Technical, organizational and political dynamics of the International Space Station program
Abstract This paper analyzes the dynamics of cooperation of the International Space Station (ISS) program from its inception in 1981 to the final Framework Agreements for cooperation concluded in 1998. These dynamics include technical and organizational arrangements, and policy preferences. Dynamics related to technical arrangements deal with technological and scientific resources, the former governed through mechanisms for control of technology transfer, the latter regulated through intellectual property rights provisions. The dynamics linked to organizational arrangements concern authority patterns—characterized by national and international responses—and bilateral and multilaterial decision-making patterns. The dynamics of policy preferences encompass functional and symbolic dimensions. Functional issues are structured through legal and political regimes that govern the ISS program. The symbolic dimension, which includes prestige, legitimacy, influence and international accountability, frames the nature of the cooperation realized for the ISS program. ISS cooperation has evolved through three stages: (1) coordination, where collaboration is engendered through institutional (International Coordinating Working Group) and ad hoc cooperative relationships (groups of scientists and engineers sharing information); (2) augmentation, which equates with technological enhancements of a national project that involve primarily bilateral arrangements; (3) interdependence, which deals with cooperation in enabling and critical path technologies that are arranged both bilaterally and multilaterally.
Analysis of US Policy Options for the Future of the International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is set to retire in 2016, according to current United States (US) space policy. This paper answers three questions to be considered by Congress and the Obama Administration in order to make a final policy decision concerning the US’s withdrawal from the ISS: ￻ What do the international agreements say about US responsibility for the Space Station? ￻ What are various policy options for the Space Station post-2016? ￻ What are their various merits or drawbacks, from legal, engineering, risk, international relations, political, and cost perspectives, and impact upon other programs and priorities that have been established for NASA by the Administration and Congress? To answer these questions, this paper first develops an understanding of the historical development of Station. Next, the paper examines the Partner-States’ positions and feelings towards the idea of ISS retirement. In addition to this stakeholder analysis, the legal, technical and budgetary problems with US ISS withdrawal are defined. Finally, four policy strategies are evaluated using several key metrics that are most important to the engineering and policy considerations from the US’s point of view: (1) US ends the ISS program in 2016 and de-orbits Station, (2) US agrees to extend the ISS program until 2018 or 2020, (3) US ends ISS activities in 2016, but transfers responsibilities and thus allows ISS to continue, and (4) ISS is retired in 2016, but boosted to higher orbit for “deep storage.” This evaluation indicates that a unilateral US decision to end the ISS program in 2016 will free NASA resources for Constellation. On the other hand, a decision to extend ISS through 2018/2020 would yield international goodwill for the US, which could be useful for future NASA human spaceflight collaborative proposals and for other US objectives in the international realm. Yet, it is important to note that there are means of affecting the balance of this tradeoff, which could potentially achieve some compromise of both objectives. The best policy choice will be determined by the priorities of the US national leadership, the evolving international environment, and technical details that were not available to this study.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1