Ariane launcher family in July 1973, so as to no longer have to rely on another country for launch capabilities.
Ultimately, Europe entered into the space station negotiations with less than full faith in the partnership‘s set of conditions for cooperation. European Space Agency(ESA) would contribute three elements to the space station, together known as the Columbus program. These elements were a permanently attached pressurized module (APM), a polar platform, and a man-tended free flyer (MTFF), capable of autonomous operation for periods of six months or longer.
Like European Space Agency (ESA), Japan planned to contribute multiple elements. The purpose of its elements involved scientific research in the fields of microgravity and materials processing. The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), nicknamed Kibo, would consist of a logistics module, a pressurized research module, and an exposed section. Based on its partnership, Japan intended to have a permanent Japanese presence in space, hoping to always have a Japanese astronaut as one of the six member permanent crew originally planned.
Canada was called on again for its advanced robotics. Unlike the other partners, Canada would not be contributing a module. Its contribution was the system that would assemble all the modules together to form the station, called the Mobile Servicing System(MSS). The Mobile Servicing System(MSS) consists of a long robotic arm used for the construction (known as the Canadarm2), a two-armed robotic handyman used for maintenance (known as Dextre), and the Mobile Base used as a work platform (which moves on rails and can be used for storage).
But the early 1990s were laden with problems, funding being the main contributor. The partners were falling behind schedule and over budget, repeatedly forcing design downsizing. The design was too complicated. It was too heavy. It provided too little power. The political commitment in the U.S.A was weak. Due to all of this, the timeline and the design for the ISS constantly had to be rewritten. With all the rewrites, it became apparent that the budget allocated for the construction of the station was inadequate.
When Bill Clinton, Ex-President Of U.S.A. took office in January 1993, he was advised to cancel the space station program because it was over budget and behind schedule. As Dan Goldin, NASA Administrator, recalled ―Panetta [President Clinton‘s budget director] told me that the President campaigned on the economy, we have to cut the budget, and the space station solves the problem. Goldin sought alternatives to cancellation, with one solution being an invitation to the Russians to join the program. The Soviet Union had dissolved in December 1991 and the new government was no longer communist. But the Russians were in a similar situation with its Mir-2 space station. With the Russian’s experience, having them join the space station program would save time and money. In an interview in May 1993, the chief manager of the Mir-2 project, Leonid Gorshkov commented ―When space budgets are being reduced around the world, even the richest country would have trouble financing its space program. Coordinated implementation of Freedom and Mir 2 could help to reduce the financial burden on all of their participants and increase the efficiency of future stations.
However, there were caveats before the Russians became official partners. Former President Of U.S.A. Clinton did not cancel the space station program because Dan Goldin linked the space station with Clinton‘s foreign policy of preventing Russian scientists from proliferating weapons to U.S.A. enemies. President Clinton was more interested in the non-proliferation impacts of a Russian-U.S.A. space project. On July 16, 1993, a Russian delegation in Washington signed two agreements. The first was that Russia agreed not to transfer cryogenic technology to India. The second agreement was to adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regime. In exchange, Russia would be permitted to conduct eight commercial launches of American-made satellites as well as be paid $400 million for specific space cooperation activities. This would symbolize a new post-Cold War and post-Soviet relationship with Russia. As Susan Eisenhower describes it:
―Nonproliferation has been an important but silent‘ success of space cooperation…The decision to engage the Russians assured the employment of countless rocket engineers in this cooperation eliminating the temptation to sell their services of their expertise to regimes hostile to the United States Of America ….
Therefore in the winter of 1993, in order to save both programs, the United States invited Russia to join the original partners. A single space station became the developmental plan with the Russian inclusion and the modules from Europe and Japan, thus changing the name from Freedom to the ISS. In his State of the Union address on January 25, 1994, Clinton Former President Of U.S.A. highlighted international space cooperation by saying―This is a promising moment. Instead of building weapons in space, Russian scientists will help us build the International Space Station.
But Russia becoming a full partner in the space station program was a decision made without consultation to the original partners. In March 1993, the international partners were represented on the Station Redesign Team authorized by the Clinton administration. Their report was that ―new opportunities for Russian participants should be considered as well as ―consideration may be given to greater use of…the Russian Mir space station. After that, it was not until October 1993 that they were formally informed about the intention to invite Russia to join. Europeans took this as the U.S.A. attempting to undermine their capabilities. Japan, wanting to ease U.S.A criticism of its trade surplus, supported the decision. The partners were reassured that 75 percent of the hardware designed for Freedom would still be used. However, it became very evident that the U.S.A. and Russia were now the senior partners, much to the chagrin of the other original partners.
