Soviet Space Cooperation
Soviet Attitude Toward International Cooperation in Space *
SPACE COOPERATION: AN IMPERATIVE IN THE PRESENT
ERA
COMMITMENTS IN ACCORD
AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE FOR SPACE ACTIVITIES
* Prepared by Joseph G. Whelan, Senior Specialist in International Affairs, Senior Specialists Division, CRS.
Space cooperation, at least on a selective basis, has become imperative in the present era. Once the sole concern of the superpowers, space now commands varying degrees of attention by virtually all nations in what has become an ever-expanding universe of space activity. The pacesetters of space exploration, the United States and the Soviet Union, have now been joined by such new-comers as the members of ERA, Russia's allies in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere in the Communist bloc, China, Japan, and India. And with the application of space systems to such variegated enterprises as communications, meteorology, the study of Earth resources, and oceanography, there is perhaps no nation in the world today that is not in some way affected by—indeed, that has not benefitted from—some aspect of space science and space exploration. 1 In some way space has touched the lives of all humanity.
Thus, Mr. Arnold Frutkin, NASA's Assistant Administrator for International Affairs and longtime participant in international space cooperation, could conclude in 1978:
* * * international space activity is a constantly growing and highly rewarding activity—not only as the political and human intangibles may be concerned but in the hard areas of economics, agency programs, science and technology. Without question, we are getting increasingly substantial inputs to our national programs through cooperative projects as well as reimbursable arrangements. (2)
NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch could forecast:
In the international area, the 1980's offer the promise of additional opportunities
for beneficial space cooperation with other countries. Many of the countries which entered space activities in the 1960's and 1970's have maturing capabilities and interests which continue to make them attractive potential partners on major projects—such as in planetary exploration—projects which might not otherwise be possible for NASA to fund. Moreover, developing countries which took limited notice of space a decade ago are increasingly interested and are seeking opportunities to participate in and share the benefits of space activity. (3)
And Mr. Kenneth S. Pedersen, Director of International Affairs in NASA's Office of External Relations, could predict, with some assurance:
* * * Entering a new decade, we appear to have arrived at an important juncture in space activities. What was once the special preserve of two nations is in some sense within reach of many. More foreign countries, including developing nations, use and gain benefits from space than ever before.
Foreign governments are increasing their investments in space and putting more emphasis on systematic long-range planning. As a result, they are more capable, useful partners, and more challenging competitors. (4)
Frutkin, Frosch, and Pedersen were speaking from the American perspective, but Soviet space officials could say very much the same thing. .
For, given the expanding activity in space exploration and the growing demands for sharing in its benefits and costs, the spread of space cooperation globally is fast becoming a reality—indeed, a natural function—of international life. Thus Frosch observed:
Perhaps the most profound effect of the space program has been the rapidly spreading realization that the human race is one body traveling through space on the same earthship. Thus it is natural that our national civilian space program is becoming ever more international in character. (5)
Less poetically, Jaroslav Kozesnik, President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, expressed the same sentiment at the 28th International Astronautical Congress (IAF) meeting in Prague:
Space research becomes one of the important front lines of the scientific and technological revolution. However, owing to its complexity . . . scope and costs, it is not accessible to individual countries with the exception of superpowers. Therefore, international cooperation in the exploration of space gets naturally and inevitably on the agenda. (6)
SOVIET COMMITMENT TO COOPERATION
This expanding universe of space activity creates conditions that foster cooperation, and the two major space powers, realizing its political, economic, and scientific value, have long shared a common commitment to international space cooperation. Since the beginning of the Space Age, the Soviet Union has been committed to the principle of international cooperation in space. (7) This principle has been routinely proclaimed by the party leaders, space scientists, cosmonauts, and writers on space. Party programs, the highest declaration of official Soviet intent, aptly contain pledges of space cooperation.8 In international forums, such as the United Nations and the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), Soviet representatives have reiterated their support for this principle. And in bilateral relations space cooperation has been featured prominently by Soviet leaders as a mechanism for solidifying friendship and expressing peaceful intent.
But the movement from principle to performance has been slow in coming. Resistance to cooperation, particularly with the United States, was manifested early in the Space Age when scoring propaganda points against the capitalist West dominated the Soviet approach to space. Gradually, with the growing maturity of the Soviets in space, combined with favorable improvements in the strategic balance and an increased awareness of its real worth, politically, economically, and scientifically, this negative tendency gave way to a greater appreciation of the value of space cooperation.
Thus, Academician Y. Fyodorov, like the U.S. space officials noted above, recognized the reality that, "International cooperation in all ... areas of outer space exploration and exploitation is gaining in scope and intensity." (9)
And Kapitonov, acknowledging this reality, could correctly give this description of growing Soviet involvement in space cooperation:
The Soviet Union cooperates with many countries in space exploration, and this cooperation takes various forms. Joint stations for the optical monitoring of artificial earth satellites are sited on the territory of 17 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Soviet Union has been involved in major joint programmes for the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes with France, the United States, India, and Sweden.
