Space for Ambitions: The Dutch Space Program in Changing European and Transatlantic Contexts

Abstract

Why would a small country like the Netherlands become active in space? The field was monopolized by large countries with large military establishments, especially in the early years of spaceflight. Nevertheless, the Netherlands established a space program in the late 1960s. In this paper I will analyze the backgrounds of Dutch space policy in international postwar politics, national industrial policy, and science. After the Second World War, European space activities were shaped by the interplay between transatlantic and European cooperation and competition, limited by American Cold War diplomacy. At the national level the Dutch space program was shaped firstly by two powerful companies, Philips electronics and Fokker Aircraft. As I will demonstrate, these two firms sought to gain crucial management skills as well as technological ones. Meanwhile, the nation's astronomers were able to capitalize on an advantageous confluence of political, economic and scientific ambitions to forward their own agenda. They succeeded in obtaining two of the most expensive scientific instruments ever built in the Netherlands: the Astronomical Netherlands Satellite (ANS, launched 1974) and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS, 1983). Both were joint Dutch-American missions, but the nature of the cooperation on each was very different, reflecting the changing relationship between America and Western Europe from the 1950s until the 1980s.In 1965, the Dutch astronomical community received a letter from the Ministry of Education and Sciences. The government had decided to fund the construction of a satellite; would the astronomers have any use for it? The result, launched in 1974, was the Astronomical Netherlands Satellite (ANS). Several years later, the same thing happened again. Almost without having to ask, the astronomers were provided with two of the most expensive scientific instruments ever built in the Netherlands, the only 'national' Dutch satellites. To understand why, one has to analyze international politics, small country diplomacy, industrial ambitions, and a remarkably efficient scientific community.Putting scientific instruments into space is an appealing idea for scientists, but realizing it requires an expensive infrastructure and access to strategically important technologies. Until recently, only national governments had the resources needed to sustain space programs. And even then, very few nations were able to acquire access to space on their own. Because of the possible military uses of satellites and launch vehicles (missiles), but also because of the high public visibility and prestige of space technology, spaceflight has always been shaped by international relations.During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union exploited space for strategic and diplomatic aims (MacDougall 1986;Logsdon 1996;Krige 2006b).In Western Europe, the Cold War was not the most important political context for spaceflight, however. Effectively shut out of direct competition with the superpowers, European countries fo...

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