In August 1978, it was reported that the United States and the Soviet Union had given their approval to a new conference on outer space, but had sought to limit the scope of such a conference. The conference, when held, according to the report would take place no sooner than 1983, no sooner than 2-3 years after the General Assembly had given its approval to the conference, and only after the results of the Conference on Science and Technology for Development were in. Further, the space-resource States wished to focus the work of the conference on scientific and technical considerations rather than on legal-political issues. The equatorial States and some of the LDCs have favored wide-ranging legal and political discussions. The United States appears to oppose negotiating on the claims of the equatorial States to sovereignty in the areas superjacent to them. The United States also does not consider the problem of the definition/delimitation of airspace and outer space to be a pressing one. 7.3 Factors Involved in the Convening of a Conference It is beyond the scope of the present paper to assess all of the problems attendant upon the convening of a UN-sponsored international space conference. However, it is in order to mention several considerations that would contribute to the ultimate success of the work of such a meeting. In the first place, as suggested above, there is an absolute need to be assured that all of the participants have a relatively similar understanding of the basic scientific and technological facts involved Craig Covault, "Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft Study Set," Aviation Week & Space Technology, p. 45, August 7, 1978.
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