Accessory to War

by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

  57. “NORAD History,” North American Aerospace Defense Command, www.norad.mil/About-NORAD/NORAD-History/; Colonel T. J. Grant, “Space Policy,” Canadian Forces College, Nov. 26, 1998, 3, 19, 21, www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/259/260/261/grant2.pdf; Max Paris, “Canadian Forces Put Their 1st Satellite in Orbit,” CBC News, Feb. 25, 2013, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-forces-put-their-1st-satellite-in-orbit-1.1338715; Andre Dupuis, “An Overview of Canadian Military Space in 2014,” pt. 1 Feb. 9, pt. 2 Feb. 17, 2015, SpaceRef Canada, spaceref.ca/military-space/an-overview-of-canadian-military-space-in-2014---part-2.html (accessed May 1, 2017).

  58. Space Foundation, Space Report 2017, 10, 15. The top five space spenders in dollar amounts in 2016 were the United States, the European Space Agency, China, Japan, and Russia. Percentage of GDP spent on space in 2016: Japan .062%, Canada .021% (US .239%; Russia .122%; China .039% avg.).

  59. The cabinet-level Office of National Space Policy was created in July 2012. Before then, JAXA was supervised by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology and the Minister of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts, and Telecommunications. Office of National Space Policy, “Planning Policy of Development and Utilization of Space and the Headquarters for Japanese Space Policy,” www.cao.go.jp/en/pmf/pmf_20.pdf; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, “JAXA History,” global.jaxa.jp/about/history/index.html; “ISAS History,” global.jaxa.jp/about/history/isas/index_e.html; “SS-520 Sounding Rockets,” ISAS, www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/rockets/sounding/ss520.shtml; “Catalogue of ISAS Missions,” ISAS, www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/missions/catalogue.shtml; “Missions: About Our Projects,” global.jaxa.jp/projects/; “Japanese Experimental Module (KIBO),” iss.jaxa.jp/en/kiboexp/ef/ (accessed Dec. 8, 2016).

  60. James Clay Moltz, Asia’s Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 43–69; Paul Kallender, “Japan’s New Dual-Use Space Policy: The Long Road to the 21st Century,” Notes de l’Ifri: Asie.Visions 88 (Nov. 2016), www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/japan_space_policy_kallender.pdf; Maeda Sawako, “Transformation of Japanese Space Policy: From the ‘Peaceful Use of Space’ to ‘the Basic Law on Space,’ ” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 7:44:1 (Nov. 2009), 1–7, apjjf.org/-Maeda-Sawako/3243/article.pdf; Steven Berner, “Japan’s Space Program: A Fork in the Road?” RAND, 2005, www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR184.pdf (accessed May 1, 2017).

  61. For Cold War 2.0, see Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Yaffa, “Active Measures,” New Yorker, Mar. 6, 2017, 40–55. “For nearly two decades, U.S.–Russian relations have ranged between strained and miserable,” write the authors. “Many Russian and American policy experts no longer hesitate to use phrases like ‘the second Cold War’ ” (44). For a best-selling in-depth investigation, see Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (New York: Twelve/Hachette, 2018).

  62. For the saga of Apollo–Soyuz and the decades leading up to it, see Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell, The Partnership: A History of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (Washington, DC: NASA, 1978), history.nasa.gov/SP-4209.pdf. See also the Nixon–Kosygin “Cooperation in Space: Agreement Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration of the Use of Outer Space for the Peaceful Purposes, May 24, 1972,” www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/agreement-of-cooperation.pdf (accessed May 1, 2017). Article I of the agreement commits the two parties to “develop cooperation in the fields of space meteorology; study of the natural environment; exploration of near earth space, the moon and the planets; and space biology and medicine.” Article 3 sets the stage for Apollo–Soyuz, specifically the development of “compatible rendezvous and docking systems of United States and Soviet manned spacecraft and stations in order to enhance the safety of manned flights in space and to provide the opportunity for conducting joint scientific experiments in the future.” The agreement was renewable at five-year intervals; President Carter renewed it in 1977, but in 1982 President Reagan let it lapse.

  63. William E. Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (New York: Random House, 1998), 585. For his portrayal of the vicissitudes of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin space programs, see chap. 15, “Downsizing Infinity,” 551–90.

  64. For a minute-by-minute account of Nov. 9, 1989, see, e.g., Laurence Dodds, “Berlin Wall: How the Wall Came Down, As It Happened 25 Years Ago,” Telegraph, Nov. 9, 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk/history/11219434/Berlin-Wall-How-the-Wall-came-down-as-it-happened-25-years-ago-live.html (accessed Feb. 27, 2017).