"under international detente," Leonid Brezhnev said, "mutually beneficial scientific and technical contacts with the countries of a different social system have successfully developed, too. The cooperation with these countries covers a wide range of spheres: agriculture, transport, medicine, environmental protection, nuclear power industry, cosmic phenomena, and much else. (10)
The U.S.S.R. and the other socialist community countries have greatly contributed to the use of scientific and technical achievements in space research and to promoting world peace for the benefit of humanity. (10)
The Soviet Union has thus been committed to the principle of space cooperation, and as this chapter will demonstrate, by the onset of the 1980's it had moved a long way from principle and rhetoric to solid performance within a limited number of partners.(11) But it must be clear at the outset that relatively few programs in the Soviet space effort are cooperative in nature, at least in the same sense as those carried on in the West. And like the Americans the Soviets maintain a substantial military space effort.
U.S. COMMITMENT TO COOPERATION
The U.S. commitment to space cooperation, like that of the Soviet's, was also made at the dawn of the Space Age. This commitment, mandated in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, became the law of the land. (12)
In carrying out this legislative mandate NASA has sought to combine the constructive contributions of other countries with the objectives of the U.S. space program. The result has been to establish common objectives between the United States and its cooperative partners. On this basis, according to NASA Administrator Frosch,
NASA has cooperated formally with more than 30 countries in structured programs, such as the launching of foreign-built satellites, the flight of foreign experiments in our spacecraft and the development of major systems. We have had ground-based research and other types of association with scientists in more than 100 countries over the past 20 years. (13)
Prospects for the expansion of cooperative arrangements improved during the 1970's with increased aerospace capabilities, and accordingly with the allocation of greater resources to space in Europe, Canada, and Japan. This development confirmed the persistently optimistic outlook that the United States has maintained on the future of space cooperation. As Frosch observed:
* * * the prospects are good. The history of cooperation is substantial; the benefits derived by all countries have been widespread and tangible. The United States and its foreign partners benefit in many ways from cooperation, * * * and we hope to go on cooperating in meaningful and substantive ways in the future. We have no preconceived notion of the form or the content of possible cooperation. The door is open to any reasonable proposal that a foreign nation wishes to offer. (14)
SPACE COOPERATION IN AN INTERDEPENDENT WORLD
Both the Soviet Union and the United States are thus committed to the principle of space cooperation even if the cooperation is selective and competitive. Both have developed extensive international arrangements for cooperation, though the range of Soviet cooperation is overall rather limited in scope involving relatively few countries in comparison to the U.S. cooperative programs. Both are committed to the continuation of such arrangements and to an international agenda—"naturally and inevitably," as the Czech scientist said. For the reality of an expanding universe of space activity imposes upon them the necessity of cooperation, producing in both commitments in accord.
Hence the authors of the Congressional Research Service study on World-Wide Space Activities not only stated a simple truth but also could have spoken as much for the Soviets as for the Americans when they said: "One thing this study makes clear: Our Nation's future space activities will be intertwined with the future space activities of the other nations of the world." (15)
In the complex interdependent world of the 1980's the future space activities of the Soviet Union in many of its international aspects will be intertwined with those of other nations of the world, and most important with those of the United States.
PURPOSE AND DESIGN
The purpose of this chapter is briefly to throw some light on the Soviet attitude toward international space cooperation during the years 1976-80. No history of Soviet space cooperation is presented here but rather an attempt is made, through the examination of the Soviet experience as revealed in Soviet and Western sources, to suggest at best the Soviet attitude toward cooperation. Space cooperation has become so extensive, embracing so many countries and international institutions, that the enormity of the subject imposes on the researcher modest goals and should impose on the reader modest expectations.
Bilateral Soviet-American relations in space are examined in some detail in a later section. As the pacesetters in space exploration and the predominant powers on the international scene, the United States and the Soviet Union invariably affect the entire international system within which space cooperation takes place. Experience of the past bears out the generalization that in times of detente and easing of international pressures, space cooperation between the superpowers flourishes; in times of tension and cold war, cooperation deteriorates. Politics, in brief, is the thing: It determines the limits of space cooperation.
Other areas of Soviet space cooperation are examined later on. Soviet cooperation with their Interkosmos allies through the Interkosmos organization was extensive during the period under review. Cooperation among Communist nations, except for China, was highlighted by the inclusion of East European, Mongolian, Vietnamese, and Cuban cosmonauts in the Salyut-Soyuz missions. Cooperation with France, initiated by DeGaulle in the 1960's, was expanded appreciably. And cooperation with India was extended to a higher stage as India progressed in the development of its own space systems. These areas of cooperation, along with Soviet activities in other countries, are examined in varying degrees of detail, depending upon the extent of cooperation and the amount of data available. Soviet cooperation in the United Nations and other international organizations such as the IAF are only touched upon, no more than to indicate that the Soviets are active in these institutions and that sometimes they play an important role.
