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collaboration have been specific and detailed. On April 1, 

 1985, the Japanese government committed to a $70 M budget for 

 the start of their "Geotail" satellite. ESA is ready to proceed 

 with two missions, SOHO and Cluster, at a budget of $U00 M for 

 spacecraft and launch plus $150 M for instrumentation. The 

 estimated cost of the 3 NASA missions is now $639M. Details of 

 the Soviet plan are not firm but they have identified five high 

 altitude (2Re) polar orbiting missions, and 2 satellites in 

 highly elliptical orbits (25 Re) • 



This magnificant array of spaceships would tour the earth's 

 outer space environment in a highly coordinated way to answer 

 the most fundamental problems of sun-earth interactions. 

 Unfortunately, the United States is already well behind the 

 agreed upon schedule and a suspicion is growing abroad that, 

 just as in the ISPM, we will default on our promises for the 

 ISTP. In the event that we fail to bring in ISTP as a new start 

 in 1987, it is hard to believe that our foreign colleagues in 

 science will consider us credible partners. The interest in 

 solar-terrestrial physics in Japan, Europe and the Soviet Union 

 is very high. The U.S. may find itself on the sidelines when 

 the rest of the world is strongly united in a great cooperative 

 effort, if we do not show more definite commitment. 



The 25th anniversary of the IGY in 1983 was the occasion for 

 a retrospective examination of its accomplishments in many 

 scientific forums. It occurred to me and other scientists that 



