The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP): East-West Cooperation despite System Competition (1970s)

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The aim of the proposed project is to investigate the characteristics of cooperation and competition under the conditions of Soviet hegemony and socialist organization of science. Within the research group, the project will contribute to the discussion of cooperation and competition in different political, economic, and scientific contexts. We focus on the intra-bloc cooperation in space research, which started in the mid- 1960s within the framework of the Interkosmos program. The Interkosmos program is often seen merely as a political instrument of the Soviet Union. However, we are also interested in the perspective of the other involved countries, in particular the GDR and Czechoslovakia, and we investigate their scope for action. Furthermore, the project will analyze the economic dimension of this cooperation, its functioning, and its consequences for the national science and technology systems. Based on the research group’s assumption of the coexistence of cooperation and competition, it also looks into the competitive constellations on different levels - between the various disciplines, between the individual members of Interkosmos, or across the bloc divide. In addition to Interkosmos, we will include some examples of cooperation from other scientific disciplines to explore in detail the scope for action of socialist countries in East Central Europe.