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U.S. -EUROPEAN COOPERATION IN SPACE SCIENCE 73 



carried through to the current day, but, as one top-level participant has 

 commented, "when resources abound and opportunities are plentiful, a 

 cooperative attitude abounds. . . . When the resources and oppor- 

 tunities shrink, . . . altruism takes a back seat and . . . scientists take a 

 more selfish view of cooperation."^^ 



Several factors have influenced the evolution of U.S. -European space 

 cooperation in the 1970-1983 period. In no particular order of impor- 

 tance they are: 



1. A shrinkage in the NASA budget overall in the post-Apollo era; 

 the space science budget came under particular pressure as the share of 

 overall resources going to shuttle development increased. This meant 

 fewer science missions and more competition among U.S. scientists to 

 get their experiments on the missions which were approved. 



2. A broadening of NASA's international program to encourage Eu- 

 ropean participation, not only in science missions, but also in develop- 

 ing large space systems including manned space flight elements. 



3. The evolution of the 11-member European Space Agency (ESA), 

 founded in 1975, into an effective entity that has carried out a successful 

 science program of its own and has managed several space applications 

 projects and two major hardware development programs, Spacelab and 

 Ariane. The national space programs of France, Germany, Italy, the 

 Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, each with differing emphases, 

 are also vigorous. 



4. More recently, growing concern in the United States that coopera- 

 tive undertakings in space, including space science, could serve as 

 vehicles for unwanted transfer of militarily or economically sensitive 

 U.S. technology to other countries. 



While Europe has continued to cooperate with the United States, it 

 has also become a formidable competitor in various categories of space 

 applications and in some fields of space science. Europe is now a very 

 capable actor in space, and it could become more difficult for the United 

 States to develop cooperative projects on its preferred terms. While the 

 United States remains the partner of choice for ESA and individual Eu- 

 ropean countries, existing and potential cooperation with the Soviet 

 Union and Japan provides an alternative. There is now the possibility of 

 a global division of labor and cost in space science, and this makes the 

 task of planning and getting agreement for major space science projects 

 both challenging and full of opportunities. 



There has been over time an undercurrent of ambivalence among 

 U.S. space scientists and NASA managers about European involvement 

 in NASA missions, whatever the stated policy. For one thing, "always 

 the U.S. side was slightly constrained by fear that foreign collaborators 



