It's a major work of academic research into the history, international politics and commercialisation of space since the inception of Nasa 55 years ago. Significantly, the work is acknowledged to have been supported by a Nasa contract.
A predominant debate throughout this book is the interplay between the ideals and the realities of Nasa's mission. Has Nasa set out to motivate altruistic and unfettered collaboration between the United States and willing partners throughout the world, including the European Community?
Has Nasa sought to maintain a pre-eminent, indeed dominant, position in space for the United States and its mighty technology industry? Has international collaboration and subsidy been a ploy to divert nations from their own efforts by building dependence upon American technology and suppliers?
Whichever, Nasa can point to its charter, with fine words about international cooperation and the peaceful application of the fruits of its endeavours (under, note, the foreign policy guidance of the President), but also to parallel references to the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology. Readers may differ in their assessments of the relative achievements of these key objectives.
The satellite communications systems that now underpin a world of cheap and instant messaging, copious television, weather observations, search and rescue, not to mention all sorts of surveillance, trace back to the setting up of Intelsat, the International Telecommunications Satellite Corporation in the 1960s.
The terms were blunt and reflected the investment weighting of the partners. The collaborating nations depended at that time on the Americans, whose terms imposed that however the shareholdings might evolve later, US voting power would not drop below a controlling 50.6%. This strategy may have had unintended consequences.
The idea that a single nation could be in a position to switch off international telecommunications or the GPS system, for instance, or to control and monitor traffic, must have been at least discomforting. Unsurprisingly Europe, India, China, Russia and others soon began to plan their own independent systems.
This comprehensive volume packs three full pages of acronyms alone. The references and explanatory notes, filling 58 pages of small print, will provide an invaluable resource for future historians. Essentially this is a work of reference.
- Clive Trotman is a Dunedin science presenter and arbitrator
