International Cooperation in HUMAN Spaceflight:  Lessons Learned from Russian Participation in the International Space Station Project

by Bart L. Denny, March 2008 

The International Space Station (ISS) represents an unprecedented level of cooperation in manned spaceflight, serving as a dramatic example of how the nations of the world can meld technologically diverse systems and radically dissimilar political and managerial organizations in a complementary fashion.  The ISS is arguably a technological marvel, and international cooperation—particularly Russia’s involvement with the program—saved the station during the prolonged grounding of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in the wake of the 2003 Columbia accident.

            International cooperation has presented a number of challenges to the station, with many lessons learned in the course of building and operating the ISS.  Of particular interest are the political decisions that brought the Russians into a critical role, without which the station would be unable to operate. 

Russian participation in the project would prove problematic over the years, and critics might contend that, had the United States properly executed the station program, no foreign participant would have been in the station’s critical path; Russia would not have been required to keep the station afloat following Columbia.  What’s more, the ISS partners, particularly Europe and Japan, often saw the United States as a less-than-reliable senior partner, and Russia’s inclusion in the program exacerbated these tensions.

While Russian involvement in the ISS ostensibly saved the program following the Columbia accident, proper U.S. policy decisions could have mitigated much of the capability lost with the space shuttle’s grounding.  Had the U.S. pursued a different policy, Russia could have participated meaningfully in ISS without endangering the project.  Russian participation in ISS achieved few of the goals established by the administration of President William Clinton—namely, saving substantial time and money in fielding ISS, and in preventing international proliferation of Russian missile technology. 

Nonetheless, the U.S., Russia, and other ISS partners have substantially benefitted—but not as originally advertised by NASA and the Clinton Administration—from Russian partnership in the ISS project.  

The U.S. space program should continue international cooperation—with Russia and most other nations’ space programs—but the U.S. government should not try to “sell” such cooperation as a means to save money or time.  China has expressed interest in participating in the ISS project, and—with its indigenous manned space program—could certainly reach the level of expertise required to do so within short order.  The U.S.—and its ISS partner nations—should prepare to embark on just such a cooperative venture, taking advantage of lessons learned in previous U.S.-Russian cooperation in human spaceflight.

U.S. and Russian Space Stations Prior to ISS

            Russia entered the International Space Station program with, by far, the most experience in operating manned space stations with long-duration crews.  The Soviet Union launched its first space station, Salyut 1, in 1971, and by the time Russia joined ISS, that nation’s space program had inherited a Soviet heritage that had seen the manned operation of seven space stations serving both civilian and military roles.[1] 

With Mir, the penultimate in the line of Soviet space stations, the Russians gained experience in the building of modular space stations, operating for years in a continuously occupied mode.  The Russians also obtained an unmatched level of experience in long-duration spaceflights.  One cosmonaut, physician Valery Polyakov, even spent 14 months in space on a single mission.

The United States, on the other hand, operated Skylab—a large, rudimentary space station fabricated from a converted Saturn V upper stage and leftover Apollo hardware—with crews during 1973-1974.  Skylab showed great promise, but by the time it flew, the U.S. government had already deferred development of a permanent space station—ostensibly to first develop and bring to operational status the space shuttle that would service the orbital outpost.  Five years after its last crew left, Skylab made an uncontrolled reentry over Australia and the South Pacific.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan called on NASA to build a space station “within a decade.”[2]  The United States already had significant space partnerships with Europe, Japan, and Canada, and invited those space agencies to participate in the project.  NASA estimated the space station would not only be in orbit within Reagan’s decade directive, but that the project would cost $8 billion.[3] 

The space station design—dubbed “Freedom” during the 1980s—soon ballooned past original estimates of cost and initial capability date.  By the 1993 decision to include Russia, the project had already undergone numerous redesigns.  Many observers in Congress and industry believed that President William Clinton’s directive—soon after he came to office—to redesign the space station once again, was the project’s last chance for survival.[4]  Indeed the project narrowly escaped cancellation in Congress for several successive years in the 1990s.

