NASA OIG: NASA’s International Partnerships: Capabilities, Benefits, and Challenges
In October 1957, the Soviet Union took the world by surprise when it launched Sputnik, mankind’s first artificial satellite. The United States responded with the Apollo Program, which landed astronauts on the Moon 12 years later. While NASA’s initial history was characterized by rivalry with the Soviet Union, since then the Agency has significantly expanded cooperative efforts with other nations’ space agencies. The resulting international partnerships have included collaborations with Russia, European nations, Japan, and Canada, particularly on development and operation of the International Space Station (ISS or Station).
In addition to nurturing relationships between the United States and these countries, such collaborative efforts have provided NASA with access to capabilities, expertise, and resources that have aided Agency projects. As NASA’s missions become more complex and expensive, particularly as the Agency seeks to send humans to Mars and other deep space destinations, international partnerships will only grow in importance. In the early 1960s, the U.S. space program enjoyed substantial support from the President and Congress, with NASA’s annual budget increasing from $500 million in 1960 to $5.2 billion just 5 years later.
Since then, NASA’s share of the Federal budget has significantly decreased. Peaking in 1966 during the Apollo Program at 4.4 percent, by 2015 NASA received only 0.5 percent of the overall Federal budget. Figure 1 illustrates NASA’s funding profile as a percentage of the Federal budget between 1962 and 2016.
A number of factors affect partnerships between NASA and foreign space agencies, including the space policy goals and financial and technical capacities of individual countries, the U.S. Government’s review process for international agreements, U.S. export control laws, and domestic and international politics. In this review, we examined the technical and financial capabilities of selected international partners, lessons learned from previous cooperative efforts, potential barriers to cooperation, and possible ways to minimize those barriers. We interviewed officials from NASA and the French, German, Indian, and Japanese space agencies, as well as the European Space Agency (ESA). In addition, we developed a detailed questionnaire and received responses from the Australian, Argentinian, Brazilian, Canadian, Italian, South Korean, Spanish, Ukrainian, and United Kingdom space agencies.
The findings we present in this report are derived from our interviews, the questionnaire responses, and information gathered from reports and studies prepared by NASA, our office, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and other research, educational, and advisory organizations. The scope and methodology are discussed in Appendix VI.
