Space Agencies Collaboration

Source: Freepik

As many may know, space agencies were often enemies of each other. Most notably, the space race between the United States and Soviet Union. Both of the opposing forces were competing against each other in the hopes of exploring more than the other. However, most space agencies now come to like each other and often build upon each other in the pursuit of exploring more of space.

A few decades following the space race, the ISS was launched into space in 1998. Different from the space race, the building of the ISS involved the collaboration between many different agencies along the likes of the United States, Russia, Japan and many other countries. What’s important is that the goal of space exploration did not interfere with the tensions ongoing between the various countries.

Another example of collaboration between space agencies is the ESA and China. Both agencies launched complementary satellites which helped progress further space exploration by allowing the satellites to observe data on Earth’s magnetic field. This allowed both agencies to collect data for themselves all while mitigating expenses and production through a partnership.

Still, many agencies prefer to compete rather than collaborate in order to not disclose secretive military and economic operations as well as being indepedent. The Wolf Amendment integrated within the United States partly restricts collaboration between China to not allow China to intervene with the United States and their privacy. This goes to show that some agencies are often not allowed to partner with each other due to tensions and factors between the countries as a whole.

Overall, the collaboration between space agencies can help reduce costs and share resources to lead to greater overall production. However, it comes at a cost through many factors if the countries that the agencies are located in are not on good terms. If they are on good terms then it would be worth considering a partnership to help space agencies explore.

References

Zhou, Q. (2022, June 15). A shared frontier? collaboration and competition in the space domain. Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/a-shared-frontier-collaboration-and-competition-in-the-space-domain/#:~:text=When%20Collaboration%20Overcomes%20Competition,the%20US%2DSoviet%20Space%20Race.