The motives behind international collaboration on the International Space Station (ISS) highlight the advantages of cooperation. This was a political decision and a positive sign of USA interest in further human space exploration becoming a global undertaking. Each country deemed this field of science as worthy of pursuing as well as saw the potential for important technological development in industry.
Cooperation on the ISS can be seen as a means of closing gaps between nations. This project serves USA foreign policy and enhances relations by working together on an enormous challenge. Specifically, the Clinton administration linked its foreign policy goals of nonproliferation to having Russia join the project. The political decision to cooperate can be broken down into two advantages. First, by cooperating, the USA created a positive image in the international arena. Along similar lines, secondly, it strengthened the perception of USA openness to outside nations.
By pooling efforts, there would be savings on both human resources and financial means needed to tackle such a project. In seeking international cooperation, the USA expanded the investment for the ISS beyond that committed by one country alone. The international investment also improved the balance of trade. Financial contributions from international partners not only enhanced the scope of the station but also increased support with the USA administration and Congress. As far as overall monetary costs, cooperation typically increases the total cost. According to Johnson-Freese: A rule of thumb is that overall cost increases by about one-third due to management and interface expenses. Communication channels must be established; technical and legal teams assembled and exchanged, often for prolonged periods (all of the ISS partners have long had offices at Johnson Space Center); and hardware built to specifications compatible with other hardware, and transported. However, cooperative programs should also have greater capabilities, because more partners are contributing and the cost to individual countries to access those capabilities will be proportionally less.
Repetition in technological research, once a disadvantage for competing countries, is now an advantage in cooperation. There is an intellectual effort applied in scientific and technological objectives across the spectrum of the partners, increasing the chance of reaching an answer in less time. Instead of duplicating experiments in space, international scientists can develop different but complementary ones. These complementary experiments and objectives ensure that the international partners are contributing to a single goal. Also, allowing each country to provide technology in areas of its greatest experience and expertise led to a more rational division of station components and requirements. For example, the Canadians in robotics and the Russians in long-duration spaceflight.
The main overarching problem with the cooperation on the ISS was that it was not an even playing field for all involved. The USA had a dominant role in the program and therefore the other partners had to be dependent on the USA. This is evident in the decision to include Russia as a partner in the space station with little to no consult from Europe, Canada and Japan. With Russia and the USA in the senior role, the other countries had to settle for a junior position. Now there is the sole dependence on the Russians as far as getting to and from the ISS since the retirement on the USA space shuttle. Sole dependence on one country or another is not a goal that countries enter into lightly and requires trust on all sides.
From the start, there was the fundamental question related to space station cooperation of the nature of the partnership. The USA basic design had itself as the dominant financial and technical contributor. The wording of the IGA supported this authority: ―the United Sates, acting through NASA, shall also be responsible for overall program coordination and direction of the Space Station…[and] shall be responsible for overall system engineering and integration…[and] shall also be responsible for overall planning for and direction of the day-to-day operation of the manned base…. With this basic design, there was concern from both NASA and its international partners about maintaining the support that was needed to make this a successful venture, both politically and financially.
The ISS became an international program from the onset because of the scientific, technological, and financial challenges of building such a space station could only be assured success by pooling resources of other spacefaring nations. With such a monumental venture, the international cooperation on this program could set the stage for all future cooperation in space. If it were to fail, the consequences would be disastrous and more than likely the partners would not be willing to cooperate with the USA in major scientific projects for a while. Due to this, the actors trod the ground lightly and many lessons were learned along the way.
Despite its sometimes uncompromising attitude, the USA invitation to work with others on the ISS alleviated fears from other countries about the USA possibly monopolizing space. However, the other participants were not as keen with the USA being a dominant partner. There was concern of the stability of the program relying on one dominant partner being able to deliver what they promised at the risk of failure of the whole program. If the program had troubles, just having international commitment would not be able to sustain it. This initial problem could be fixed in the future by bringing in equal partners early, with the key word here being equal.With the ISS, other countries were invited at a much earlier stage of the program than in the past and influenced NASA‘s choices and understanding of the options related to their participation, but they were still treated as junior partners.
Another lesson learned comes from the desire of potential partners for a more specific and certain path for the future. A realistic analysis to sustain the partnership is required more than wishful thinking. This requires implementing structural mechanisms that are acceptable to all, specifically in the areas of a realistic timeline and not having to compete with other programs later on. As far as timelines, the USA focus needs to change and be more practical with shorter-term elements, based on a more concrete long-term plan. This venture was started in 1984 and, today, small adjustments are still being made.
International cooperation in the field of human space exploration was not a new concept with the ISS. The 1958 Space Act had the USA civilian space program, NASA, include international cooperation as its inception. However, with the ISS as the largest technical cooperation program yet, this was going to be more like a marathon then a sprint.
As with all major undertakings, whether cooperative in nature or not, there are advantages, disadvantages, and lessons learned. This major space undertaking was being used as a tool of USA policy and was not an easy task at that with the objective of a stable, congruent space station partnership. The ability shown to modify the ISS partnership in order to put it on a stable and sustainable path to success was a critical test to pass in order to proceed ahead. However, the addition of the Russians to the ISS partnership was a decision made by the USA unilaterally.
Roger D. Launius of the National Air and Space Museum writes about U.S. cooperation in space activities: ―if one were to characterize it accurately throughout the last fifty-plus years, the undeniable conclusion is that all 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. So what are the next steps in the human space exploration and what are the capabilities of other spacefaring countries?