UPDATE: As of February 2006, Space Center Houston has done some major - for them, this is major - renovations to the exhibits around the Skylab 1G Trainer. Most noticeably affected was the ASTP Docking Module Trainer, which was moved to a better-lit spot *and* some additional exhibits were added as well. I'll be updating this page to reflect this shortly, but until then be advised that the status of the DM Trainer has a much happier ending than what you're about to read.

And the amazing part? According to a couple of staffers at SCH, apparently this website was responsible for the exhibit upgrades. More on that shortly as well...

If you go visit Space Center Houston, you'll no doubt run into the Skylab 1G Trainer. It's hard to miss, as it's the biggest exhibit inside of the Disney-run visitors' center. Right across from this particular exhibit is this odd little contraption, sitting sort of lost and forlorn in a dark corner, somewhat easy to miss despite being painted a stark flat white, as you'll note in the photos below:

This is the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Universal Docking Adapter Trainer. As you'll see later on in this retrospective, this is the actual trainer used by the crews to prepare for a mission that showed two nuclear superpowers that thawing the Cold War between them was a viable option. It's also the only exhibit at Space Center Disney that "honors" what history may one day note as the most important mission of the entire Apollo program. If, of course, you can accept the shabby treatment the trainer currently received as being "honorable".

I don't. Which leads us to this retrospective. Once upon a time, this was simply going to be a photo page, with images of the trainer and some of the other exhibits at the Visitors' Center. However, after some lengthy discussions on the usenet newsgroup sci.space.history, the lack of appreciation for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program (ASTP) by both the general populace and those who are supposedly professionally dedicated to preserving space history became rather shockingly apparent. As a result, the commentaries on a simple photo page quickly took a life of its own, and over a period of about a month from the middle of September to the middle of October of 2002 a significant amount of research was done into what ASTP was all about, where it really fit in the big picture with everything else, and just how much of an impact it had on the geopolitical situation that existed during the era we now call the Cold War. What came out of all this research is the retrospective you're about to read.

Just in case you haven't noticed just how the slider on this page's scrollbar significantly shrank while the page loaded, this is going to be a rather L-O-N-G retrospective piece. So it's probably best that I give a few caveats as to what you're going to find here:

First off, there's lots and lots of words in between the pictures. Words are good, despite what those with short attention spans claim, so if you're here expecting capsule summaries you're out of luck. Most of those words contain details about ASTP, and quite a few of those words contain facts, figures and historical information, all gleamed from the historical records and analyses relating to the mission and its era. For those of you looking for just the facts, I've also imbedded a ton of hyperlinks to take you to the sources for these facts. I've also added quite a few hyperlinks to external sites and pages dealing with some of the various terms, persons and other events relating to ASTP and the world from which it sprang. Note that due to the very nature of the Internet and the World Wide Web, as time goes on some of those links may vanish or change. If you come across any of these, feel free to let me know.

Secondly, it should be noted that quite another few of the words in this document contain a bit more than just historical facts. There's a significant amount commentary, opinions, and outright spadecalling regarding certain aspects of the program, it's participants, and those who either supported and/or hindered it. Some of that commentary can be perceived by some as being a bit abrasive, as some of my space history colleagues have noted over the years. However, I tend to subscribe to the opinion that history doesn't always need to be told in a dry, sterile, "facts-only" style. That way leads to boredom and tedium, which in turn usually results in the facts being totally missed due to the historian putting the reader to sleep after the first paragraph. My style, I will warn in advance, does take advantage of the use of "colorful metaphors" and phrasings that will offend some, but at the same time are necessary to get the actual point across. So, with this in mind, if you're looking for a somewhat frank perspective on what ASTP was all about, then you've come to the right place. If you're just looking for the facts, they're there as well, although sometimes imbedded a little between the rhetorical and the satirical.

Thirdly, while most of the commentary in this retrospective is pretty much in-your-face, some of it is hidden as "Easter Eggs" that pop up when you mouse over an image. This especially goes for credits and thank-yous to those who've provided said images. So make sure you take the time to go over each image, otherwise you'll miss some of the humor intended to keep everything in its proper perspective.

Finally, an aside note to educators and students alike: this retrospective isn't intended to serve as someone's term paper. You're more than welcome to use the information to help you write your essays, term papers and even your love letters to whoever's caught your eye in the seat next to you. But lifting the entire contents, slapping your name on the cover and turning it in for credit is a major no-no. Use this a guide and a source, not as a pre-written excuse to take credit for someone else's work. On the other hand, if you *are* an educator, be sure to drop me a line if one of your students actually pulls this stunt. I'd love to hear how you handled the matter, especially if the kid's stupid enough to quote me and my particular style and vernacular verbatim, graffiti and all!

