Forget ‘Star Wars’ and Go for Mars : A Joint Mission Would Cap the New U.S.-Soviet Space Pact

While the superpowers were deep in vocal dispute last month over the Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. SDI, or “Star Wars,” they were also quietly concluding an agreement on civilian space cooperation. This new arrangement--one might call it the Space Cooperation Initiative, or SCI--could, if expanded to its full potential, provide a security-enhancing alternative to an SDI-induced arms race in space.

The closely held new U.S.-Soviet space cooperation pact was smoothly negotiated during a five-day bargaining session in Washington at the end of October. A final text is now circulating in both governments, and is expected to be signed by the two leaders at a 1987 summit.

Once enacted, the agreement would involve cooperative efforts in areas such as planetary exploration, solar physics and space biology. An initial 16 fairly modest projects were selected as being mutually beneficial, capable of providing real scientific and technical advances to both nations. These efforts could pave the way to more ambitious undertakings in the future.

This is not, of course, the first time the superpowers have agreed to cooperate in space. A space cooperation pact signed in 1972, but allowed to expire in 1982, led to a host of successful collaborative efforts, including the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz hook-up of an American and a Soviet spacecraft. Past projects, however, barely touched on the opportunities becoming available through today’s space technologies.

One opportunity presenting itself is a joint U.S.-Soviet manned mission to Mars, the planet most like Earth in our solar system, yet one with startling differences: crevasses three times as deep as the Grand Canyon, mountains twice the height of Mt. Everest and vast regions that may once have supported life.

A manned Mars mission is certainly feasible, according to the National Commission on Space, which presented its report to President Reagan last spring. Indeed, some scientists say that the technical basis for a manned Mars trip is stronger than was the technical basis for President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 decision to land a man on the moon.

Not only is it feasible, a manned trip to Mars seems highly probable. The Soviets have announced and demonstrated their interest in such a trip. Their long-duration space flights and development of a massive launch vehicle are important components of such a plan. U.S. space scientists have shown a similar interest in a Mars trip, which stands out as the most alluring next challenge for manned space flight.

Perhaps the most important question is whether a manned Mars mission will be done in cooperation or in competition.

Although the new space cooperation pact avoids mention of a joint manned trip to Mars, it does endorse a number of steps in that direction, including the joint selection of Mars landing sites for future unmanned vehicles, and coordination of existing U.S. and Soviet missions to observe Mars and its moons. These projects could be followed by a joint mission to obtain and bring back sample material from Mars, which the Soviets have proposed, taking us further towards a manned expedition to the planet.

The cost of a manned trip to Mars has been estimated at $40 billion, a price that, if split by the superpowers, or by more nations, would cost the United States much less than what we spent to go to the moon.

While some observers would question the value of such an expenditure, in my view, the benefits are compelling. Such a project would establish some much-needed long-term direction in the U.S. space program. It would give high priority to a series of increasingly demanding projects that would provide solid scientific and technical advances. And it could help lead to a fundamental reshaping of superpower relations.

Recall, if you will, the moment when Apollo 13 landed on the moon in 1969. Nearly everyone on the planet within range of a television set was watching. The event was unifying and unique. Imagine how much more symbolic it would have been if it had not resulted from a lengthy U.S.-Soviet “space race,” but rather if it had been the crowning accomplishment of a collaborative effort involving some of the best scientific and engineering minds in the world. A manned trip to Mars could be just such an effort.

At present, it is the SDI and its Soviet counterpart that are the driving forces for future U.S.-Soviet space policy. The result of these programs could well be an arms race spiraling into orbiting battle stations aimed at each other, at Earth, at whatever attempts to traverse the heavens.

What we need is an alternative to the SDI, one as bold and unprecedented, but one that will not simply extend U.S.-Soviet rivalries into a new realm. A true Space Cooperation Initiative, involving a joint trip to Mars and other ambitious undertakings, could be just that. It could help demonstrate the unassailable yet overlooked fact that the superpowers have no choice but to coexist on Spaceship Earth. The new U.S.-Soviet space cooperation pact lays the foundation for such an alternative.