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U.S. -European Cooperation 

 in Space Science 



A 25-Year Perspective 



John M. Logsdon 



In the 25 years that the United States has had a government space pro- 

 gram, international cooperation has been one of its major themes; an 

 objective of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which 

 was the charter for the civilian space program and which established the 

 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was 

 "cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of na- 

 tions in work done pursuant to the Act and in the peaceful applications 

 thereof."^ Armed with this legislative mandate, with presidential and 

 congressional support for a U.S. civilian space program that empha- 

 sized openness and scientific objectives, and with already existing pat- 

 terns of cooperation in space science, NASA has since its inception con- 

 ducted an active program of international partnership. 



In space perhaps more than in most areas of international science, it 

 has been the policies and initiatives of a government agency and its top 

 officials, rather than those of the scientific and technical community, 

 which have established the U.S. attitude toward cooperative undertak- 

 ings. Although NASA's international programs have involved the 

 Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, and various developing countries, its 

 primary cooperative partner has been Europe— both individual Euro- 

 pean countries and the various European space organizations that have 

 existed over the past two decades. Table 1 suggests the dominance of 

 U.S. -European interactions in the overall record of NASA's most im- 

 portant cooperative programs. 



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