The year 1993 found that not only was NASA’s space station program in disarray, but that Russia’s space program was near bankrupt.  American money and Russian expertise seemed to be a perfect match, and by the end of the year—following talks between U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. and Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin—Russia was a full partner in the space station program.[5]

The Russian contribution to the space station was to have included a U.S.-financed “Functional Cargo Block” (FGB), and Service Module—based on the Mir base block—to provide propulsion and living quarters, as well as airlocks.  As construction progressed, Russia intended to add two docking and science modules similar to the FGB, a tower of solar arrays (known as “Science Power Platform”), and a number of small research modules.  To date, the FGB, Service Module, and an airlock—called “Pirs”—form part of the ISS Russian segment.  A second FGB-type module should launch within the next two years. 

However, Russia has since cancelled Science Power Platform; the module relied on space shuttle to reach orbit, and the U.S. substantially scaled back the number of shuttle missions and announced its intention to end the program in the wake of the Columbia accident.  The addition of small research modules, while possible, seems questionable, as the Russian government has not appropriated funds nor has construction begun on any of these modules.

Given that the U.S. paid for FGB, construction on the spacecraft went along well.  The Service Module—an element critical to the new ISS from nearly the beginning of the station’s assembly—was another story.  The Russian Service Module proved the source of major turmoil in the early years of ISS construction.

NASA and the Russian Space Agency agreed to launch the FGB—which carried the moniker “Zarya,” or “Dawn,” in English—in November 1998, followed in December 1998 with the launch of a space shuttle carrying the “Unity” node, even though the Service Module was months away from being ready.  By August 1999, with the Service Module still on the ground, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) expressed its concern that NASA had not adequately developed a contingency plan to deal with non-performance by Russia and other international partners.[6]

Ultimately, Russia launched the Service Module—named Zvezda, Russian for “Star”—in late 1999, and after additional servicing flights by the shuttle, the station received its first expedition, comprised of two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. Navy SEAL in the fall of 2000.  Construction proceeded smoothly until late 2002, but came to an abrupt halt when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart on reentry on February 1, 2003.

Forced to rely solely upon Russian Soyuz crew transports and unmanned Progress resupply vehicles, the U.S. and Russia reduced the station’s crew to from three to two persons, essentially charged with keeping the station alive until the space shuttle could return to flight.  Ultimately, the space shuttle did return to flight in 2005—only to see NASA ground it again as soon as it launched. 

By mid-2006, shuttle flights became somewhat regular and, once again, space station construction again proceeded relatively smoothly.  Under current plans, NASA will complete the station and retire the space shuttle by the end of fiscal year 2010.

Lessons Learned

International partners with fundamentally different technical and political systems can cooperate meaningfully in space. 

The world’s space faring nations can provide many complementary capabilities.  Still, all partners must recognize the programmatic, political, and technical risks they are taking with such cooperation and develop reasonable expectations and mitigation measures in the case of nonperformance by any partner.

In spite of the risks involved, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment opined, including Russia in the space station project had the potential for increasing both the flexibility and capability of the project.  Presciently, the OTA noted that Russian participation “…also reduces the potential for space station failure resulting from the loss of a shuttle orbiter.”[7] 

In spite of the many problems along the way, the ISS serves as the single greatest example of meaningful cooperation in space, and the U.S. does have much to gain from such cooperation.  Russia’s human spaceflight program has fundamentally different design philosophies, based not only upon the different technologies available to the country, but by its long-held concentration in long duration space flight.

One example is how Russian cosmonauts have historically trained for extravehicular activities (EVA)—also known as “spacewalks”—as compared to their American counterparts.  U.S. astronauts train in a very task-oriented manner, specific to a particular EVA or set of spacewalks they will undertake on a given mission.  This works well for short-duration space shuttle missions.  The Russians, on the other hand, take a more general approach to spacewalking, training  cosmonauts in more general routine maintenance tasks, radioing up specific instructions during missions if that becomes necessary.  Russia’s approach has lent itself well to the long duration space station expeditions, where it is impossible to anticipate every possible task for which crewmembers may have to undertake an EVA.[8]

U.S. astronauts in shuttle missions have the details of their days planned to much more fidelity than do the Russians.  Again, these differing approaches serve each nation well; compared to a race, space shuttle missions are more of a sprint, while station expeditions equate to a marathon.  In space only a few weeks, space shuttle astronauts must pack every possible task into a very short time.  Such a hectic pace would burn out a space station crew long before their six-month tour ended.