History isn't just the facts, it's how we perceive them. The difference between the facts and my perceptions should be obvious. If they're not, then I leave it to you to make your own observations and analysis. Unless, of course, I'm slamming idiots, morons, nincompoops and other incompetents like William Proxmire, Robert McNamara or Jerome Weisner, who are deserving of the derision they get. Either way, ASTP deserves a lot more credit than it's gotten over the years, and seeing that trainer sitting ignored in the dark incensed me enough to write up this rather lengthy diatribe, using my own words, thoughts and anything else I could come up with for resources.

Thanks for sharing some interest in my retrospective, as well as in ASTP. Enjoy the ride, and if you feel something needs to be corrected, or just have a comment or twelve about my opinions, drop me a line, or visit me on sci.space.history!

"What The Heck Is That Thar Thang?"

The ASTP Universal Docking Module was an airlock with docking facilities on each end to allow crew transfer between Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. While more of a prototype than an actual mass-production module, the DM would test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft in order to open the way for future Joint Missions. "Joint" meaning both planned and unplanned - read: rescue - missions; In 1969, the space disaster movie Marooned saw world-wide release, and in light of the events of Apollo 13, officials on both sides of the Iron Curtain began to show concern as to how one side could assist the other to rescue a crew stranded in orbit.

The concept of joint operations wasn't a new one. President Kennedy had debated the concept during his decisions on whether to issue the challenge that led to the Race to the Moon. He'd even bounced it off of Nikita Khrushchev prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and even made more official proposals thru diplomatic channels prior to his death in 1963. However, the Cold War was still a bit too hot for either side to act further on the concept - the US Congress, in fact, added clauses into NASA's budget that prohibited such joint ventures with the Soviets without their expressed approval - and the very race to the Moon itself put such a competitive edge to space exploration that any spirit of cooperation simply could not take hold on either side.

As the Americans and the Soviets progressed on their respective space programs, both sides experienced their own successes and failures. The results of two specific failures, however, not only put temporary brakes on their respective impetus towards the Moon, but set into effect a series of decisions that would decide just who would reach the Moon first. In the case of the US, the Apollo 1 fire which killed Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, put as 21-month hold on the Apollo program while the Command Module (CM) was redesigned for safety. On the Soviet side, the fatal crash of Soyuz I only a few months later - which killed Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov - set their efforts back almost 18 months. By the time both programs returned to active manned flights, the perceptions of one another's programs forced some radical decisions.

Of major importance is the fact that, throughout the Space Race, the Soviets had always been rather coy and not very forthcoming with information regarding their plans for space; in most cases missions were not announced to the news agencies unless they were successfully launched or completed. On the other hand, the US had always been very open with their own plans, and included the press in coverage of both successes and failures. This openness had one backfiring effect: it allowed the Soviets the opportunity to jump the gun on the US efforts by staging what can best be described as "stunt flights" designed solely as propaganda missions intended to steal the Americans' thunder. 

It started with the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. The US announces plans for a satellite by the end of the IGY, the Soviets launch Sputnik I well before the US Vanguard is ready. NASA is formed and when Project Mercury is almost ready for its first suborbital flight, the Soviets send up Yuri Gagarin on Vostok I  and then to add salt to the wound they send up Gherman Titov on Vostok II. NASA announces Gemini and the fact that it has a 2-man crew, the Soviets launch Voskhod I with a 3-man crew and an engineer. NASA then touts that Gemini will allow for Astronauts to walk in space, up goes Voskhod II and an inflatable airlock to allow Alexei Leonov to become the first man to do just that. The fact that the entire Soviet Voskhod series was nothing more than unsafely reengineered Vostok spacecraft gutted and refitted to allow for larger crews and inflatable airlocks was pretty much unknown to the West mattered not at the time. To the entire world, it seemed that the only way the Soviets would not beat the US to the Moon was if something catastrophic happened.

Prior to the flight of Apollo 7, one of the CIA's KH-8 series spy satellites photographed the first images of what turned out to be the Soviet's answer to the Saturn V - the N-1. Here was proof that the Soviets were actually as serious about going to the Moon as the the Americans were. It also had certain NASA directors messing their pants as it appeared the Soviets could - and probably would - make a manned attempt at a circumlunar mission as early as December of 1968. The result of the meetings between the NASA brass over this revelation resulted in NASA Deputy Admin George Low's proposal to shuffle the current Apollo development program and launch Apollo 8 on a mission to not just fly around the Moon but to actually orbit it. After all the arguments against such a risky mission were addressed, the only question remaining was whether the Soviets would attempt their launch before Apollo 8 could be get off the ground in late December of 1968.

