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the negotiations for the next phase, which is the development utili- 

 zation phases, are going to be difficult and long, I suspect, is that 

 the principles governing use of the various facilities and their ap- 

 propriate role in the operation and management of some of the 

 Space Station activities and the crew of the Station and so on, those 

 are going to have to be elaborated and worked out. 



I don't think any partner, including ourselves, will sign up until 

 they feel satisfied that the benefits are commensurate with the 

 risks. 



Mr. Packard. In developing your agreement in your phase B 

 agreements — and I suppose the same question will proceed with 

 other phases in the future — have they been developed on a nation- 

 to-nation basis, or have they been a multinational agreement, and 

 will future agreements be on a case-by-case basis, or do you see us 

 moving in the direction of a multinational consortium that will re- 

 solve or develop all future agreements in terms of the Space Station 

 and other types of facilities that are multinational? 



Mr. Pedersen. Well, certainly on phase B and with respect to the 

 C-D-E negotiations, we will proceed on a bilateral basis. That is, 

 our agreement in phase B is NASA-Science and Technology Agency 

 of Japan, NASA-European Space Agency, which is, of course, a 

 multilateral organization but is treated for our purposes as a single 

 entity, and with Canada. 



There are several reasons for doing that, not the least of which 

 is, each agreement is a fairly tailored specific document with 

 regard to obligations, responsibilities, and so on, and there is a 

 great deal of uniqueness here in terms of the systems they are in- 

 terested in looking at, in terms of their differences, interestingly 

 enough, in such things as how each country approaches liability 

 and how each country approaches their funding process or proce- 

 dures and so on, and all of these need to be taken into account. 



So we have found that for simplicity and for keeping a good, 

 solid line of accountability and responsibility, which we believe is 

 extremely important in these projects, the bilateral agreements are 

 the best. At the same time, we are using many multilateral mecha- 

 nisms to facilitate the exchange of information and the sharing of 

 data necessary to make sure that we are all working toward a 

 common objective, and we have a number of multilateral groups, 

 regular meetings of these groups, to assure that we are all operat- 

 ing in the same way. 



I cannot look out too distant in the future and see whether some 

 time way out there, 20, 30, 40 years, whether the Space Station 

 evolves in such a way that international consortiums or interna- 

 tional management structures might be the rule of the day. But 

 certainly, in our current approach, we are proceeding on a bilateral 

 basis. 



Mr. Packard. Then NASA has become the prime coordinator 

 and actually the sponsor of the project, and they have developed 

 their bilateral arrangements and agreements with individual part- 

 ners, but they have still basically retained control as an umbrella 

 organization? 



Mr. Pedersen. Well, I think that is a rather fair depiction. In 

 terms of the overall for prime contractor of the international 

 effort, if I could use that term, clearly NASA is playing that role. 