Generalizations drawn from the foregoing data are presented in a later section. An attempt is made here to extract some meaning from this experience of 5 years in Soviet space cooperation, emphasizing particularly those elements that can determine success or failure and suggest the future direction of Soviet space policy.
References:
A. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80, SUPPORTING VEHICLES AND LAUNCH VEHICLES, POLITICAL GOALS AND PURPOSES, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACE, ADMINISTRATION, RE-SOURCE BURDEN, FUTURE OUTLOOK PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF HON. BOB PACKWOOD, Chairman, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, Part 1, Dec. 1982.
1. For an appreciation of the expansion of space activities internationally, see, U.S. Congress, House Committee on Science and Technology. World-Wide Space Activities. Prepared for the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications by the Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. 95th Cong., 2d sess. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977. 607 pp. (House Doc. No. 95-352).
2. U.S. Congress. Committee on Science and Technology. Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications. Hearings. 1978 NASA Authorization. 95th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977, vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 79.
3. Dr Frosch went on to enumerate the numerous international activities NASA had underway See U S Congress. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space. Hearings. NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1981, 96th Cong., 2d sess. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980, pt. 2, pp. 866-867
4. Ibid., pt. 3, p. 1649
5. US 'Congress, House Committee on Science and Technology. Hearings. 1980 NASA Authorization. 96th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979, vol. 1, pt. 2. pp. 540-541.
6. Harford, James J. Space Roles for the Less than Superpowers: Report on the 28th International Astronautical Congress, Prague. Astronautics and Aeronautics, vol. 15 December 1977: 18. "All large programs are becoming international," said H. Cunen, head of Frances Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (ONES), at the opening forum of the Congress. This has the disadvantage of limiting competition, but it permits more countries to participate in space. Cunen speculated, "We can fight the St. Matthew effect—the poor get poorer and the rich get richer—if we organize more programs like Spacelab, which offer integrated standardized payloads, making it easier for small countries to get involved."
7. V. Kapitonov offered this perspective in concluding an article on Soviet space cooperation: The Soviet Union, actively engaged in the study of space, has consistently advocated broad international cooperation in this sphere. The Soviet Union's invariable stand is that space should serve peace. On Apr. 12, 1961, the memorable day on which man first went up into space these noteworthy sentiments were voiced by Moscow for the whole globe to hear: 'We regard the victories in the exploration of apace as an achievement not only of our own people, but of all mankind. We are happy to place them at the service of all nations, for the sake of progress, the happiness and well being of all men on Earth." (Kapitonov, V. International Cooperation in Space. International Affairs [ Moscow], No. 5, May 1977:83.)
8. The "Basic Guidelines for the Economic and Social Development of the U.S.S.R. for 1981-85 and for the Period Through 1990," approved at the 26th Party Congress in February-March 1981, contained the following statement on the Soviet commitment to the peaceful conquest of space: Proceeding from the principles of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems and from the need to strengthen relaxation of international tension, stable, mutually beneficial trade economic, scientific and technological relations are to be maintained with the capitalist countries which show interest in cooperating with the Soviet Union. There is to be a continuation of the fulfillment of existing agreements and the conclusion of new ones in the field of implementing large-scale projects in the fuel, metallurgical and chemical industries and in other sectors of the national economy. Other ways are to be sought for developing cooperation with these countries. An active part is to be taken in the resolution of international problems in the sphere of raw materials, fuel and power, food, environmental protection, the peaceful conquest of space, the utilization of the resources of the world's oceans and the improvement, on a just and equitable basis, of international economic relations." (Moscow Pravda in Russian Mar 5 1981, pp. 1-7, in FBIS Daily Report: Soviet Union, vol. 3, supp. 010, Mar. 10, 1981, pp. 46-47. Italics added.)
9. Fyodorov went on to record the Soviet Union's extensive involvement in space cooperation both on a bilateral and multilateral basis. (Fyodorov, Y. The Use of Outer Space and Interests of Nations. International Affairs [ Moscow], No. 7, July 1978- 14)
10. Kapitonov, International Cooperation in Space, p. 83.
11. Periodically, the Soviet journal International Affairs publishes a chronicle summarizing their space activities, including joint ventures with other states. See, for example. International Affairs, vol. 7, July 1980: 134-135.
12. For a discussion of the evolution of the U.S. approach to space cooperation, see, Marcia D. Smith. Basis for International Cooperation in Space. In, House Science and Technology Committee, World-Wide Space Activities, 1977, Ch. 6, pp. 485-499. For an appreciation of the extent of U.S. cooperation with other nations, see the tables reproduced on pp. 490-495.
13. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Science and Technology. Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications. International Space Activities. Hearings. 95th Cong. 2d sess Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978, p. 224.
14. Ibid., p. 228.
15. House Science and Technology Committee, World-Wide Space Activities, 1977, p. 1.
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