Despite problems with a leaky jet thruster on the space shuttle Discovery that complicated its close encounter with the Russian Mir space station, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration proved that it still has the right stuff. American and Russian officials successfully negotiated modifications to the complex orbital ballet between the two spacecraft that kept plans on track for a series of shuttle-Mir dockings later this summer. Those maneuvers will serve as rehearsals for construction of an international space station in 1997.
The mission marked an important step in the journey by the U.S. and Russia from Cold War rivals to space age partners. The last major venture was in 1975, when an American Apollo spacecraft successfully docked with an orbiting Russian Soyuz space capsule. It was a one-time affair that produced little of significance for space development or for improved relations.
The international space station project, by contrast, has become a pillar of Clinton foreign policy that will test the willingness of both countries to cooperate in space despite tensions in other aspects of their relationship. The delicacy of the orbital maneuvers Russian and U.S. astronauts practiced Monday look easy compared to the diplomatic maneuvering required to sustain this political cooperation against military hard-liners on both sides opposed to closer ties and domestic budget cutters who see the space agency as ripe for cuts.
That's why House Speaker Newt Gingrich's offhand comment that NASA should have been dismantled after the Apollo moon program in the 1970s initially raised eyebrows. But Mr. Gingrich, self-described "futurist" and space proponent, moved quickly to reassure NASA administrator Daniel Goldin that he had no intention of targeting the space agency for more cuts on top of those already planned by the president. In the budget Mr. Clinton submitted this week, NASA spending will be cut $5 billion by the end of the century and 2,500 jobs will be eliminated by the end of 1996.
Mr. Goldin announced last year a plan to shut underused facilities, rein-in formerly autonomous divisions and redirect resources toward lower-cost programs that offer maximum scientific return for the dollar. That is the best way to ensure both the long-term health of America's space effort and the budding relationship in space between the U.S. and Russia in the post-Cold War world.