"Zounds...Er, I Mean,* Zonds*!"
On the left is an artist's rendering of the Soyuz 7K-L1, photos of which are very rare even a decade after the fall of the Evil Soviet Empire. On the right is the Soviet version of "Earthrise", taken from Zond 7. The version from Zond 6 was very similar.

While the US geared up for Apollo 7, the Soviets launched Zond 5 on September 15th, 1968. Three days later, Zond 5 became the first man-made object to successfully perform  a circumlunar mission at an altitude of 1950 km. In addition to returning high quality photographs of the Earth taken at a distance of 90,000 km, Zond 5 carried a biological payload of turtles, wine flies, meal worms, plants, seeds, bacteria, and several other samples of living matter. The most public payload, though, was a tape recorder with a recording of a cosmonaut's voice to test radio reception from the Moon. The signals received have, over the years, been mentioned by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Soviets lost far more Cosmonauts in flight failures than they've admitted to. 

.While Zond 5 loop-around was a success, the ship's gyroscopic platform went off line due to ground operator failure just prior to reentry. After a ballistic reentry that subjected the ship's cargo to 20G's of reentry stress, the spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean on September 21, 1968. The rough landing, however, prompted the Soviets to schedule another unmanned test flight. On November 10th 1968, during the launch window originally set by the State Commission for the first manned attempt, Zond 6 was launched towards the Moon on what was basically a repeat mission of Zond 5. A mission that, due to the same requirements set aside by the Commission, was doubly required as its predecessor had not been judged a total success due to the high-G landing.

Loaded with a scientific payload including cosmic ray and micrometeoroid detectors, photography equipment, and an assortment of biological specimens, Zond 6 did its figure-8 around the Moon on November 14 at an altitude of 2,420 km. The photographic equipment took spectacular photos of the Moon’s limb with the Earth in the background - a view preceding the ones returned by Apollo 8  by almost a month. Additional shots were also taken of both near and far sides of the Moon from distances of approximately 11,000 km and 3300 km. Some of the views allowed for stereo pictures. All images were transmitted back to Earth via slow-scan television as a backup in case Zond 6 failed to return safely.

Despite the success of the photographic experiments, on the return trip a pressure gasket failed, leading to rapid cabin depressurization. Such a failure would have killed the crew had the ship actually been manned, and is believed to have killed most if not all of the biological samples. Zond 6 then made the first successful double skip trajectory - a necessary maneuver required to reduce the ship's velocity enough to allow it to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without exceeding the design limits of the heatshield. Dipping into the Earth's atmosphere over Antarctica, Zond 6 slowed from 11 km/sec to just above suborbital velocity, then skipped back briefly out into space before lining up for final reentry within the Soviet Union. 

However, the main chute deployed prematurely, and the drag ripped open the main canopy and rendered the chute null and void. The spacecraft hit the ground and exploded on impact, destroying all of the payload inside save for one negative from the photographic experiments. Obviously, the landing failure meant that Zond 6  did not meet the criteria for approval of a manned mission. While the Commission scheduled another unmanned attempt for January of 1969, with Apollo 8 launching within a month it became obvious that the only chance the Soviets would have of at least beating the Americans to a manned circumlunar mission depended on Apollo 8 suffering some catastrophic failure.

As history notes, Apollo 8 was anything but a failure. Launched on December 21st, 1968, Apollo 8 demonstrated once and for all that not only could the distance between the Earth and the Moon could be safely traversed, but that Lunar orbit could be achieved and maintained. On Christmas Eve, as they orbited the moon, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders awed and astonished the world as they gave a live broadcast from space. During the broadcast, the crew shared their own distinct impressions of the lunar surface below them, complete with actual live images of the Moon through one of the windows. As they aired the moonscape, craters and all, the three Astronauts each read a few verses from the first chapter of Genesis, and wished a Merry Christmas to their viewers back home.

(*) On a side note, Cosmos was so widely applied to missions whose actual names and designations only became known in the West after the fall of the Evil Soviet Empire in 1991, that Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronomica doesn't even have a section entry for Cosmos. The missions are there, but a general Cosmos category ain't!