Five years later, in November 1998, Russia launched the first module for the station program into space aboard a Proton rocket. The Russian-built Zarya control module became the first segment of the ISS to orbit, 14 years after the space station program was first announced in 1984. At the turn of the century, the first occupying crew arrived.
But with each new U.S. president, there was anticipation and anxiety over what the new administration‘s space policy concerning the ISS would be, specifically for the international partners. On January 14, 2004, President George Bush introduced his Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). With this vision, there would have to be a new cooperative approach to human space exploration in order to pursue ―the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Once again, funding became a concern, for the station already had a tight budget and now would have to compete with President Bush‘s vision. There was fear that the ISS would become victim to the new priority of the human spaceflight vision. According to Johnson-Freese, the money would ―come through retiring the shuttle in 2010 and limiting ISS use to only tasks related to returning to the moon, freeing up money previously planned for those programs. On the other hand, this vision was also met with some jealousy from other space agencies that once again human spaceflight had jumped to the forefront of the U.S. president‘s agenda.
At the end of 2005, the international players in the ISS no longer had to fear when the budget decision was finally made to complete assembly on the ISS before retiring the space shuttle in 2010, therefore maintaining the U.S. commitment to the project. But, in 2006, the ISS assembly plan was significantly reduced to 16 flights and revised to stop the conduct of research on the ISS after 2016. The international partners, specifically Russia and Japan, made it clear that they wished to operate the ISS facilities well after 2016. In January 2009, there was the worry again that a new president and administration might once again amend the ISS assembly and usage plan significantly.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama‘s ideas about space policy appeared to change drastically, perhaps reflecting his own steep learning curve on the subject. Originally, in November 2007, Obama‘s plan was to cut NASA‘s budget over the next five years in order to fund his early education initiative. This led to questions about the future of NASA‘s Constellation program or the continued use of the ISS if Obama were to win the election. In 2008, Obama published a white paper to clarify his space policy entitled ―Advancing the Frontiers of Space Exploration. In this paper, he announced his ―goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars. In addition, the paper also included accelerating the shuttle‘s successor and completing the ISS with the potential of use beyond 2016. While on that time, the only question became, if Obama was elected president, would he implement this policy?
President Obama commissioned Norman Augustine, former Lockheed Martin CEO and Chairman, to lead a committee of space experts in the spring of 2009 to research viable options for the path ahead in the human spaceflight program. The Commission was entitled ―Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, but was commonly known as the Augustine Commission. While waiting for the Augustine Report, the debate still continued on whether the Constellation Program—with Ares 1 and 5 along with Orion—or an expendable shuttle-derived rocket would be the shuttle‘s replacement. Either way, it was speculated that the technology was here but the political will or ―economic vitality was debatable. Augustine said ―I think money probably is going to be the deciding factor of what one can afford to do—more so than technology.
October 2009, the Augustine Report was published, giving five options for the way ahead.
The first two options presented were within the constraints that President Obama had given the committee in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Budget. Sally Ride, a member of the committee, said: ―This budget is just simply not friendly to exploration (…). It‘s very difficult to find an exploration scenario that actually fits within this very restrictive
budget guidance. Therefore, the committee came up with the remaining three options with fewer constraints. It appeared the committee was leaning toward Option 5, the Flexible Plan. This plan would include NASA working more with other nations and U.S. commercial assets. Augustine stated ―We very much like the deep space option (…). It‘s…doable and viable. The conclusion of the report indicated that if the human space program had more stringent budgetary constraints, then the U.S. would have to set lower, less grand goals with the potential of losing its lead in space. The report also indicated that NASA needed to be able to manage itself and get back to the reason it was created: technological developments and research in new concepts instead of being ―its own supplier.
A few months after the Augustine Report, President Obama‘s FY 2011 budget cancelled the Constellation Program. The Russians publicly backed Obama‘s cancellation of the Constellation, as he committed the United States to operate the ISS through 2020, paying for it partly through savings from the Constellation program. Constellation was officially terminated on June 10, 2011.
Instead of the moon, Former President Obama has set his sights on sending human space exploration farther into the inner solar system and to asteroids. His ―bold new space policy indicated the need for international cooperation ―more than ever and focuses on―tapping commercial industry. The extended U.S.A. commitment to the ISS, the Constellation program‘s cut, and the space shuttle‘s last flight on July 8, 2011 have made international cooperation even more crucial, with the sole means of getting to the ISS now being Russian rockets.
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