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such projects require tradeoffs between costs and benefits to oneself 

 and between benefits to oneself and benefits to others. 



Big ticket items in nuclear, space, or seabed research — indeed, all 

 sharing or transfer of technology, equipment, capital, ideas, or 

 management skills— fall into this category. Such competitive coop- 

 eration is perceived both as discretionary and as a potential give- 

 away. 



The pros and cons of such big-ticket cooperation are well treated 

 in the OTA studies on "Civilian Space Stations" and "Competition 

 and Cooperation in Civilian Space Activities," for which I was 

 happy to serve as an advisor. 



We tend to take for granted the diplomatic, scientific, and fiscal 

 value of cooperation in big science. President Kennedy said, "Let 

 us do the big things together," and proponents have touted interna- 

 tional cooperation in space, for example, as a cement for alliances 

 or detente, or a moral substitute for arms races, or a force for 

 global integration. 



Yet such hopes have often proven unrealistic, both in domestic 

 and foreign policy. When the Communications Satellite Act of 1962 

 was debated. Senators protested the giveaway to private industry 

 of technology developed at taxpayer expense. How much more 

 would taxpayers of any country protest the transfer of critical tech- 

 nology to a foreign nation? When JFK made that appeal to the So- 

 viets for a joint moon landing, Congress amended the NASA appro- 

 priations bill in such a way as to prevent it. 



Similarly, big-ticket scientific cooperation meets roadblocks in 

 foreign policy. It is justified as a diplomatic tool and a means of 

 sharing the heavy financial burden involved. But that first justifi- 

 cation rests on the alarmist assumption that our allies might 

 weaken Western unity if we did not cooperate, implying an allied 

 policy of spite, if not blackmail. 



The second justification, sharing of costs, assumes that 5 percent 

 or so in cost savings to the United States is not outweighed by the 

 5 percent of contracts lost to American industry, the 5 percent of 

 lab time surrendered to foreign experimenters, and the incalcula- 

 ble price of technology transfer. It is not clear that cooperation is 

 politically or financially worth the trouble. 



My article on the European Space Program, which I deposited 

 with the staff, describes the strategies of competitive cooperation 

 adopted by France and Europe after Sputnik and the vigorous 

 American response. 



President de Gaulle initiated a crash program to break the U.S. 

 monopoly in nuclear, space, and computer technology, and prevent 

 Europe from becoming a technological backwater. To this end, he 

 restructured the French economy, quintupled spending on R&D, 

 and sought cooperation with other European countries and with 

 NASA. . _^ 



But French cooperative programs were shrewdly designed to 

 channel foreign funds, ideas, and markets into a technology flow 

 irrigating France's own garden. The French took whatever the 

 United States would give them in satellite design, solar cells, te- 

 lemetry, systems integration, and so forth, giving them a leg up on 

 their European competitors. They also promoted European re- 

 search for space boosters and satellites, but always spent many 