  65. Igor Filatochev and Roy Bradshaw, “The Soviet Hyperinflation: Its Origins and Impact Throughout the Former Republics,” Soviet Studies 44:5 (1992), 739–59; Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2006, 10th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 366–67, 391–93. GNP fell 17 percent in 1991, according to Filatochev and Bradshaw (742).

  66. James Clay Moltz, The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 205, 208, 212.

  67. Moltz, Politics of Space Security, 204–18. The original source of the locomotive quotation is a 1987 article, “Space Exploration and New Thinking,” in International Affairs (Moscow). For the tale of Skif, see Dwayne A. Day and Robert G. Kennedy III, “Soviet Star Wars,” Air & Space Smithsonian, Jan. 2010, www.airspacemag.com/space/soviet-star-wars-8758185/?all (accessed May 1, 2017). Also see Sheehan, International Politics of Space, 55–66, for an overview of Soviet space efforts, with an emphasis on space as a domain for diplomacy and cooperation, especially with the Communist bloc and nonaligned nations, during the 1970s and 1980s. Of the name Mir, Sheehan writes that it was intended to create a contrast to “the American effort to militarise and ‘weaponise’ space through the Strategic Defense Initiative.” He further argues that “SDI needed to be challenged symbolically in this way because Gorbachev was aware that a Soviet effort simply to match the American programme would not only be strategically destabilising, but was likely to expose the economic weaknesses and technological limitations of the USSR” (66).

  68. “The Gorbachev Visit; Excerpts from Speech to U.N. on Major Soviet Military Cuts,” trans. Soviet Mission, New York Times, Dec. 8, 1988. For the disasters of Soyuz TM-5 and Phobos 1, see Burrows, This New Ocean, 573–75.

  69. Roald Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist: My Adventures in Nuclear Fusion and Space from Stalin to Star Wars (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), ix, 186–91, 321–24.

  70. Figures cited at p. 74 in Kathleen J. Hancock, “Russia: Great Power Image Versus Economic Reality,” Asian Perspective 31:4 (2007), 71–98. See also LaFeber, America, Russia, 388–95; Burrows, This New Ocean, 585.

  71. Burrows, This New Ocean, 586–88. See also Francis X. Clines, “Going-Out-of-Business Sale for Soviets’ Space Program,” New York Times, Aug. 8, 1993.

  72. Burrows, This New Ocean, 601–609; Moltz, Politics of Space Security, 230–33, 240–45, 250–52; Richard Stone, “A Renaissance for Russian Space Science,” Science, Apr. 7, 2016, www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/renaissance-russian-space-science (accessed May 1, 2017). Burrows includes an especially grim detail re a $300-million, twenty-nation Mars-bound spacecraft, launched by Russia, that fell into the Pacific because of the failure of the Proton rocket’s fourth stage. He writes that “parts of Mars 96 had been integrated at Tyuratam in the glow of kerosene lamps because the Kazakhs had cut off the electricity in exasperation over a pile of unpaid bills” (601).

  73. “GLONASS Constellation Status”; Jason Davis, “What’s the Matter with Russia’s Rockets?” blog, Planetary Society, Dec. 2, 2016, www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20161201-whats-the-matter-russias-rockets.html; Emma Grey Ellis, “Russia’s Space Program Is Blowing Up. So Are Its Rockets,” Wired, Dec. 7, 2016, www.wir
ed.com/2016/12/russias-space-program-blowing-rockets; Michael Weiss and Pierre Vaux, “How a U.S.-Russian Space Rocket Deal Funds Putin’s Cronies,” Daily Beast, May 31, 2016, www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/31/the-u-s-violates-its-own-sanctions-to-buy-russian-space-rockets.html; Anatoly Zak, “A Rare Look at the Russian Side of the Space Station,” Air & Space Smithsonian, Sept. 2015, www.airspacemag.com/space/rare-look-russian-side-space-station-180956244; Stone, “Renaissance for Russian Space Science”; Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI), www.iki.rssi.ru/eng; Anatoly Zak, “Spektr-RG to Expand Horizons of X-ray Astronomy,” Russian Space Web, Jan. 2017, www.russianspaceweb.com/spektr_rg.html (accessed Mar. 12, 2017).

