From Sputnik to the Outer Space Treaty: Motivations for creating international organizations and standards in the early space years.
- Paper number
IAC-17,E4,2,3,x41396
- Author
Ms. Mia Brown, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, United States
- Year
2017
- Abstract
As we come upon the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), we are able to reflect on fifty years of space discovery and exploration as an international community. Along with the IGY, the first Ad hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was established in December of 1958. From Sputnik to the Outer Space Treaty, these years showed some of the fastest growth in the creation and expansion of international organizations, workshops, and ad hoc meetings. This report seeks to take a bottom-up approach to the broader developments of international organizations in relation to the early years of the space age and address questions such as: What were the domestic and international motivations for national space programs to create and participate in these international organizations? How did these developments facilitate a conversation between space programs on both a national and international level, and to create the platform in which to create these international standards and protocols in existence today? There tends to be an unclear juxtaposition between an interest in increasing international cooperation in science and the increasing tensions of the geopolitical climate of the time. While there may have been an increasing interest in opportunities for science and human exploration, there was an arguably major political and socioeconomic context for this international support as well.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-17,E4,2,3,x41396.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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