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Space travel
needs cooperation

A Star Wars alternative: space for peace

The following is an abridged letter written
by Louis Friedman, executive director of
the Planetary Society, a U.S.-based or-
‘ganization, with Canadian branches. The
society works as a promoter of scientific
exchange to help realize the peaceful
exploration of space.

The future of all major interplanetary
space travel is in serious jeopardy, large-
ly because of its enormous expense. The
projected cost of just one human-crewed
mission to Mars, for example, is more
than $40 billion — a sum no one country
can justify spending for scientific reasons

ne.

But space-faring nations, principally

_ the U.S. and USSR, could get together

and share the huge expense of such a
mission. And justify it not only for
Scientific reasons, but for important
es cultural, and historical ones as
well.

To meet the enormous expense and
effort of the major extraorbital explora-
tions still ahead (the peaceful establish-
ment of a Moon base, expeditions with
human crews to near-Earth asteroids and
to Mars, and major moves forward in
robotic spacecraft landings on Mars,
Venus, comets, Titan and other satel-
lites) will require significant cooperation

_ between all space-faring nations,

especially the United States and the
Soviet Union.

But that’s going to be no easy task. As
aresult of current political hostilities, the
U.S.-USSR Space Cooperation Treaty
— originally signed in 1972 and renewed
in 1977 — was allowed to lapse in 1982
after a decade of significant joint space
cooperation.

Thankfully, there is no ban on unof-
ficial contacts between our scientific

communities for the purposes of plan-
ning, designing, and sharing respon-
sibility for eventual joint space explora-
tion projects.

Which is exactly what we at The
Planetary Society are doing:
e This past June, The Planetary Soci-

__ ety sponsored an international meeting in
_ Graz, Austria, to discuss and prepare for
- eventual cooperation between the U.S.

and USSR on criticial upcoming pro-

jects. Twenty American and Soviet

Scientists met for a series of frank, in-
formative, and highly encouraging dis-
cussions on the prospects for joint ven-

_ tures in space.

Specifically, American and Societ
space scientists left Graz with a firm re-
solve to pursue bilateral — and multi-
lateral — cooperation with all space-far-
ing nations for future expeditions to
Mars, Venus, and the Moon.

Cooperative efforts will include data
exchange among U.S., USSR, Euro-
pean, and Japanese space agencies on
upcoming missions to Halley’s Comet
(especially important to the U.S., which
has no such mission) ... cooperative
Venus Radar Orbiter analysis and plan-
ning. . . coordination of the Soviets’ 1988
Mars orbiter with the U.S. Mars Geo-
science-Climatology Observer ... and
proposed collaboration on Venus Land-
ing Vehicles, asteroid and comet ren-
dezvous, and a Lunar Polar Orbiter. (At
the Graz meeting, the Soviets shared
exciting plans about their 1988 mission
with us — including details on a pro-
posed rendezvous with the Martian
moon, Phobos.)

e Along similar lines, we sent eleven

American representatives to Estonia, .

USSR, so’they could participate in a
worldwide conference on the Search for

The cost of space travel to Mars would be over $40-billion, a sum no one country could :

justify spending for scientific reasons alone.

And at a time when governments of

both the United States and Soviet Union
are planning massive expenditures for
development of ‘“‘Star Wars’’ weaponry,
international cooperation for peaceful
projects could balance the threat of space
confrontation with constructive
alternatives.

The current U.S. administration policies go so far as to
specifically forbid official bilateral scientific and cultural
contacts with the Soviet Union . . . significant international
cooperation on space expeditions offers humanity a chance to
rise above narrow, nationalistic viewpoints and set its visions on
the stars in acommon cause of discovery and enlightenment.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The
Soviet Union has since made a multimil-
lion-dollar commitment to funding re-

search, construction, and operation of

new SETI instrumentation.

e And just afew weeks ago, Planetary
Society president Carl Sagan and I testi-
fied before the U.S. Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee strongly in favor of re-
newing the U.S.-USSR Space Coopera-
tion Treaty.

The advantages of international space
cooperation, however, are not just
economic. Significant international co-
operation on major space expeditions
permits shared technical expertise and
intellectual interchange to devise and
carry out better missions. Best of all, it
offers humanity a chance to rise above
narrow, nationalistic viewpoints — and
Set its vision on the stars, quite literally,
in a common cause of discovery and
enlightenment.

But most important, space coopera-
tion works! Of the sixteen missions cur-
rently exploring the solar system (flying
or under development), thirteen involve
funding and scientific contributions from
more than one country. It is already an
inherent part of space exploration.