The U.S. has gained more than an insight to Russian procedures in human spaceflight; such cooperation also extends to hardware and technology.  The docking device the U.S. shuttle uses to dock with the American segment of the space station is a Russian design, originally intended for use by Soviet Buran shuttles docking with the Mir and future Mir-2 stations.

As a rule, international cooperation in space saves neither time nor money.

In 1993, NASA and the Clinton Administration maintained that bringing the Russians into the space station project would save $4 billion and advance the station’s schedule by two years.  By April 1994, NASA told Congress that the savings was $1.5 billion and 15 months.[9]  That same year, GAO reported that Russian participation would add $1.8 billion to NASA’s costs, cancelling out the $1.5 in savings, and adding two space shuttle flights to an already crowded construction manifest.[10]  By 1998, NASA conceded that Russia’s participation had not only cancelled out any amount the agency hoped to save, but had also added $1 billion to the total cost by that point.[11]

            In its 1995 report, OTA predicted that NASA purchases of Russian goods and services would improve odds of Russia meeting its commitments to the International Space Station.[12]  This forecast was to prove partially correct.  The U.S. financed the Russian-built Zarya Functional Control Module, the first element of the space station placed in orbit, and Russia delivered the module essentially on time. 

While Russia financed the Zvezda Service Module—a spacecraft containing the living quarters required for crews to inhabit the ISS, as well as needed propulsion capability—the two-year delay in launching the spacecraft cost NASA hundreds of millions.  As a hedge against Russian failure to launch Zvezda, NASA built the “Interim Control Module”—a converted spy satellite spacecraft bus—at a cost of $200 million from the agency’s fiscal year 1997 space shuttle and space station accounts, and the cost of two space shuttle flights required to maintain the station while Russia finished Zvezda.[13]  Harland and Catchpole claim that each month the Service Module slipped cost NASA $120 million.[14]

            According to James Oberg, a noted expert on the Russian space program, “The (ISS) program’s fundamental structure leaves no alternative to paying the Russians as much as they demand for their support.”  Oberg claimed that –prior to the Columbia accident—NASA, when faced with choosing between Russian services or asking Congress for a years-long delay in the station and billions of dollars to develop independent crew return capability, “chose instead to do what they have practiced for half a decade:  hope for the best, hide from reality, and wait for miracles.”[15]

If the United States government chooses to undertake complex manned space stations with international partners—and this author believes it should—it should not “sell” Congress and the public on cost savings.  The technical, diplomatic, managerial, and bureaucratic complexity added to these projects by the participation of numerous countries invariably adds to the cost—and time—it takes to field the capability. 

When promoting international space projects, every concerned agency within the Executive Branch of the government—not only NASA—should tout the benefits to America’s space program, to its diplomatic agenda, and to the potential to open new markets for American industry, among others.  The U.S. government must maintain, and more effectively communicate, the “big picture” reasons for such undertakings.

International cooperation in space benefits the United States in important technical and foreign policy objectives, at least as much as it benefits NASA in added capability or cost-sharing.  The United States must realistically frame its expectations for cooperative efforts in space without advertising the project as a panacea for international relations.

By including Russia in the ISS project, the U.S. government hoped to score important foreign policy gains.  The NASA purchase of $650 million in goods and services from Russia during the fiscal years 1994 through 1997 was, essentially, the U.S. government’s attempt to buy Russian compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). 

This funding—linked to Russia’s observance of the MTCR—would ostensibly preserve employment for rocket engineers who might otherwise be building ballistic missile technology and components for export to countries with interests inimical to the U.S. and its allies.  The U.S. government largely overstated its contention that this cooperation would prevent Russian proliferation.

