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U.S. -EUROPEAN COOPERATION IN SPACE SCIENCE 75 



continued to solicit European involvement in these programs even 

 when their approval by the President was very uncertain. Indeed, 

 within the United States NASA tried to use the prospect of cost sharing 

 with Europe as a selling point for approval of these programs. When 

 only the space shuttle remained as a potential program, NASA encour- 

 aged Europe to consider developing both components of the shuttle or- 

 biter and a separate major project, a reusable orbital transfer vehicle 

 called a "space tug." However, NASA was forced to withdraw these of- 

 fers at the last minute when the Air Force, whose support was needed 

 for shuttle approval, objected to European development of essential 

 elements of the Space Transportation System; when concerns regarding 

 excessive transfer of propulsion technology were raised; and when 

 some in NASA became concerned about the safety implications of plac- 

 ing a cryogenically fueled tug in the shuttle payload bay. Finally, NASA 

 offered Europe the comparatively simple and less expensive task of de- 

 veloping a "research and applications module" to fit into the shuttle 

 payload bay; this is what became the Spacelab project. 



By this time, Europeans were rather skeptical with respect to NASA 

 overtures, but they (particularly Germany) had also become so eager to 

 embark on manned flight activities that they agreed to develop the 

 Spacelab system under what in hindsight have been seen as unfavorable 

 terms; the first set of flight hardware, developed with European funds, 

 was to be transferred to NASA, and after an initial joint NASA-ESA 

 mission that included flying a European payload specialist, Europe was 

 to pay for future shuttle-Spacelab flights. NASA agreed to buy a second 

 set of flight hardware from Europe, but "a significant segment of the 

 European space community believes that the United States is getting the 

 lion's share of the benefits from Spacelab."^ 



European space officials have described themselves as "stupid" in ac- 

 cepting the U.S. terms for involvement in its post-Apollo program and 

 believe that such acceptance stemmed from lack of confidence in Euro- 

 pean capabilities and from a belief that only through cooperation with 

 the United States could those capabilities be improved. Now, having 

 brought both Spacelab and Ariane to success, Europe has much more 

 confidence in its ability to chart its own future in space and it will be a 

 more demanding participant in negotiations with the United States over 

 cooperative ventures. ^'^ 



European confidence in the United States as a cooperative partner 

 was shaken in the spring of 1981 when the United States announced, 

 without prior consultation with its European partners, that it was 

 canceling a U.S. spacecraft that was part of a two-spacecraft Interna- 

 tional Solar Polar Mission (ISPM). This withdrawal caused vigorous 