"That Is One Big Mother Of A Missile."
On the left is a rare shot of two later series N-1 boosters on the launch pads at Tyuratam. On the right is N1-L3 at ignition, bearing the Soviet Army green color scheme used for the early versions of the booster. Realspace Models has an excellent 1:144 scale resin kit of the N-1 you should check out. Haven't found a 1:96 version to go side-by-side with the Revellogram Germany reissue of the Saturn V, but if you've got a source drop me a line!

The first N-1 launch attempt - NI-3L - was on February 21st, 1969, with an unmanned modified 7K-L1 - 7K-L1A - intended to achieve and maintain lunar orbit. 68 seconds into the flight, unexpected pogo - frequency oscillations caused primarily by fluid running thru piping at high rates - caused stress failure of several engine components. The resulting fuel leak caused a fire in the Block A first stage, which set off a series of events that were not compensated for by the onboard engine monitoring systems. At 70 seconds the range safety officer detonated the vehicle. Five months later, with the pogo problem believed solved by a redesign of the fuel line layouts, NI-5L was launched on July 3rd 1969 with a mockup LK payload. This was just a booster test, but with Apollo 11 just three weeks away it was viewed by many in the Soviet Union as of extreme importance. If Apollo 11 failed, and the 5L was a success, the Soviets would still have a chance to throw a "hail mary!" pass with the next launch and still win the race.

At a quarter of a second after liftoff, the oxidizer pump of engine #8 ingested a fragment of slag left behind from the welding process and exploded. Fire spread thru the Block A stage as the vehicle cleared the tower. As the fire spread, more engines continued to explode or shutdown until the acceleration dropped below 1G. The vehicle then fell back to the pad at a 45° angle and exploded upon impact. The explosion, equivalent to that of a very small nuke, destroyed the launch pad and severely damaged the adjacent sister pad. The explosion was so devastating that not only was it picked up by the CIA's KH spy sats, it set the entire N-1 program back 18 months and effectively conceded the Moon to the US effort.

"What Goes Up..."
On the left is a shot of  NI-3L just before Max Q. The right shot is what happened when NI-5L hit the ground just a few seconds after takeoff. If you get a chance to see the actual footage, it's really wild to see something this big just fall out of the sky. Makes the Hindenburg disaster look like a cheap Dr. Who special effect by comparison despite the fact that the video's not in too good a shape.

However, as history shows, the Soviet propaganda machine never had a problem with what we now call "spin doctoring". As Apollo 11 achieved the first landing on July 20th, 1969, placing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, from within the Soviet Union came a series of announcements that were intended to confuse the West into suspecting the Soviets had never been in a race to the Moon all along. In fact, shortly after Apollo 8, Boris Nikolaevich Petrov, Chairman of the Council for International Cooperation in Investigation and Utilization of Outer Space - Intercosmos - of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, indicated that the Soviets would explore the Moon, but would do so with unmanned probes instead. Both the Luna and Lunokhod series, as well as the Mars and Venera missions were all unmanned probes as advertised. Later announcements first hinted, then officially stated, that the major focus in manned space exploration for the Soviet Union was in building and operating large space stations. With Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 both achieving successful landings before President Kennedy's deadline of 1970, whether the Soviets were telling the truth or not was at that time a moot point.

By this time, NASA had a new administrator. Thomas O. Paine, who replaced James E. Webb as NASA Administrator, had recalled the overtures of cooperation nearly a decade ago, and saw the Soviet change in space policy might just lead to a change in Soviet-American space relations. Since the race to the Moon was a settled issue, any offer to the Soviets for cooperative efforts would not jeopardize the goal or the pride of either side. In fact, believed Paine, the Soviets had far more to gain from cooperation; the Soviets could maintain the image of technological parity with the US by working with them instead of against them. Paine also believed this was a prime opportunity for new beginnings, and opened the first open diplomatic channels with Soviet space officials.

After initial correspondence and idea proposals, Paine's ideas got an initial stamp of approval from President Nixon on July 10th, 1970. From there, the discussions moved to a more formal level with the Office of Manned Space Flight - OMSF - being brought in to begin consideration of development of compatible rendezvous and docking systems. The first phase of discussions outlined the differences between the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, and included Gemini into the mix as well. The Gemini addition may have been due to the possibility that the US Air Force's Blue Gemini program might be revived in light of the Soviets using their Soyuz for military operations in space. The end result of this first phase called more for modifications to the Soyuz than a separate docking module, but in either case negotiations would have to be made with the Soviets.

