473 



Space- Age E u rope 1 8 7 



independence; and (4) priority of invention is self-perpetiiating. that 

 is, leading nations tend to increase their lead.'- 



How could France hope to compete if scale and priority were critical 

 in advanced technology? Many Europeans concluded that the ap- 

 propriate response to the technology gap was more vigorous integra- 

 tion. Only by pooling their resources and talent might Emopeans hope 

 to forestall U.S. hegemony. But this was not the GauUist conception. 

 France did not flee dependence on America only to become dependent 

 on a European melange. Rather, France's cooperative programs in 

 nuclear technology, space, and aviation (e.g., the SS'F) were fashioned 

 so as to draw on the resources of Others in the interest of her national 

 programs rather than to donate French expertise in the interest of 

 nuiltilateral progress. In space, as in Euratom, French contributions to 

 EiMope were a fraction of the efforts made at home. Cooperative 

 programs were of interest insofar as they channeled foreign funds, 

 ideas, and markets into a technology flow irrigating France's own 

 garden. 



The French Five- V'ear Plan for space, approved in 1 96 1 , made room 

 for cooperation with NASA and France's European partners, but the 

 announced goals of CNES were (1) to create a French technological 

 base capable of original experimentation in space and (2) to put French 

 industry in a favorable position vis-a-vis the competition certain to 

 develop in Europe. The first goal meant that France must not merely 

 duplicate, later and on a smaller scale, what the superpowers had done 

 but select technological targets of opportunity in which France might 

 someday compete. The second goal assumed eventual European inde- 

 pendence from the United States but that competition within Europe 

 would also obtain. Such goals demanded vigor, not only the world's 

 third largest space program but a precise strategy to guide it. 



"La methode assez frangai.se," according to Aubinicre, was to fix 

 objectives from the outset, then create the instrument needed to fulfill 

 them. Rather than hasten to "do something about space," letting ex- 

 isting institutions stumble forward, France shaped her institutions to 

 her goals. Aubiniere and Pierre Auger, scientific chief of CNES, 

 together forged an "infrastructure technique tres importante, ' a 

 government-industry-university team of the .sort James Webb and 

 NASA would .soon promote in America. In the early years the French 



'•'Midul DiiiiKourl, l.cs CIrs dr pmivoir (Paris, 19()4). I hcsc assuiiiplions hultrt-ssrd 

 NASA l)ii(l{;ctaiy appeals lluoiij^hout the HUiOsbut weiccliallciigtcl l>v American nil i(s 

 asi aiK as \[HV2. f'or tlie f^eneral Vrcuch .idhcrcucc lo lheu\, see Gi\pin. France in Ihe Age of 



iln Su.nhtn Sifilf. p|). :V2-7I. csp. pp. .")()- .57. 