  74. Space Report 2016, 37, 48; Space Report 2017, 8; Anatoly Zak, “Russia Approves Its 10-Year Space Strategy,” blog post, Planetary Society, Mar. 23, 2016, www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2016/0323-russia-space-budget.html; Davis, “What’s the Matter with Russia’s Rockets?”

  75. Vladimir Putin, “Russian President Vladimir Putin State of the Nation Address,” C-SPAN, Mar. 1, 2018, simultaneous translation, 1:22:04–1:38:18, www.c-span.org/video/?441907-1/russian-president-vladimir-putin-state-nation-address (accessed Mar. 8, 2017). See also, e.g., Andrew Roth, “Putin Threatens US Arms Race with New Missiles Declaration,” Guardian, Mar. 1, 2018; Neil MacFarquhar and David E. Sanger, “Putin’s ‘Invincible’ Missile Is Aimed at U.S. Vulnerabilities,” New York Times, Mar. 1, 2018; Anton Troianovski, “Putin Claims Russia Is Developing Nuclear Arms Capable of Avoiding Missile Defenses,” Washington Post, Mar. 1, 2018; Vladimir Isachenkov, AP, “Putin Shows New Russian Nuclear Weapons: ‘It Isn’t a Bluff,’ ” Washington Post, Mar. 1, 2018.

  76. NASA Advisory Council, Task Force on International Relations in Space, International Space Policy for the 1990s and Beyond (1987), quoted in Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 180.

  77. Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 179–82; Zak, “Rare Look at Russian Side.”

  78. Burrows, This New Ocean, 139–46 (quotation at 143), 508. The Collier’s series (Mar. 1952–Apr. 1954) was collectively titled “Man Will Conquer Space Soon.” Burrows writes, “With [Wernher] von Braun as its architect and credible specialists filling in details based on real science and engineering rather than fanciful speculation, the articles constituted a blueprint for the U.S. space program” (144).

  79. Ronald Reagan, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” Jan. 25, 1984, at Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40205 (accessed May 2, 2017).

  80. See, e.g., Philip M. Boffey, “Higher Cost Predicted for Space Station,” New York Times, July 7, 1987; William J. Broad, “How the $8 Billion Space Station Became a $120 Billion Showpiece,” New York Times, June 10, 1990; US General Accounting Office, “Space Station: NASA’s Search for Design, Cost, and Schedule Stability Continues,” GAO/NSAID-91-125, Mar. 1991, www.gao.gov/assets/160/150248.pdf; J. R. Minkel, “Is the International Space Station Worth $100 Billion?” Space.com, Nov. 1, 2010, www.space.com/9435-international-space-station-worth-100-billion.html; NASA Office of Inspector General, “Extending the Operational Life of the International Space Station Until 2024,” audit report, IG-14-031, Sept. 18, 2014, oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY14/IG-14-031.pdf. (All accessed Nov. 28, 2017.) European Space Agency, “International Space Station: How Much Does It Cost,” last update May 14, 2013, www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/How_much_does_it_cost), pegged the total cost covered by all participants—including development, assembly, and ten years’ worth of operating costs—at €100B as of 2013, which in 2016 US dollars would be about $140B. The NASA inspector general’s audit report pegs the US contribution as $43.7 billion for construction and program costs through 2013 plus $30.7 billion for thirty-seven supporting space shuttle flights, the last of which took place in July 2011 (“Overview,” i).

  81. Sheehan, International Politics of Space, 176–78; Burrows, This New Ocean, 591–98, 606–609; Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 177–79, 65–67; European Space Agency, “International Space Station Legal Framework,” www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/International_Space_Station_legal_framework (accessed Mar. 21, 2017) .

  82. Ker Than, “Nobel Laureate Disses NASA’s Manned Spaceflight,” Space.com, Sept. 18, 2007, www.space.com/4357-nobel-laureate-disses-nasa-manned-spaceflight.html (accessed Nov. 28, 2017).

  83. The authors thank political scientist and space-policy analyst John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University, for supplying this letter to Tyson.

  84. Sheehan calls the United States “the hegemonic partner, in the space station as much as in NATO” (International Politics of Space, 178–79).