The first official meeting occurred on October 24th, 1970. The American delegation, including Robert R. Gilruth, Glynn S. Lunney, and Caldwell Johnson, arrived in Moscow to meet with Petrov and a group of Soviet space officials and Cosmonauts, including Vladimir Shatalov and Georgi Beregovoi. The US delegation was given unprecedented tours of Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City) and its training facilities. The two sides then gave lectures on their current rendezvous and docking techniques, followed by Caldwell's presentation for an Androgynous Docking Mechanism, and the Soviet's presentation of a new docking mechanism to allow for shirt-sleeve crew transfers. Both sides agreed to additional data transfers, and were equally surprised at the ease the two sides worked together; by being totally open, all of the apprehension and suspicions fostered by the Cold War all but disappeared.

On January 16th, 1971, NASA Deputy Administrator George Low - the man who proposed the Apollo 8 mission - arrived in Moscow for talks that would lead to specific proposals for a Joint Mission. Prior to leaving, Low was briefed by Henry Kissinger - President Nixon's then-Foreign Policy Advisor and comedian Rich Little's most popular target of satirical impression next to Nixon himself - on the limits to what Low could discuss. As Nixon was actually in favor of a Joint Mission and its geopolitical ramifications, Low was given a free hand to do what was necessary with one caveat: 

"As long as you stick to space, do anything you want to do. You are free to commit - in fact, I want you to tell your counterparts in Moscow that the President has sent you on this mission." 

Kissinger's advice had come from concerns that both he and Nixon held regarding the Astronauts and their expressing of political views. Both believed that just because two sides in a geopolitical struggle could reach technical agreements, it was naive to believe they could also solve political issues using the same methodology. Kissinger himself had been disturbed when some of the Astronauts had begun to suggest that since it was easy to negotiate with the Soviets on space topics it should be equally simple in other areas. Such naiveté on the part of highly publicized individuals, Kissinger assured Low, only hampered the work of diplomats on both sides, and that Low's best bet for success was to stick to space and stay away from politics. Hindsight aside, considering the state of affairs between the US and the Soviets at the time, this was probably the most prudent advice Kissinger could give considering the nature of geopolitics at the time. By telling Low to avoid the politics he would reduce and possibly eliminate the risk of the whole project getting scrapped in retaliation for one side's gaffe or advance in the political arena. Ergo, this put the Joint Mission above political concerns, thus making it immune to a political fallout as best as possible.

After four days of detailed and physically exhausting negotiations, Low initialed an agreement with Mstislav Keldysh, President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, calling for fuller cooperation in five specific areas of research:

• Define and exchange information on the objectives of space, lunar and planetary exploration, to consider the possibility of coordinated lunar exploration, and to exchange lunar surface samples already obtained by previous missions
• Improve the current exchange of data from meteorological satellites and consider alternative possibilities for coordinating systems
• Develop procedures whereby detailed space biology and space medicine data could be more regularly exchanged
• Formulate cooperative provisions for a program of meteorological rocket soundings;
• Study the possibility of conducting natural environment research by coordinated surface, air, and space measurements over international waters and specific ground sites

Following this, Low and Keldysh, along with Cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov, began discussions on the area of research notably missing from the previous agreement: the Joint Mission. Neither of the representative teams were willing to fully commit to the mission, but were more than willing to discuss the issues involved and make their recommendations to their superiors. If a formal agreement were to come about, it was also agreed that one aspect of the US proposal be applied: any Joint Mission should provide a public demonstration of a viable joint activity and as such should allow both countries to exhibit equal skill and effort.

Shortly after this, the lines of communication saw some minor delays that had not been experienced before. At this time, unbeknownst to the US, the Soviets were well underway with their Salyut and Almaz space station programs. After the successful docking of Soyuz 10 to Salyut I on June 6th, 1971(*), Petrov got the ball rolling again by scheduling the next round of talks for the 20th, this time taking place in Houston. Amidst the positive discussions, various docking methodologies were proposed. Some were ruled out as being too complex, others for simply not being challenging enough. While no official docking mode was agreed upon, both sides decided upon an official set of requirements that had to be met for such a mission to succeed. Afterwards, the Soviet delegation was exposed to the most positive, non-militaristic expression of the benefits of Capitalism - a local shopping mall. There the Soviet delegation took advantage of the situation and made large purchases to take back home with them, facilitated by one particular store running a major discount sale on children's clothing!