While many in Congress believe Russia has already violated the MTCR, and there is significant evidence to prove this is the case.[16]  The Clinton Administration sanctioned ten Russian organizations for providing missile technology to Iran, but neither the Russian Space Agency nor any major Russian ISS contractors were among those organizations.[17] 

According to Henry D. Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, the United States Congress enacted the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA), “when it became clear that Russia was not living up to this understanding, the nonproliferation requirements…nobody really thinks our intelligence agencies can give Russia a clean bill of health on Iranian missile proliferation.”[18]  The INA prevented NASA from making “extraordinary payments”—either in cash or in kind—to Russia for ISS services after January 1, 1999, unless Russia proved to the satisfaction of the President of the United States that it had not engaged in the transfer of missile or weapons of mass destruction-related systems to Iran.[19] 

The INA has never had much enforcement power; the law as originally passed allowed NASA to petition Congress for exceptions to the Act, particularly in the case of crew safety.  In the fall of 2005, Congress amended the Act to allow NASA to pay Russia for goods and services delivered through January 1, 2012.[20]

Perhaps a tacit admission of the ineffectiveness of the INA, Ambassador Steven Pifer, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, wrote to Congress in 2003 that, “it would be difficult to quantify the INA’s impact on the Russian government’s export control policy…Russian officials also regularly express their concern about the INA constraints.”[21]

Sokolski contends that gaining Russian compliance with the MTCR is a far more complex matter than keeping the country’s engineers and aerospace workers employed.  Far more than money, Sokolski testified to Congress, “it’s also the leverage it (proliferation) affords Russia with them (China or Iran) on a host of other diplomatic, trade, and security issues.”[22] 

Sokolski also told Congress that, for political and cultural reasons, Russia clings to a its oversized and outmoded space and missile industry, and believes that “cornering this illegitimate market might kept it from having to further downsize its space and missile sector.”  Sokolski further maintained that U.S. efforts to constrain the proliferation of Russian missile technology would remain hamstrung “until Russia’s space industry is downsized to accord with legitimate private and domestic military demand.”

In undertaking international projects, the United States must consider the consequences of unintentionally transferring dual-use technologies to partners who are, notionally, a military competitor or arms market producer.  Logsdon and Millar contend that, while there is some security risk in space cooperation with Russia, either in direct technology transfer, or in Russian researchers improving “the quality of their military research using insights gained from international cooperation in the civilian sector.”[23]

The U.S. House Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, also expressed its concern that the Russians—also eager to cooperate with China on a variety of space endeavors—might transfer U.S. technology to China.[24]  Russia is not the only conduit for technology transfer to China or other countries.

One committee witness, Mr. James Davis—president of the California Space Authority (CSA)—pointed to U.S. companies as a source of technology transfer, even if inadvertent.  “…it was exceedingly difficult as an industrialist to stay abreast of the law (International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR) and our approach to the law.  My company went to extraordinary lengths…to place some technology transfer control regimes…Sometimes it is a little hard to tell whether or not you are being completely compliant because those regulations are subject to some level of interpretation.”

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, pointed out during Davis’s technology that concerns with technology transfer to China go far beyond the added military capability that the Chinese might gain; China is an economic competitor, as well.  “(With China,) we are concerned about an American gyroscope, for example, that we spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing, ending up in the hands of the Communist Chinese for almost nothing,” said Rohrabacher.[25]

But Rohrabacher also suggested the U.S. could benefit economically from cooperating in space with Russia.  NASA’s Schumacher agreed with Rohrabacher and Davis, saying, “We have got [sic] a tremendous amount of benefit from the cooperation with Russia.”  Davis also felt that the insight the United States gained into the Russian space program—particularly in long duration human spaceflight—as a result of cooperating on the ISS program had been of benefit to the U.S.[26]

California Space Authority’s James Davis agreed, to an extent, pointing to the U.S. having gained Russian technology for rocket engines that outperformed their American counterparts in certain applications.  However, Davis expressed his concern that allowing Russia to compete for U.S. government funds in an already saturated aerospace market, where U.S. capacity is plentiful, risks placing the U.S. aerospace industrial base in danger.[27]

Overall, the U.S. has much to gain, both economically and diplomatically, by seeking clarity in ITAR and encouraging American companies to develop fruitful partnerships with companies—or design bureaus—in many nations.

John M. Logsdon, a leading space policy expert, believes the Russian participation in the station project has had a number of positive outcomes.  Logsdon also contends that Russia has contributed ideas to the program that improved the stations development and operation.  Called “Phase I” of the International Space Station, the U.S.-Russian Shuttle-Mir program provided the U.S. with valuable insight to the conduct of long duration space missions.

