Nations Must Work Together in Space

An orange-blue streak lit the sky last month in the early morning hours, but only a handful of observers in White Sands, N. M., and Boulder, Colo., are now able to report that they glimpsed the first man-made comet begin its seven-minute life. Overcast skies hid the spectacle from the rest of us, but no clouds can obscure the significance of the event.

Star Wars may have filled the fantasy heavens of 1984, but in reality, the past year witnessed unprecedented peaceful collaborations in space.

The artificial comet was a barium canister released from a West German satellite. It was monitored within minutes by a British satellite 100 miles behind it in the same orbit. Both satellites were launched on Aug. 16 from Cape Canaveral, in Florida.

Part of an Experiment This is part of an experiment begun in September to explore the solar wind, a rush of especially high-velocity particles that blow with great variability around the Earth. The joint British and West German experimental device was observed by both a NASA research aircraft and an Argentine plane flying over Tahiti.

In late November, the United States sent a more permanent object into orbit as SARSAT joined our array of meteorological devices. After some budgetary dithering, the United States fulfilled a 10-year commitment and completed the global Search and Rescue network. Together with the two Soviet satellites already in orbit, SARSAT provides global coverage for air and sea emergencies. Each of the satellites carries an electronic device that can receive distress signals and relay the information to the nearest rescue facilities. With French and Canadian collaboration, SARSAT has already helped in 38 rescue operations all over the world.

Although no budgetary turnabout saved NASA’s planned mission to Halley’s comet on its once-in-every-76-years sweep past the Earth and around the sun, American scientists have joined the Soviet and European projects.

When the Soviets launched Vegas I and II this month, both spacecraft carried a highly sensitive cosmic dust collector designed by the Chicago-based physicist, John A. Simpson. Simpson sent his shoe-box-sized device first to the Max Planck Institute in West Germany, and they relayed it to the Soviet Union. In return, the Russians will send magnetic tape with the data on it as it comes in via Germany to Simpson in Chicago. Scientists from Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, France, Hungary and Poland as well as West Germany will also process the information.

The Russian spacecraft expects to reach Halley’s comet in March of 1986. Within a week the joint European craft, Giotto, and a Japanese craft, Planet A, will gather more data and all will pool their information. American scientists will be part of the adventure, but unlike their colleagues, the Americans will work on tiptoe.

Three years ago the 1972 agreement to cooperate in space exploration expired, and the United States did not renew it because of events in Poland and Afghanistan. Cooperation continues in a muted way, however, and the United States was present at a meeting of space agencies in Talliin, U.S.S.R., in November. In December, 10 radio telescopes from Italy, Germany England, Brazil and the United States conducted an ambitious experiment aimed at understanding the active structures of the cores of distant galaxies. As the data come in, the information is being analyzed by astronomers in West Germany, Massachusetts, Virginia and California.

Importance of a Global Network The Earth is a very small body moving through the vastness of space. Each nation briefly faces a different reach of space, then gives up its view to its neighbor. Only a global network of radio instruments, eventually linked to a space telescope, can adequately explore remote galaxies.

Within our solar system we can send spacecraft to explore some of the comets, asteroids and planets that are moving with us, but we cannot own them. The British do not claim Halley’s comet because an Englishman happened to predict its return, any more than Russians claim Venus, or the United States the moon. We begin 1985 attuned to the demands on our pocketbooks and acknowledge international collaboration as a way to pool the expenses of extraplanetary research. Beyond the budget, however, international cooperation is crucial because the nature of the quest reminds us that we on Earth are a single civilization trying to understand our place in a mysterious universe.