However, shortly after the 2nd phase of discussions ended, one unexpected result of the ongoing negotiations occurred. During the talks, Soyuz 11 was docked to Salyut I as part of the first manned mission for the station. Although the mission itself went well, the crew of Soyuz 11 perished during reentry when a pressurization valve failed and voided the cabin atmosphere. Almost immediately speculation arose that their deaths were actually caused by prolonged exposure to weightlessness. In previous mishaps and failures, the Soviets had been very tight-lipped about the details. This time, they were quite a bit more forthcoming with the facts, and helped not only to dispel unnecessary fears regarding long-term stays in microgravity, but pointed NASA to make further safety studies on the Apollo CM to ensure that such failures could not happen. Clearly both sides were shown the logic and the benefit of sharing failure data.(**)

During this time, Tom Paine was facing problems over the NASA budget. With Congress trying to support the war in Vietnam and looking for sacrificial lambs to drain for funds, NASA was picked because it was the most public one available at the time. Paine did his own budget cutting in an attempt to salvage what programs he could; Apollos 18 thru 20 were cancelled so the resources could be redirected into Skylab and possibly the Joint Mission. In addition, any mission requiring the Saturn V was also canned, including the original Mars version of Voyager and the Grand Tour proposals of the 1960's.

The end for Paine's tenure as NASA Administrator came in 1971 following the proposals put forth by Vice President Spiro Agnew and the Space Task Group. The proposals called for space stations, reusable launch vehicles, manned missions to Mars, and other bold adventures designed to continue the "Go Fever" that swept the nation following Apollo 11. However, President Nixon's ignorance combined with Congress' desire to keep their pork barrels full resulted in the rejection of the STG's proposals en masse. Paine resigned in protest, and was eventually replaced by James C. Fletcher on January 5, 1972, who managed to salvage the part of the STG's proposals that led to the development of the Space Shuttle. Fletcher would be the NASA director who would not only be the one to finally sign off the approval for the Joint Mission, but would ensure that Apollo would be the US component of the mission by ordering that only surplus Apollo equipment be used.

Fletcher made it clear very early in his tenure that he supported increased cooperation with the Soviets on space matters. On March 10th, 1972,  Fletcher informed the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, that the U.S. had made "some small steps" toward cooperation with the Soviets and that "even larger steps" should be taken. However, the true impetus in Fletcher's support for the Joint Mission was more towards reducing the expected long hiatus between Skylab and the first Shuttle flights; the latter of which was being pushed back to the 1980s due to technological and budget problems. This threatened NASA's infrastructure, as the unavoidable downsizing that could - and did - occur would affect the development of the Shuttle and its ability to achieve its basic goals. Clearly, some sort of interim manned program was needed; the Joint Mission might be the answer.

(*) There's been a lot of speculation over the years as to why the crew of Soyuz 10 did not board Salyut 1 after docking. The Soviets were even vague and unforthcoming during the cooperation of ASTP. Since the fall of the Evil Soviet Empire in 1991, a better understanding of what actually happened has come forth:  

As planned, Soyuz 10 successfully soft-docked with Salyut 1. Once soft-docked, the docking mechanism on the Soyuz was supposed to pull the the two docking ports together and then initiate a hard dock - a procedure very similar to that used on Apollo. However, the automatic retraction system failed, and a hand crank method was attempted. This pulled the spacecraft closer to the station, but due to the angle of approach the two ports could not align properly and allow the latching mechanisms to connect to complete the hard dock. Despite the hard dock failure, the design of the docking mechanism was such that it should have been possible for the crew to still board Salyut. However, in one of the few areas of this mishap still sketchy in detail, it appears that the crew were unable to enter the station due to a faulty hatch on the Soyuz side of the docking. It is not clear if the hatch failure was caused by the docking problems, or if the hatch was sent up defective to begin with. 

While attempting to overcome the docking problems, Soyuz 10 remained in soft-dock for 5 hours and 30 minutes, at which time ground controllers ordered the crew to abandon any further attempts to complete the mission. However, when undocking was attempted the jammed hatch impinged on the docking mechanism and kept the two spacecraft stuck to one another. After several attempts the crew was able to shake the Soyuz loose. Post-flight analysis indicated that the failure was caused by the lack of instrumentation to provide angle and range rate data necessary for a successful manual docking. Luckily for the Soviets, the photographic imagery brought back by the crew indicated that the Salyut side of the docking system was not damaged, which cleared the way for the Soyuz 11 mission. 