In the realm of foreign policy, Logsdon points to the Russian Space Agency’s leading role in exhorting Russian compliance with the MCTR and other international protocols.  Logsdon sees the U.S. call to Russia to take part in ISS as a nod of encouragement for the political and economic reforms then being undertaken by Russian President Boris Yeltsin—even though, in Logsdon’s estimation, the invitation failed to have as great an impact as the U.S. may have hoped.  Still, Logsdon admits, “Space cooperation is unlikely to influence the core interests that define the U.S.-Russian relationship,”[28]

Internationals space projects are only one tool in the America’s diplomatic arsenal.  Those directly involved with, or employed by, the U.S. space program would do well to remind themselves of this.  Likewise, all concerned parties within the U.S. government must make a more concerted effort to manage expectations across involved entities, including Congress, the Executive Branch, the American public, as well as both current and potential international partners themselves.

The United States should enter into international after assessing a potential partner nation’s ability to deliver upon its commitments independent of that nation’s “sales pitch” and should develop realistic expectations for the outcome of such cooperation.

As early as 1995, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) warned the U.S. Congress of a number of uncertainties in cooperating with Russia in space.  The top OTA concerns included not only the technical risks involved with melding the U.S. and Russian space programs, but also cited Russia’s unstable political and economic situation, instability in the Russian military, and cultural barriers.  The OTA further warned of the rampant crime and corruption inherent in the emerging Russian business world.[29] 

The OTA rightly pointed out that, while Russia possessed most of the former Soviet Union’s managerial and technical expertise.  However, significant former Soviet space capabilities reside within what are now separate nations outside of Russia—Ukraine and Kazakhstan, in particular.

Russia’s primary launch center—and the site of all manned launches—is in the heart of Kazakhstan, while Ukraine is a primary builder of launch vehicles—including the Zenit booster—and space components.  The OTA recommended the United States rely not only upon its relationship with Russia—leaving Russia to deal bilaterally with the now-independent nations of the former Soviet Union—but that America work to establish appropriate cooperative dealings in space with Ukraine and Kazakhstan.[30]

            While, geographically, Russia and the Soviet Union were not the same nation, neither was the Russian space program truly a continuation of the Soviet program under a different name.  However, the Russians essentially touted their space capabilities as precisely that, not admitting to NASA that the program was, by 1993, already running on Soviet strategic reserves. 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s space budget in 1993 was a mere tenth of the Soviet space budget in 1989.[31]  In retrospect, even the Soviet Union struggled to complete the Mir space station that Russia ultimately inherited, let alone bringing to fruition more grandiose plans for a space shuttle and the larger Mir-2 space station.[32] 

Russia had no prayer of ever realizing these projects, and the nation’s space sector was turning to the outside world for its very survival.  In spite of numerous warnings by OTA and the open press, NASA and the Clinton Administration both seem to have failed to realize—or blatantly ignored the fact—that the Russian space program was, by 1993, already in very dire straights.

Clearly, the United States government must do a better job of planning for the worst, even while hoping for the best.  When entering into new, high-risk, space-related cooperative agreements, the United States must have, from the outset, plans to complete any given project should the international partner’s contribution fail to materialize.

The United States should undertake only value-added projects with international partners; placing international partners in “critical path” roles endangers U.S. interests.

“Placing the Russian contribution in the critical path to completion,” stated the 1995 OTA report, “poses unprecedented programmatic and political risks.”[33]  The OTA warned that the U.S. should prudently plan for the Russians to not perform on their obligations, and prepare to deal patiently with Russian delays.  The OTA further urged station managers and Congress to improve their knowledge of how “larger political and economic forces,” would shape the Russians’ capacity to deliver upon Russian commitments.[34] 

The U.S. doesn’t seem to have fully learned this lesson, with only a few hundred million dollars committed to developing commercial alternatives to fill the gap between space shuttle and its replacement, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Russia’s ability to continue transporting crews and supplies to the ISS in the wake of the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident undoubtedly saved the space station.  Congress directed—upon the Clinton Administration’s 1993 decision to involve Russia in the space—that Russian contributions “should enhance and not enable the space station,” the Congressional Research Service offered in 2006 that “the current design…can only be viewed as being ‘enabled’ by Russian participation.”[35]

If Russia’s participation in ISS salvaged the program in the wake of the most recent space shuttle accident, that nation’s failure to deliver on its commitments early in the operational life of the station nearly damned the project. 

