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

40 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age
My second main point is that this construction of regional identity was
possible because of a combination of shared political, technological, and industrial
objectives that were defned in the 1960s and 1970s. at that time, european
integration was an important component of foreign policy, the european space
science and engineering community was small and inexperienced, and european
frms were novices in space technology and, above all, in systems engineering
and project management. Space served as a scientifc and technological platform
around which to build europe because of the cost, complexity, and industrial
challenges it engaged. Integration was a solution to structural weaknesses that
many, though not all, european nation states believed they could not overcome
by “going it alone.”
My third point is that the United States played a key role in constructing and
consolidating regional capability and identity. this may seem counterintuitive.
It is obvious that many people in europe, particularly today, regard the United
States as an overbearing hegemon that unilaterally tries to impose its political,
technological, commercial, and cultural values on friend and foe alike, resorting
to force if needed to achieve its objectives. Many in the european space sector
share that view, or some variant of it, in regard to the current situation.
however those same people are the frst to recognize the crucial role played
by NaSa and the United States in helping europe get on its feet in the space
sector in the frst couple of decades following Sputnik. Some put this down to
american generosity and to a sense of shared historical and cultural ties. the
United States, president eisenhower once said, “was related by culture and
blood to (the) countries (of) Western europe and in this sense is a product of
Western europe.” Similarly, for Mcgeorge Bundy, a National Security adviser
to president Kennedy, the european peoples were “our cousins by history
and culture, by language and religion.” If here the personal and the cultural
are stressed, on other occasions the political is the focus. For example, when
Bundy was asked why he favored the postwar reconstruction of a united and
“independent” europe—since, after all, “great states do not usually rejoice
in the emergence of other great powers” —his response was unequivocal:
“the immediate answer is in the current contest with the Soviet Union.” 1 For
Washington, a strong united europe built on a solid scientifc and technological
base would bring with it the economic prosperity and political stability essential
to maintaining democracy among america’s allies. european integration
would act as a bulwark against communist expansion on the continent and,
through NatO, help take the burden of the defense of the region of the back
of the United States. In pursuit of these and related policies, NaSa acted as an
arm of american diplomacy in the 1960s and 1970s, and, along with the State
department, played a crucial role in fostering a collaborative european space
1. Cited in John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe
(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 2006), pp. 254, 255.