Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan [89]
The American and Russian capabilities in space science and technology mesh; they interdigitate. Each is strong where the other is weak. This is a marriage made in heaven—but one that has been surprisingly difficult to consummate.
On September 2, 1993, an agreement to cooperate in depth was signed in Washington by Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The Clinton Administration has ordered NASA to redesign the U.S. space station (called Freedom in the Reagan years) so it is in the same orbit as Mir and can be mated to it: Japanese and European modules will be attached, as will a Canadian robot arm. The designs have now evolved into what is called Space Station Alpha, involving almost all the spacefaring nations. (China is the most notable exception.)
In return for U.S. space cooperation and an infusion of hard currency, Russia in effect agreed to halt its sale of ballistic missile components to other nations, and generally to exercise tight controls on its export of strategic weapons technology. In this way, space becomes once again, as it was at the height of the Cold War, an instrument of national strategic policy.
This new trend has, though, made some of the American aerospace industry and some key members of Congress, profoundly uneasy. Without international competition, can we motivate such ambitious efforts? Does every Russian launch vehicle used cooperatively mean less support for the American aerospace industry? Can Americans rely on stable support and continuity of effort in joint projects with the Russians? (The Russians, of course, ask similar questions about the Americans.) But cooperative programs in the long term save money, draw upon the extraordinary scientific and engineering talent distributed over our planet, and provide inspiration about the global future. There may be fluctuations in national commitments. We are likely to take backward as well as forward steps. But the overall trend seems clear.
Despite growing pains, the space programs of the two former adversaries are beginning to join. It is now possible to foresee a world space station—not of any one nation but of the planet Earth—being assembled at 51° inclination to the equator and a few hundred miles up. A dramatic joint mission, called “Fire and Ice,” is being discussed—in which a fast flyby would be sent to Pluto, the last unexplored planet; but to get there, a gravity assist from the Sun would be employed, in the course of which small probes would actually enter the Sun’s atmosphere. And we seem to be on the threshold of a World Consortium for the scientific exploration of Mars. It very much looks as though such projects will be done cooperatively or not at all.
WHETHER THERE ARE VALID, cost-effective, broadly supportable reasons for people to venture to Mars is an open question. Certainly there is no consensus. The matter is treated in the next chapter.
I would argue that if we are not eventually going to send people to worlds as far away as Mars, we have lost the chief reason for a space station—a permanently (or intermittently) occupied human outpost in Earth orbit. A space station is far from an optimum platform for doing science—either looking down at the Earth, or looking out into space, or for utilizing microgravity (the very presence of astronauts messes things up). For military reconnaissance it is much inferior to robotic spacecraft. There are no compelling economic or manufacturing applications. It is expensive compared to robotic spacecraft. And of course it runs some risk of losing human lives. Every shuttle launch to help build