Inthe past, joint Soviet-American ven-
tures have also produced outstanding
technical, intellectual, and scientific re-
sults, regardless of political differences
at the time — the most prominent of
these efforts being the Apollo-Soyuz
joint space dockings in 1976. The Soviets
supplied valuable data about Mars, prior
to our Viking landings; and about Venus,
based on their landings.

More recently, U.S. and Soviet scien-
tists collaborated on the selection of
landing sites for the Soviets’ VENERA-
13 and VENERA-14 missions to Venus.
International participation on the
Soviets’ upcoming VEGA mission —

which will include a lander on Venus,
balloons in the Venus atmosphere, and a
fly-through of Halley’s Comet — re-
sulted in sixteen different experiments
created by scientists of nine nations, cer-
tainly more than Soviet scientists would
ever have conducted alone.

Some have claimed that by cooperat-
ing, the U.S. will ‘“‘give away the store”’
— valuable American technology. But
with planetary landers, rendezvous and
docking, life-support systems and space
biology, there is much the U.S. can learn
from the Soviets.

I’ve been especially heartened, there-
fore, by new Soviet, European, and
Japanese interest in international mis-
sions to explore the solar system. There
are now more than 20 nations involved in
this effort. And I was encouraged by my
own experience last fall, when as a guest
of the USSR’s Institute for Space Re-

search, I was given a frank and informa-

tive tour of two of the Soviet Union’s
leading space science centers.

We believe that a strong citizens’ ef-
fort can cut through the political stale- ,_

mates and bureaucratic impediments

standing in the way of U.S.-Soviet space
missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus ...
and beyond.

Today, as we face the continuing chal-
lenge of peaceful exploration and settle-
ment of space — and the potential peace-
ful settlement of our differences on Earth
— we have an historic opportunity -- _
indeed, an historic responsibility. Please
help save the most significant space

exploration projects yet to come from ; |

being scuttled before they start.

By BARBARA MacDERMOTT

Deadly Cold War propaganda being
pumped into children in schools is sub-
tly educating for war, say three London
teachers.

They are the authors of a booklet
launched recently entitled ‘‘Deadly
Persuasion,’ which reveals how the
Cold War is perpetuated through
school history textbooks.

_ Some 60 textbooks are analyzed for
their presentation of the Second World
War and more recent history.

They conclude that not only are the
accounts uninformed by modern histor-
ical research but they are also
unsubstantiated and biased.

Speaking at the launch, Labor
Member of Parliament Tony Benn
expressed his support for the booklet.
He said it was an important contri-
bution toward understanding the

oo behind the arms race.

“Bombs are only inert lumps of
machinery, however deadly, but pro-
paganda is a virus that infects us all and

prepares us for conflict,’’ declared
Benn.

“Parents are entitled to demand that
their children are permitted to hear
alternative views of world affairs, and
this is exactly what these teachers have
provided.”’

‘An example of Cold War bias dis-
cussed is one textbook’s description of
the Red Army’s advance into Europe in
the last war as ‘‘a barbarian horde on
the march.”

And in another textbook the Red
Army advance is depicted threaten-
ingly — ‘‘The huge Soviet army poured
into Eastern Europe like a a human sea
engulfing country after country.”

The authors, Greta Sykes, Helen
Mercer and Ian Woolf, also point to the

distortion of the decision by the U.S. to
drop the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
bombs. Many textbooks refer to an
‘‘allied’’ decision.

Referring to the expression “‘iron
curtain,’ the authors say that many
young people today think that it phy-
sically exists thanks to the textbooks.

For instance, one textbook author
writes, ‘‘The iron curtain had been
slammed across Europe; Poland, Bul-
gria, Hungary, etc. had fallen to the
Communists. Not only that, but the
Russians had their hands on half of
Germany.”

The authors refute the popular
right-wing accusation that “peace stu-
dies” are being used by politically
motivated teachers to brainwash chil-
dren. Instead, they provide plenty of
fuel for arguments in favor of peace
studies as an attempt to introduce bal-

‘ British study: textbooks boost Cold War

ance into an already propaganda-
weighted education.

They also make a plea for a more
objective history of the Soviet Union to
be told and for a variety of views to be
included in school textbooks.

All three describe in their conclusion
the damaging effects of Cold War pro-
paganda.

‘*Consequently, school students
have limited chance to form judgments
also about contemporary nuclear is-
sues. Yet the arms race itself would be
rendered obsolete without an enemy.
To convince children that there is an
enemy is to convince them of the need
for the arms race.

“Thus we believe: to educate for
peace is not indoctrination, far from it.
The indoctrination already practiced
subtly educates for war,”’ they say.

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 15, 1986

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