Forty years ago this summer, and 15 years before the end of the Cold War, a U.S. Apollo spacecraft carrying a crew of three astronauts docked in space with a Russian Soyuz carrying two cosmonauts. The mission was more of a geopolitical milestone than a technological one—its advertised purpose was to test the compatibility of U.S. and Soviet docking systems and the feasibility of an international space rescue. But the partnership laid an important cornerstone for cooperation between the two adversaries in human spaceflight.

Today, relations between Moscow and Washington are arguably worse than in 1975, as Russia menaces what remains of Ukraine along with other neighbors and as its air and naval forces engage in dangerous cat-and-mouse games with Western militaries and even civilian traffic. But almost lost in all the ensuing diplomatic protests and Twitter barbs is the reality that cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, has been largely unaffected. 

Soyuz vehicles still ferry crews to the International Space Station—a capability the U.S. lost with the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 and will not regain until 2017 or 2018. In February, Russia became the first ISS partner to commit to extend its participation to 2024, bolstering NASA’s efforts to keep the station going beyond 2020. And Administrator Charles Bolden says a recent meeting with his new Russian counterpart, Igor Komarov, was “invigorating.

Russia’s revanchist annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its role in fomenting a Ukrainian civil war are abhorrent. Nonetheless, it is encouraging that important work in civil space has not become a casualty of the poisoned political climate. If NASA is to achieve its goal of leading a costly human mission to Mars in the 2030s, it will require more cooperation with the rest of the world, not less. Which brings us to China.


Credit: NASA


China has arrived as an economic powerhouse and spacefaring nation. Yet NASA is the only federal agency prohibited by the U.S. Congress from undertaking any bilateral activities with the Chinese. As this magazine has opined, the ban is shortsighted and should be lifted in a careful way that allows Beijing into the club of top-tier spacefaring nations without compromising sensitive military technologies. China is going to be a major player in space, with or without NASA. It is better for the U.S. to have some influence on how it enters the club.

Space is an arena in which we must look beyond near-term political disputes and focus on the benefits that could be achieved over the long haul. Washington and Moscow have done that, and space exploration and use are better for it. It is time to bring Beijing in from the cold, too. 

This editorial was originally published in the April 13 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.