479 



Space- Age Europe 193 



while President Kennedy embarked on n hurried campaign for a global 

 commimications network. This first commercial application in space 

 was precisely the sort of enterprise in which Europeans hoped to 

 specialize, yet the United States moved so quickh that negotiations 

 ensued for an international telecommunications satellite consortium 

 long before the FAuopeans had any technical leverage whatever. 

 INTELSA r, foundecl by nineteen nations in 1961, fell under exclusive 

 American leadership. The United States controlled 61 percent of the 

 voting authority, and virtually 100 percent of the necessary technol- 

 ogy, and the U.S. COMSAT Corporation was the only entity in the 

 world capable of deploying and managing the global system. The 

 European Conference on Satellite Communications, formed to pro- 

 vide the Europeans with a united front in negotiations with the Amer- 

 ican giant, succeeded in making the INTELSAT accord temporary, 

 but for the time being the Americans had a monopoly. All contracts 

 necessarily went to U.S. firms, only NASA had the means to launch the 

 satellites, Americans managed the system (sometimes, it seemed, in the 

 interest of the American common carriers like AT&rT and IE T), and 

 NASA was told to refuse launch service for potentially competitive 

 foreign satellites.'^ 



After 1966 European parliaments began to grasp what EURO- 

 SPACE had understood from the beginning. The entry^cost to the 

 space market would be far higher than conceived in the sanguine 

 moments of 1962, and European space spending, to be effective and 

 politically acceptable, must be targeted narrowly on "practical" applica- 

 tions rather than basic science. ELDOs Europa booster, therefore, 

 underwent several upgrades, turning the low-orbit laimcher into one 

 capable of launching heavier payloads into geosynchronous orbit 

 22,000 miles above the earth. Confusion attending these redesigns, 

 made before Europa- 1 had achieved a single success, meant more delay 

 and waste. By 1969 ELDO had still not made a launch despite a budget 



'"On background and negotiation of tht INTELSAT Convention, see; Murray 

 L. Sthwarlz and Joseph M. (ioldsen, Foreign Partuipntwn iii CommunKatioivi Salellile 

 Systerm: Implications oftheCommunicatiom Satellite Act of 1962, RAND RM ;?484-R(: { I'Xil^); 

 U.S. (x)ngrcss, (^onimittee on (ioverninent Operations. Satellite Cimimunicatiotis, 88tli 

 Clong., 2d sess. ( 1964), pi. 2. pp. 6(H— 65; Jonathon F. (ialIov\a\ , I he Politics and Teclniology 

 of Satellite (^onimunicatiom (Lexington, Mass., 1972); Delbert I). Smith, ('.om»mincatio>is I'ln 

 Satellite: A Vision in Retrospect <Boston, 1976); Michael Kinsle\. Outer Space and Inner 

 Sanctums: Government, Business, and Satellite ('.ommuiucation (New N'ork. 197ti); I'.S. .Sen- 

 ate, International Cooperation and Organization for Outer Space, pp 1 1 7-20. ( )n the Kuio- 

 pean Conference on Satellite Communications, see Smith, Communnalions via Satellite. 

 pp. K?')— 4 I ; for European acc|uiescence in tempoiarv U.S. domination in hopes ol 

 gaining future influence over IN lELS.X 1", see L'.S. Clongiess, Satellite Counnuuiditiorn. 

 pt. I, p. 2H. 