  85. See, e.g., Miriam Kramer, “NASA Suspends Most Cooperation with Russia; Space Station Excepted,” Space.com, Apr. 2, 2014, www.space.com/25339-nasa-suspends-russia-cooperation-ukraine.html; Stuart Clark, “Russia Halts Rocket Exports to US, Hitting Space and Military Programmes,” Guardian, May 15, 2014; Reuters, “Russia to Ban US from Using Space Station over Ukraine Sanctions,” Telegraph, May 13, 2014; Ralph Vartabedian and W. J. Hennigan, “U.S.-Russia Tension Could Affect Space Station, Satellites,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2014; “Russia Makes Plans to Kill Space Station in 2020 Due to Sanctions,” NBC News, May 13, 2014, www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/russia-makes-plans-kill-space-station-2020-due-sanctions-n104531; Irene Klotz, “Atlas V Rocket Launches US Missile-Warning Satellite,” Space.com, Jan. 20, 2017, www.space.com/35409-missile-warning-satellite-sbirs-geo-3-launch-success.html; Staff writers, Sputnik, “Why Washington Cannot Ban Russia’s RD-180 Rocket Engines,” SpaceDaily, May 3, 2016, www.spacedaily.com/reports/Why_Washington_cannot_why_Russias_RD_180_rocket_engines_999.html; “Russia to Supply RD-180 Rocket Engines to US in 2017,” TASS, Dec. 1, 2016, tass.com/science/915840; Chris Gebhardt, “U.S. Debates Atlas V RD-180 Engine Ban, ULA’s Non-Bid for Military Launch,” NASASpaceflight.com, Jan. 29, 2016, www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/01/u-s-debates-atlas-v-rd-180-ban-ulas-non-bid-military; Phil Plait, “Russian Deputy Prime Minister Threatens to Pull Out of ISS,” Bad Astronomy blog, Slate, May 14, 2014, www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/14/nasa_and_the_iss_russia_threatens_to_abandon_international_space_effort.html (accessed May 2, 2017).

  86. Office of Inspector General, “NASA’s Commercial Crew Program: Update on Development and Certification Efforts,” IG-16-028, NASA, Sept. 1, 2016, oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY16/IG-16-028.pdf (accessed May 2, 2017).

  87. World Bank, “Gross Domestic Product 2016, PPP,” databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP_PPP.pdf (accessed Aug. 13, 2017); Joe Rennison and Eric Platt, “China Cuts US Treasury Holdings to Lowest Level Since 2010,” Financial Times, Jan. 18, 2017; US Census Bureau, “Trade in Goods with China,” www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html (accessed Apr. 6, 2018). See also Central Intelligence Agency, “Country Comparison: GDP (Purchasing Power Parity)—2016 Est.,” The World Factbook, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html; in this ranking the EU, which does not figure in the World Bank’s analysis, is second and the US third.

  88. Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 223; Sheehan, International Politics of Space, 165, 167; Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016,” 117FA69, Apr. 26, 2016, i, 3, www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016%20China%20Military%20Power%20Report.pdf (accessed May 2, 2017) and “Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2017,” C-B066B88, May 15, 2017, ii, 34–35, 42, www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2017_China_Military_Power_Report.PDF?ver=2017-06-06-141328-770 (accessed Aug. 13, 2017); John Costello, “China Finally Centralizes Its Space, Cyber, Information Forces,” The Diplomat, Jan. 20, 2016, thediplomat.com/2016/01/china-finally-its-cent
ralizes-space-cyber-information-forces/ (accessed May 2, 2017).

  89. For the political intricacies of US moves against China in space technology, see especially chap. 6, “The Politicization of the U.S. Aerospace Industry,” in Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 141–68. See also Brian Harvey, China in Space: The Great Leap Forward (New York: Springer-Praxis, 2013), 12.

  90. Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, US House of Representatives, “Appendix A: Scope of the Investigation” and “Overview,” Report of the Select Committee, Jan. 3, 1999, partly declassified, www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/app.html and www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/over.html (accessed Mar. 26, 2017); Lowen Liu, “Just the Wrong Amount of American,” Slate, Sept. 11, 2016, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_next_20/2016/09/the_case_of_scientist_wen_ho_lee_and_chinese_americans_under_suspicion_for.html (accessed May 2, 2017); “Statement by Judge in Los Alamos Case, with Apology for Abuse of Power,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 2000.

  91. Moltz, Asia’s Space Race, 93; Harvey, China in Space, 345–46.

  92. Sec. 539 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, and Sec. 532 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, both state that NASA may use no funds provided by these acts “to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement, or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically authorized by a law” unless the activities “pose no risk of resulting in the transfer of technology, data, or other information with national security or economic security implications to China or a Chinese-owned company.” Both Acts also stipulate that “official Chinese visitors” may not be hosted at “facilities belonging to or utilized by NASA.”