ARTICLE IN PRESS

0265-9646/$ - se

doi:10.1016/j.sp

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Dr. Gibson at

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Space Policy 23 (2007) 155–158

www.elsevier.com/locate/spacepol

The history of international space programmes$

Roy Gibson

Residence les Hesperides, 51 Allee Jean de Beins, 34000 Montpellier, France

Available online 2 August 2007

Abstract

In reviewing the past 50 years of international space cooperation, much of it stunningly successful, some bedevilled by difficulties, the

author notes that ‘space’ can now only be understood as a complex area of widely varied sectors, further complicated by different

funding sources and dual-use activities. While scientists were the initial drivers of cooperation, their flourishing programmes risk losing

government funding to the grandiose manned missions being envisaged. Such funding is strongly reliant on political will rather than on

the merits of any particular programme, something that, until recently with the GEO, has been particularly evident in earth observations.

A major problem has been countries’ efforts to secure some minor national advantage at the expense of the bigger picture. But for

international space cooperation truly to benefit humanity, a greater acceptance of working for the common good and more efficient

programme management (no duplication) will be required.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

There is an understandable tendency when celebratinganniversaries such as the 50th year of the Space Age tobecome self-congratulatory. What has been achieved overthe past half-century certainly deserves congratulations ofthe highest order, but I ask readers to take this as said, andto allow me a personal view of some of the reasons both forour successes in international cooperation, and for some ofour less glorious moments. I hope these reflections arerelevant to our future cooperative endeavours in space.

The word ‘space’ is commonly used to embrace thewhole gamut of human activities, which has developedaround rockets and satellites. It is, however, no longeradequate for anything more than superficial comment, andfor any half-way serious analysis one needs to differentiatebetween the various sectors-scientific satellites, telecommu-nication satellites, manned space, launchers, etc. Super-imposed over these sectors are the differences introducedby funding from private as opposed to public sources. And,of course, a further complicating factor is the omnipresenceof military, or defence, space programmes (some of whichalso benefit from international cooperation) and where

e front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

acepol.2007.06.010

slightly edited version of the presentation made by

the IAF celebration of 50 Years of the Space Age, held

eadquarters, Paris on 21 March 2007.

ess: roy.gibson@numericable.fr

there are some rather patchy moves towards dual-usedevelopments. The whole makes a very complex area ofhuman activity, and it could be argued that the word‘space’ has lost much of its utility as a classifier.Let me therefore briefly look at the various sectors.

1. Scientific satellites

I start with scientific satellites because our scientistfriends—in most parts of the world—were the majordrivers for developing space activities, and for internationalcooperation. We in Europe owe a lot to a few fanatics whopersuaded politicians that it was worth putting governmentmoney into their scientific projects; first by financing thehitchhiking of their experiments on other people’s satel-lites, and later through the development of Europe’s ownsatellites. The space science community (or communities,because they are not always monolithic in their interests)has managed virtually everywhere to secure a modest butregular share of available governmental funding. No oneneeds reminding of the breathtaking successes that havebeen achieved—many of them through internationalcooperation of one sort or another.Apart from the absence of dependence on private sector

funding, perhaps one of the secrets of the space scientists’

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success has been their ability to organise themselves toshow governments, and other controllers of the pursestrings, that their results would be a useful contribution tooverall science and that their projects did not jeopardisenational commercial or other interests. Provided that theyare not too expensive, these same characteristics shouldenable scientific programmes, particularly those involvinginternational cooperation, to continue to flourish, profitingfrom technological developments largely paid for by othersectors of the space domain, and always provided thatgovernment funding for them is not eroded by the appetitesof the mammoth manned and exploration programmeswhich have appeared on the scene in the second half of thecentury we are looking at.

The extensions from scientific satellites to manned spaceflight, space laboratories and exploration all benefited fromsubstantial international cooperation. Sometimes thatcooperation has been offered more to help assurecontinued national funding than because of any real needor desire for foreign expertise or financial contribution.Whatever the motives, this participation in complex andcostly programmes undoubtedly allowed Europe (and bythat I include both space agencies and the industry) tomake giant steps in space technology and in the art ofmanaging large programmes.

(If I may open a parenthesis, it is worth noting that thecreation of the European Space Agency (ESA) was itself asignificant exercise in international cooperation. One of thedeclared objects was to reduce the enormous differences inthe industrial capacities of its member states and, surpris-ingly enough, there was a good deal of altruism in the air inthe 1960s and early 1970s. In a modest way, ESA helped inthe construction of the European Union).