(**) Two points should be made here:

1. As noted above, the Soviets were not totally forthcoming with data on certain missions. In addition to the true nature of the Soyuz 10 docking failure, they also failed to report a mishap that occurred at landing. Due to an air inlet valve being prematurely activated, the Soyuz air supply became toxic due to the intake of RCS exhaust gasses. The crew suffered from exposure to the gasses, and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, the test engineer, actually passed out and had to be given emergency treatment at the landing site. As it turned out, this was very much like what happened to Vance Brand after Apollo returned from ASTP. Had the Soviets disclosed all the details, it's theoretically possible that the incident may have alerted NASA officials to make changes in either the Apollo design or flight plans to prevent such an occurrence.
   
2. The valve failure that killed the Soyuz 11 crew was not related to the docking mechanism problems experienced on Soyuz 10, nor due to any damage to the Salyut caused by the way Soyuz 10 had to achieve undocking. While this was a theory that surfaced shortly after the truth about Soyuz 10 came to light, documents regarding the Soyuz 11 failure show clearly that the valve had nothing to do with the docking mechanism on either side, and was a totally independent failure.

On a sad side note, shortly after posting this page, Nikolai Rukavishnikov passed away on October 21st, 2002, of a heart attack. Ironically and sadly, two weeks earlier I'd made a few discrete inquiries as to whether he was available to answer a few questions regarding ASTP and the Soviets' reluctance to come forth with details on the docking problems. I'd gotten a lead on Rukavishnikov through an old college friend who'd move to Russia some years back, and he was pursuing the matter further as a favor to me when, sadly, Rukavishnikov died. Like all those who've gone into the heavens both physically and metaphysically, he will be missed.

• Coordination of the Phobos, Vesta, and Mars Observer missions and the exchange of scientific data resulting from them
• Utilization of the U.S. Deep Space Network for position tracking of the Phobos and Vesta landers and subsequent exchange of scientific data
• Invitation, by mutual agreement, of co-investigators' and/or interdisciplinary scientists' participation in the Mars Observer and the Phobos and Vesta Missions
• Joint studies to identify the most promising landing sites on Mars
• Exchange of scientific data on the exploration of the Venusian surface
• Exchange of scientific data on cosmic dust, meteorites and lunar materials
• Exchange of scientific data in the field of radio astronomy
• Exchange of scientific data in the fields of cosmic gamma-ray, x-ray and sub-millimeter astronomy
• Exchange of scientific data and coordination of programs and investigations relative to studies of gamma ray burst data
• Coordination of observation from solar terrestrial physics missions and the subsequent exchange of appropriate scientific data
• Coordination of activities in the study of global changes of the natural environment
• Cooperation in the Cosmos biosatellite program
• Exchange of appropriate biomedical data from U.S. and U.S.S.R. manned space flights
• Exchange of data arising from studies of space flight-induce changes of metabolism, including the metabolism of calcium, both from space flight and ground experiments
• Exploration of the feasibility of joint fundamental and applied biomedical experiments on the ground and in various types of spacecraft, including exobiology
• Preparation and publication of a second amplified edition of the joint study "Fundamentals of Space Biology and Medicine

From that point on the time for talking was done; it was time to prove that a partnership existed and could succeed in accomplishing a Joint Mission.

"A Picture Paints A Thousand...Orbits?"
Here's what happens when you get an engineer to diagram a mission profile, and then get an artist to draw what it looks like. If you take the one on the left, toss it into Photoshop, do a Polar Coordinate transform, you get something very close to the one on the right. Go figure.

Based on the budgetary conditions brought about by Paine and Fletcher's work, the Apollo(*) side of ASTP would consist of a Saturn IB, CSM Stack AS-111, and CSM Stack AS-119 as backup vehicle. In addition, Glynn Lunney was given primary responsibility for overseeing ASTP, while actual preparation of the Saturn IB would be carried out by the Saturn Program Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with all launch related activities naturally supervised by the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). 

Meanwhile, North American Rockwell was contracted to upgrade CSM Stack 111 to meet the requirements of ASTP and to develop and fabricate the docking module (DM), including the basic engineering, fabrication and assembly, ground testing for all American-side components, and a large list of additional services necessary to prepare the spacecraft for the flight and facilitate post-flight analysis. 

"So Now We Know Where Sam's Got It's Warehouse Style!"
On the right, Apollo CSM Stack AS-111, shortly after it's arrival at the VAB.  On the left, a grainy, but telling shot of not one but two Soviet Soyuz spacecraft being assembled. Both spacecraft were 95% finished at the time the photo was taken.

