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 The history of those programs included many examples of international cooperation in space exploration. During the Apollo program, scientists from Europe and other countries aided their American colleagues in formulating goals and plans for lunar surface exploration. The Shuttle program, with strong ties to Canada and the member nations of the European Space Agency, has made possible the flights of the first West German astronaut, Ulf Merbold in 1983; the First Canadian in space, Marc Garneau in 1984; and the first French astronaut, Patrick Baudry in 1985.

Today the Johnson Space Center is playing an important role in the country's even more ambitious plans for the future. In addition to the Shuttle program, JSC's government and aerospace industry team, consisting of more than 12,000 civil service and contractor personnel, are working on the design and development of Space Station Freedom, a manned research laboratory scheduled to begin operations in low Earth orbit in the late 1990s. The orbital complex will include laboratory and logistics modules developed by the European Space Agency and Japan's National Space Development Agency, and will rely heavily on a robotic manipulator system--similar to the Shuttle'’s robot arm--developed by Canada.

In addition, JSC will play a central role in the space exploration initiative announced in 1989 by President George Bush, which committed the United States to renewed exploration of the Moon and construction of a lunar base early in the 21st Century, and eventual manned expeditions to Mars.

One result of this heightened activity in the civilian space program is an increasingly favorable economic impact on the Houston metroplex. In 1987 alone, JSC is estimated to have had an impact of almost three- quarters of a billion dollars, resulting in 25,000 jobs in the local economy. By 1993, planned Space Station Freedom expenditures are projected to increase current levels of economic activity by more than 66 percent and create as many as 7,000 to 8,000 new jobs which will require additional goods and services, homes, schools, offices, hotels and tourist attractions. In the three years immediately following President Ronald Reagan's approval of the Space Station program, 26 new aerospace office buildings with a total of more than 2 million square feet were constructed in the Clear Lake area, with a total investment of $140 million.

JSC's new $60 million visitor center, Space Center Houston, now being developed in partnership with Walt Disney Imagineering, is scheduled to open next year and will also have a dramatic economic impact. The facility is expected to attract from 2 to 3 million visitors each year, whose stay in the area could generate an additional $60 to $90 million into the local economy.