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Beyond the Atmosphere:
Early Years of Space Science
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- CHAPTER 18
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- THE SOVIET UNION
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- [312] An entirely
different climate surrounded the efforts of NASA to cooperate with
the Soviet Union. In this case competition, born of the Cold War,
went far beyond mere rivalry and militated against the free and
open cooperation that was readily possible with Western countries.
Moved by an inherent idealism, U.S. scientists thought of
cooperation in space science as a good means for reducing tension
between the two countries, whereas the more realistic Soviet
scientists every so often would have to point out to their U.S.
colleagues that it was the other way round. Intimate or
large-scale cooperation would have to await the resolution of
political difficulties.
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- Nevertheless, it was an American trait to
cling to the idealistic approach, and scientists made persistent
efforts to encourage exchanges with. the Soviet
Union.37 None of these overtures, however, bore any fruit
until in February and March 1962 President Kennedy provided a
basis-not a very firm one, but a basis nevertheless-for exploring
more intimately ways in which to cooperate. In an exchange of
letters with Nikita Khrushchev. Chairman of the Council of
Ministers of the USSR, Kennedy expressed the hope that
representatives of the two countries might meet at an early date
to discuss ideas "for immediate projects of common
action."38
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- Working mainly with the State Department,
NASA assembled a long list of possibilities for cooperation. From
that list four main proposals-[313] cooperation
in satellite meteorology, spacecraft tracking, studies of the
earth's magnetic field, and communications satellites-were
selected and dispatched along with a number of other ideas to
Khrushchev 7 March 1962. With uncharacteristic speed for the
Russians, he replied within two weeks, furnishing a list of
proposals and agreeing to a meeting of appropriate representatives
to discuss the matter.39 President Kennedy named Hugh Dryden, deputy
administrator of NASA, as the U.S. delegate. The USSR was
represented by Anatoly A. Blagonravov. Between 27 and 29 March
1962, exploratory talks were held in New York City. More
definitive talks in Geneva-which went on in May and June
simultaneously with, but outside of, meetings of the Scientific
and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space-led to a draft agreement 8 June
1962.40 After a period of review, both governments approved
the agreement, and James Webb, administrator of NASA, and
President Keldysh of the Soviet Academy of Sciences exchanged
letters putting the agreement into effect on an agency-to-agency
level. The initial agreement called for working together on three
separate projects: (1) exchange of satellite weather data over a
communications link to be set up between Washington and Moscow;
(2) each country to launch a satellite instrumented with
magnetometers to study the earth's magnetic field during the
International Years of the Quiet Sun beginning in 1965,
coordinating their orbits and exchanging magnetic field data
including those obtained from ground-based instruments; and (3)
cooperative communications experiments using the next U.S. Echo
satellite to be launched.41
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- Responding to a Soviet initiative in May
1964, a fourth project was added-to publish a book, prepared
jointly, reviewing past Soviet and U.S. work in space biology and
medicine, also giving some attention to future
problems.42 There was, however, no Soviet response to a
suggestion Kennedy had put forth in a 20 September 1963 speech at
the United Nations that the two countries consider joining forces
to put a man on the moon. In this case the Soviet negativism was
matched by that of the U.S. Congress, which quickly made known its
distaste for the idea.
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1962, Dryden and Blagonravov continued to meet, in Rome during
March 1963 and in Geneva the following May. Appropriate working
groups were established. But it should be emphasized that the
joint efforts were not integrated projects; they did not require
putting together joint teams for preparing hardware, conducting
launchings, analyzing data, or any such arrangement that might
adversely affect one program if the other country failed to
perform. Instead the projects were coordinated; the two
national programs proceeded separately, but were to be conducted
in such a way as to facilitate cooperative tests, as with Echo, or
the exchange of data and information, as with the meteorology and
magnetic field projects.43 The performance of the Soviet participants on these
projects for many years is best described as indifferent.
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- [314] The primary
interest to space science lay the magnetic field studies and the
book on space medicine and biology. In the magnetic field project
a difficulty arose that was typical. American scientists
considered it essential to the program to exchange data on the
position of the satellites when measurements were taken.
Otherwise, the field data could not be properly interpreted. But
the Soviet Union consistently refused, shying away from providing
any data that might reveal the capabilities of its electronic
tracking equipment. The USSR had not, in fact, accepted another
U.S. suggestion-to cooperate in the tracking of spacecraft. This
difficulty also appeared to affect the communications project, in
that finally the Soviet participants would agree only to receiving
signals reflected to them from Echo, refusing to transmit any.
Work on the book progressed exceedingly slowly, publication
finally being achieved in 1975.
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- The difficulties that lay in the way of
working with the Soviet Union in anything approaching the fashion
of the cooperative projects with Western nations were formidable.
Repeated frustrations led Arnold Frutkin in 1963 to prepare a set
of internal NASA notes on Soviet deficiencies in their dealings
with the Committee on Space Research. Frutkin listed eight ways in
which the Soviet members appeared to be not forthcoming in their
participation in COSPAR international activities: a lack of
promised information on the Soviet sounding-rocket program; at one
COSPAR meeting no papers on the sterilization of planetary probes,
even though the Soviet Union had itself proposed that there be
such a discussion; failure of Soviet members to attend the first
two meetings of the COSPAR Consultative Group on Potentially
Harmful Effects of Space Experiments; lack of any specific
information on the Soviet Cosmos satellites; Soviet attempts to
introduce political issues into COSPAR deliberations, e.g.,
nuclear testing; failure to provide information on radio tracking
stations; and bypassing screening arrangements for papers to be
presented at COSPAR. All of this Frutkin felt added up to a
"retrogression in Soviet attitudes toward, and participation in,
COSPAR."44
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- Two years later, in his book
International Cooperation in Space,
Frutkin moderated his assessment
somewhat, noting modest progress and urging imaginative,
aggressive efforts-tempered with a proper sense of realism-to
"widen and deepen the cooperation which has already been won in
the space field."45 In spite of this commendable positivism, Frutkin's
book brings out the stark contrast between the U.S. and Soviet
space programs in openness and willingness to share with others.
Frutkin once observed that he had written his book too early, a
remark occasioned by the U.S.-Soviet cooperation of the 1970s,
which included the joint docking mission of the Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project in 1975. Certainly a book written in the late 1970s on
U.S.-USSR cooperation on space projects would have many more
positive elements to present than a book published in 1965. But
there [315] would also be a risk that the rockiness of
the soil that had first to be tilled might be overlooked.
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