The original space station design gave up its propulsion module (derived from a reconnaissance satellite bus) in favor of the Russian segment.  The station would depend on the Russian segment—specifically the Service Module, derived from the Mir station’s core module—for propulsion when space shuttles were not attached to the station.  While Russia was to build FGB, the station’s first module, NASA funds paid for it, and construction proceeded smoothly.  Service Module represented the first station contribution both built and fully funded by Russia.

By 1995, NASA already understood that Russia would have trouble completing the Service Module on time and began to draw up plans to allow station construction to continue—albeit without a permanent crew—without the  Russian module.  These plans involved the development of the Interim Control Module.  As this paper has previously shown, planning for contingencies surrounding Russian contributions cost NASA hundreds of millions that might otherwise have been spent building indigenous U.S. capabilities.

In 2001, the George W. Bush Administration cancelled a U.S. Habitation Module, a large centrifuge module built in cooperation with Japan, and crew return vehicle—all of which the United States had already invested significant resources—in an effort to reign in the soaring costs of the space station.[36]  Effectively, this decision solidly positioned Russia as a critical member of the ISS project for the rest of the program.  There is validity to the argument that America sacrificed much of its own ISS capability in the long term to ensure Russia’s participation in the project in the near term.

The impending gap of five years or more between the space shuttle’s retirement and the introduction of NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle leaves the United States reliant upon Russia to transport American astronauts to the space station.[37]  According to the Washington Post, NASA’s budget includes $2.6 billion for transportation to the ISS between fiscal years 2009 and 2013—most of which will go to Russia under current planning.[38] 

According to NASA administrator Michael Griffin, the agency will sign a deal with Russia in early 2009 to double the rate of production of Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to accommodate six-person crews on the ISS.  NASA already pays the Russians for crew and cargo transport as part of a multi-year $780 million contract.[39]

“We will be dependent on the Russians, and that is terrible [sic] place for the United States to be,” the administrator admitted before a Senate Committee chaired by Senator Bill Nelson.  Griffin admitted that Russia’s partnership saved the station following the 2003 Columbia accident, but judged, “it is…unseemly, for the United States—the world’s leading power and leading space power—to be reduced to purchasing services like this.  It affects, in my view, how we are seen in the world, and not for the better.” [40]  In the same session, Griffin also testified that NASA could have Orion ready by 2013, if it received an additional $2 billion in funding.[41]

Political and policy contention aside, Russia’s contributions to the space station add value to the project.  Russia provides habitation, propulsion, airlock, crew transport and return, and logistics for the station.  Even if America had all of the same capabilities, Russia’s contributions to ISS would provide great redundancy.  Likewise, China’s Shenzhou—itself extremely similar to Russia’s Soyuz—could conceivably bring redundant capability to the station, either as a crew transport, or with laboratory space derived from the basic Shenzhou spacecraft.

While some strain exists between the two nations, U.S.-Russian relations remain acceptable, for now.  Russia’s economic situation is improving drastically, especially as that nation becomes awash in petroleum revenues.  Russian space station support vehicles remain available, and even if the U.S. winds up paying for those services, the price remains reasonable.  Still, circumstances could change, and the U.S. could find itself without access to ISS if, for any reason, Russian services become unavailable.

China now possesses the capability to place a man in orbit.  The Europeans and Japanese have mulled the idea of placing humans in orbit—independent of the U.S. or Russia—for years.  Even India appears as though it may enter the human spaceflight arena.  Any of these nations might someday provide viable alternatives or complements to Russian transport capability.  None will soon approach the technical experience level the United States enjoys in human spaceflight, however. 

Political fortunes can change dramatically within a short period.  It is, as well, a testimony to the fickle nature of politics that there remain people alive who remember when the U.S. warred with Japan and with Germany, a principle member of the European Space Agency.  Far more remember a time when Russia was America’s adversary in the Cold War. 