Coming back to manned space programmes and themore ambitious exploration programmes: because of thelarge amounts of money involved, these giant programmesinevitably necessitate a strong political involvement—notonly in the initial decision, but during the lifetime of theprogramme. This in turn means that these programmesoften overshadow the more modest funding requirementsof other space sectors, and they have on more than oneoccasion purloined the funding for smaller, innocent,cooperative programmes. Armed with top-level (if some-times not very well informed) political support, these largeprogrammes tend to push other candidates away from thefunding table over an extended period. Moreover, becauseit is difficult for space agencies and industry to create andmanage a political space project, they are not alwaysconducted in the most efficient way. We see thisphenomenon in current large multinational programmes,where political pressures result in a proliferation ofunwanted ground stations, wrangles over the nationalityof the programme managers, the thinly veiled duplicationof work packages, and the like. This is perhaps to someextent inevitable, but if we are to exploit to the full thetechniques we have acquired, for the benefit of humankind,then cooperative programmes must be managed efficiently

and with the minimum emphasis on national advantageswon at the expense of the common good.

2. Applications

One might have expected that there would have been apainless progression from the early scientific satellites towhat we then called ‘application’ satellites (which cynics ofthe time described as ‘satellites with a use’, as opposed toscientific satellites). There was, however, neither greatenthusiasm from the telecommunications community; nor,in fact, from the meteorologists. In Europe, at least therewas a 4–5 year period where the space agencies haddifficulty in persuading the traditionalists that satellitescould indeed help them to achieve their objectives, and toassure them that we were not after their money to buildnew space toys to play with.Once persuaded, the telecommunications community

had no trouble in finding private capital to finance theexplosion, which we have witnessed over the past 20 or soyears, with its in-built network of international coopera-tion in parallel with fierce international competition.Although there is always the cry from industry for furthergovernment funding in advanced satellite communicationstechnology, the dominant role of the private sectorguarantees that development will be supported mainly onthe back of market demand. This makes for a very healthysituation, and the telecommunications sector is probablythe only one in this happy position. It remains to be seenwhether navigation can follow this same pattern.The past decade has seen a rise in popularity, especially

in Europe, of the ‘industry will pay’ syndrome. In spaceprogrammes, it has appeared in several guises, such as‘public–private partnership’, but the basic idea was alwaysthe same: industry is going to make a profit and thereforeindustry should provide some of the investment. Unfortu-nately, it is sometimes applied where the putative profit isnot immediately apparent to the private sector, and theensuing protracted negotiations never fail to producedebilitating delays and uncertainty. As the alcohol adver-tisements are now obliged to say, this elegant solutionto governmental cash shortages should be ‘used withdiscretion’.The sudden increase in telecommunication satellites

obviously required an expansion of launcher availability.The launch vehicle sector has not—until very recently—been noted for its international cooperation; partly, but notwholly, because of defence interests, there was no inclina-tion to share technology across frontiers or to form jointventures. All the major space nations progressively becameconvinced of the need for independent launch capabilityand started to develop their own national or regionallaunch vehicles. This required, and still today requires,government funding. Looking at present launcher avail-ability throughout the world, it is not surprising that somenations have decided that they can rely on the market toprovide their launch vehicles; but the school of independent

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launch capability still has members—and once again thedefence sector plays an important role. Thus, the well-being of the launcher industry depends on a blend offinding sufficient clients—both domestically and in theinternational, highly competitive, market, and of persuad-ing governments to continue to invest in further launcherdevelopment. I suppose we can call this semi-commercia-lisation, with the development of cheap, reusable launchersstill waiting to take off, so to say. Tempting though it maybe for developing nations to boast of having their ownlaunch capability, seen purely from a civil perspective it canonly become an extremely expensive prestige symbol.

Before leaving launchers, I perhaps need to offer acomment to the afficionados of space tourism, who may beexpecting some word about this new sector where severalnew cooperative configurations have started to emerge. Mypersonal feeling is that this activity has to find its ownlevel—balancing development and other costs against thewillingness of clients to pay for the service. It will developat its own pace and maybe in time it will bring rewards inthe form of cheaper launch solutions, but it is not an areawhich would have my priority vote for governmentexpenditure, although the entrepreneurs will need somegovernmental help in removing legal obstacles.

Returning to our application satellites: after initialdoubts, our meteorologist friends were able to develop ina direction more interesting than the cut-throat competi-tion in both the telecommunications and launcher sectors.Based on a long tradition of public service, nationally,regionally and internationally, the meteorological commu-nity was able to adapt to the use of satellites and to obtainthe necessary annual budgets. In many ways, it is anadmirable example of how space techniques can betransferred out of the classical ‘space agency’ arena, toprovide sustained benefits for the world at large. Indeed thedata, which these met-sats produce, provide worldwidebenefits to users way beyond the traditional meteorologicalservices. The only cloud on the horizon, if you will forgivethe metaphor, is the need to avoid unnecessary duplicationwith the capacities which space agencies already have. Thisrequires close collaboration between the meteorologicalagencies—at all levels—and the space agencies, which isstill not always the case.

