Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh
eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION
the prime candidate looming over the horizon) can imbue the american space
program with new vitality. the point I want to stress is simply a variant of the
one I made earlier: the visionaries and pundits who complain that the United
States is “lost in space” need to start thinking about how to fnd useful ways of
collaborating with other nations who have developed important space programs
instead of remaining frozen in an obsolete mental framework dominated by the
paradigm of Cold War rivalry.
perhaps I have devoted too much time to one newspaper article that was
never intended to be comprehensive or analytically rich. however, it is a useful
and accessible source for making a more general point: all historical analysis
is necessarily partial and selective. eforts to imbue historical accounts with
universality are not simply methodologically fawed. they also stife our critical
capacities while dominating our perception of the past and our defnition of
what the future should look like. When remembering the Space age, we should
not shy away from admitting the complexity and diversity of the space efort
nor pretend that the view of the world from Washington is the only view worth
recording. Our watchwords should be disaggregation and contextualization. We
should emphasize the heterogeneity of space programs and explore the diversity
of space policies as they evolved at the national, regional, and global levels.
Over the past 50 years the conquest of space has followed diferent rhythms,
been driven by diferent motives, and had a diferent physiognomy inside each
spacefaring nation and region, as well as between them. that may make for a
messy story, from which it is difcult to draw general policy implications. So be
it. Surely one of the most important lessons of history is that we must grasp the
past in its specifcity in order to understand the present and think intelligently
about the future.
three dIStINgUIShINg FeatUreS OF the eUrOpeaN
COLLaBOratIve SpaCe prOgraM
It is time for me to turn away from these warnings and to focus on the
european space program, which is the subject of this paper. My central claims
are three. Firstly, Western european space projects have contributed to building
a regional capability and identity. that identity is embedded in institutions and
practices that brought together (mostly) men from separate european nation
states and had them work in partnership around scientifc and technological
projects that their governments were willing to pursue at a collaborative level.
the kind of project that was suitable, and the form of collaboration embarked
upon, usually did not have immediate strategic signifcance for these national
governments. european identity was not forged around space tout court, but
around certain space projects that, it was believed, preserved or even advanced
the ability both to build europe and to secure key national interests.
39