Competing for Partners in Outer Space

On July 17, 1975, an orbital rendezvous between the Soyuz and Apollo spacecrafts proved that the Soviet Union and the United States could set aside their differences in the name of advancing manned spaceflight. Space is the ultimate high ground in terrestrial warfare, but it is also an opportunity for cooperation on basic scientific research. Conducting research in space is expensive, and few countries can afford to go it alone. Though the intense competition over military and commercial uses of space will continue, space and planetary science will likely remain collaborative fields, even if flavored with nationalism. Nevertheless, as other nations develop their own space programs, their more established counterparts in the United States, Russia and China will increasingly vie with one another to enlist them as research partners.