Even today, there is great worry that many of Russia’s hard-fought democratic gains are lost to an increasingly authoritarian regime.  In the 1970s, Iran went—virtually overnight—from America’s best friend in the Persian Gulf to its bitter enemy.  International ventures risk such turmoil, and the United States would best protect its interests in space by not depending on a foreign power for any necessary capability.

The United States must pay more attention to cultural, economic, and political differences between itself and future partners in manned spaceflight.  Partners without long histories of liberal, Western democracy and free-market economies will require patience, even if the potential partner is emerging as a free society.

In 1995, the OTA warned that, “The Russian institutions and legal system, developed under the Soviet regime and undergoing rapid change to fit the new situation, do not yet provide an appropriately stable business environment.”[42]  As a result, the OTA cautioned, there existed a strong potential for crime and corruption to hinder standard business affairs.[43]

By 1999, James Oberg debunked most of the purported benefits of Russian participation in the ISS.  In spite of the 1995 OTA warnings of Russian corruption, Oberg accused NASA of pretending to be surprised in 1999 when, he claimed, “the Russians overcharged for their services by several hundred percent…the evidence for corruption within the space industry is widespread.” [44]

According to Oberg, “Probably the greatest cost of this space partnership is the wasted opportunity to realistically engage the Russian space program for genuine long-term cooperation.”[45]

The OTA further cautioned that “Relative mutual unfamiliarity, mistrust, and the resulting additional programmatic uncertainty are the inevitable consequence of 30 years of enforced isolation of the two national space programs from one another.”[46]  The Soviet Union may have disappeared by the early nineties; however, engineers, managers, and diplomats alike—in both the U.S. and Russia—grew up with a Cold War mentality and long-held notions sometimes take decades to fade.

“The Russians are very proud, by their nature, can be very suspicious, even of one another, and secretive.  Their cultural behaviors and motives can create uncertainty as to what they are doing, as to whether what they are doing is or not in the interest of the U.S.,” Robert M. Davis testified to the House Subcommittee on Space, in 2003.  “…the Russians are tough, able competitors who have their own needs to satisfy and will invariably do so... that said, Russians can be quite trustworthy.”[47]

Throughout the 1990s, many sources in the Russian government repeatedly expressed their desire to honor the nation’s commitments to the ISS.  Even taking these statements at face value, the Clinton Administration and NASA should have given far more consideration to the fact that Russia had no practical experience with democracy or free market economic systems.  While it seems that, intellectually, the U.S. government understood the challenges Russia faced, its strategy to mitigate Russian nonperformance was both reactionary and incomplete.  Further, the U.S. government often reacted in a surprised manner when Russia faced difficulty in meeting its promises.

The United States must accept the risk inherent in human spaceflight collaboration with nations at extreme cultural and political odds with its own society; however, America must accept, up front the inherent difficulty of such cooperation on projects already technically challenging in their own right.

Conclusion

While international cooperation in human spaceflight poses voluminous technical, programmatic, and financial risks, the United States should continue to pursue opportunities for increasingly complex missions with many nations.  Such projects provide a very visible symbol of friendship between the U.S. and its partners, and can bolster the national pride of nations involved.

The U.S. government must undertake large-scale international collaboration in human spaceflight with a united voice across all agencies holding a stake in the project; NASA cannot be the only advocate for cooperative human spaceflight projects.  With this single voice, the U.S. government must advance credible expectations for the project, and continuously market the project to the Congress, the media, and the public at large.  All stakeholders within the U.S. government must enact a credible mitigation plan, able to counteract nonperformance by any international partner. 

Keeping international partners out of the critical path of human spaceflight projects will allow the United States to adopt a stance of patience with its partners.  Operating from such a position will allow the U.S. to show goodwill and serve more effectively as a mentor to emerging space powers.

Just as importantly, the United States government must do a far better job in understanding the mentality and culture of its international partners in space.  America must more effectively overcome communication barriers and ensure that its international partners share a common set of expectations for the outcome of human spaceflight projects.  Finally, those directly involved with the space program must understand that their efforts, while important, are only one implement in America’s larger foreign policy.

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