Otherwise, the earth observation sector has had a veryslow start. Thirty years ago, chief executives were fond ofdecorating their offices with images from EO satellites.Optimists among us saw this as the next sector forcommercial development, but we are still waiting. Thetechnical competence is by no means lacking, and there isdaily proof of the need for data which can be providedfrom space. It is true that there have been some valuablecollaborations in this field, but they have in many caseslacked a global approach, and above all did not address thebasic need for operational systems.

The initiative to create the Group on Earth Observations(GEO) was therefore widely welcomed, because it was seenas a means of giving political support to cooperative efforts

in earth observation, which had thus far failed to attractmuch political attention. Above all, it was heralded as theonly way to ensure the transition from research EOsatellites to the creation of global, operational satellitesystems, which could be sustained in the same way as themeteorological satellites.This is not the time to pass judgement on GEO, but it

is relevant to our topic to emphasise once again thatsuccessful international cooperation in space pro-grammes—and especially those which are intended to beoperational and self-sustaining—requires solid and sus-tained political will, and an ability on the part ofgovernmental representatives to pursue the big pictureand not to seek at every stage to ensure minor advantagesfor their national masters. In other words, we have movedfrom the era of cooperation between space agencies, with amore or less indirect support from governments, to an erawhere the critical path passes through internationalgovernmental agreements, with the space agencies playinga supporting role.One needs constantly to bear in mind that most decisions

on the funding of large space programmes have very littleto do with the merits of the space programme as such.Particularly, where there is the possibility of internationalcooperation, the predominant factors are inevitablypolitical. Advantage therefore goes to the sectors wherethe users are the best organised. Many of the uses of earthobservation fall into the black hole of ‘public good’, andthis is never a good recipe for finding funding champions.It strikes me India is the best example of how a space

agency has had the intelligence—almost from the outset—to make allies of the various ministries which stood to gainfrom the development of the its space programme. Thisnational realisation of the value of space programmes, andtailoring the objectives of the space programme to meet thewider needs of the nation, is precisely what is needed nowat an international level to create a committed andmultifaceted user community for earth observation.

3. International bodies

Because its utilisation is spread over so many areas—insome of which there is no existing user community—spacehas lost its ability to speak with a single, authoritativevoice. Funding is distributed—both nationally and inter-nationally—between the various space sectors according tonational priorities and political pressures, and we are along way from having a balanced set of internationalcooperative programmes. In most countries, the availablefunding for space is more-or-less stable, and there is littleevidence of enthusiasm for significantly increasing theoverall amount. It is therefore difficult to judge between,for example, spending money on determining whether thereis or was water on Mars, and an operational systemaddressing global climate change.The idea of an international space agency has been

around for a long time, but it has never gathered much

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political support. I continue to think that it would not bethe solution we are looking for, but there may be a case fora formally agreed, but restricted, international pro-gramme—arising naturally out of GEO—which couldfund and maintain an operational EO system, always inclose association with other national and internationalprogrammes, and of course with the essential in situ dataproviders.

We can point to many high-level international confer-ences over the years, where noble calls have been made forincreasing cooperation in areas which common senseindicates are priorities, but there is not really much toshow for all this political activity. I would still like to putmy faith in GEO—not in its present, somewhat penny-pinching mode, but with the vision to really put some of itsmoney into making the Global Earth Observation Systemof Systems (GEOSS) work. To achieve this, we will needthe active support not only of participating member states,but also the potentially powerful international groupingssuch as the ICSU, COSPAR, IAF, CEOS, IGOS-P andmany others. And we should not forget the much under-rated U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space(COPUOS)—it has the capacity to play a very importantrole in the future of space, if delegates would only stop toconsider the real issues. Suitable pressure from all of these

organisations can help governments to remember where thepriorities in cooperative programmes ought to be.I expect that I have disappointed many readers who

wanted to see stirring words about the next leap forward inspace through increased international cooperation onmanned laboratories on the Moon and the like, but myheart really would not be in it. When one considers themarvels that have been achieved by cooperation in the past,it seems unthinkable that we cannot find the rightmechanism to harness our present impressive capabilityto the original cooperative spirit which ‘space’ engendered,in order to address some of the problems facinghumankind which—at least to me—seem much moreurgent (and less expensive) than some of the cooperativeprojects which are being brought forward. At this point intime, looking for an alternative to earth where humankindcan, so to say, start again, seems to me a rather weakexcuse for not addressing what are literally urgent down-to-earth problems. However, if in the next 50 years anothersuitable planet for human life is found, I would like toknow. I promise to provide a forwarding address.These final thoughts are not in any way intended to

disparage the achievements of the past 50 years ofcooperation in space. Rather my aim is to encourage usto continue to cooperate in a more focused way.