The Soviets would use supply of their Soyuz 11A511U boosters - at the time the most powerful version of a series of boosters derived from the original "Semyorka" R-7. The spacecraft would be a Soyuz 7K-T spacecraft, modified specifically for ASTP. This version, redesignated as Soyuz 7K-M internally, included several improvements over previous Soyuz versions. A new, more reliable launch escape tower was added, as were improved, more powerful lightweight solar panels, redesigned antennae to facilitate communications, and special optical docking targets to assist with manual docking with Apollo. Most importantly, an androgynous universal docking mechanism based on designs presented at the January 1971 meetings was added, and a redesign of the environmental control system to allow the cabin pressure to be lowered to 0.68 atmospheres prior to docking with Apollo.

Despite the openness and cooperation, there were on some occasions a bit of showmanship and "one-uppancy" floating about. During the mission planning discussions, there was some debate as to whether Apollo or Soyuz would launch first. NASA officials pushed for an Apollo-first mission profile based on Apollo's mission duration capabilities being greater than a standard Soyuz by almost three days to one. That way, if the Soyuz failed to launch, Apollo could wait in orbit until the launch problem was resolved, or continue with a backup solo mission in the event a launch could not be achieved by the time system limits required the CM to bring the crew back.

In mid July, 1972, NASA received a copy of the Soviet "Project Technical Proposal" in Russian. When translated, the document stated that the Soviets proposed that Soyuz be launched first, then Apollo; if Apollo failed to launch on schedule within Soyuz' 4-day mission limits, the first one would deorbit and a fresh one would be prepared for immediate launch. If the first Soyuz failed to launch or had to come down early, the second one would immediately take its place. This came as some surprise to NASA officials, as there was no mention of a second Soyuz at any time during all the negotiations. The translators were asked to clarify this statement, as many felt there was some nuance or terminology that had been mistranslated. 

 No matter how it was translated, transliterated, phrased, mumbled, garbled, rhymed or stammered, the message remained the same: If the first Soyuz has to come down, then the second will be immediately launched. When pressed for clarification, to NASA's continued astonishment the Soviets confirmed that the translation of the passage was accurate: they would indeed have a second Soyuz ready for launch at the same time as the first. This had the unexpected effect of solving the debate over who was going to launch first, and why. If the Soviets were capable of having two spacecraft simultaneously ready for launch, then it only made sense for them to go first since they had a backup in place. Apollo would launch only if the first Soyuz achieved orbit safely and all systems were good. If not, Apollo would hold off on launch until the Soviets managed to either get the first Soyuz in order, or brought the first one down and launched the second one.

On a side note, Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronomica has a very excellent series of articles on the development of the Apollo CSM Stack, and possibly the most comprehensive attempt to untangle all the Soyuz variants the Soviets have tossed around, up, and even in the trash can. I recommend that you take the time to check out this article, as well as the thousands of other articles he's done on his site. And buy the CD-ROM while you're at it, too!

"In This Business, Sometimes People Die."
The crew of Soyuz 11 and the first crew of Salyut 1. From left to right counterclockwise: Viktor Patsayev, Georgi Dobrovolsky, and Vladislav Volkov in the Soyuz simulator during their mission training. On the right Soviet recovery teams attempt to resuscitate the crew, but by the time the reentry module had touched down they long since dead.

During this period the specter of Soyuz 11 made an intrusion on the development of the Soyuz 7K-M. As discussions ensued concerning the design of the Soyuz Environmental Control Systems, the data given by the Soviets on pressure compensation for leakage was confusing and incomplete in the eyes of NASA engineers. When pressed for more information, they inadvertently gained a greater understanding of the true nature of the depressurization that killed the Soyuz 11 crew - Viktor Patsayev, Georgi Dobrovolsky, and Vladislav Volkov - during reentry. The fatal leak, still shrouded at that time in a bit of mystery, was caused by a faulty pressurization valve. However, to the astonishment of everyone on the US side of the project, the problem could not have been corrected. Once pressure was lost, there was no way to compensate for the pressure drop because the Soyuz carried neither bottled oxygen or nitrogen! This also explained the Soviet demands that Apollo be a zero-leakage vehicle; Apollo specs called for a pressure loss up to 1/10th lb/hr, while Soyuz allowed for virtually no loss in its tolerance specs. When the confusion was cleared up in the translations, NASA asked the Soviets to consider the inclusion of an emergency repressurization system for the ASTP Soyuz. The Soviets in turn demanded backup valves on the Docking module, having been burned once by faulty valves.

Getting the information about the true nature of Soyuz 11's mishap was at first a bit of a problem, and was strongly related to a problem the Soviets had with the exchange of information during the first years of ASTP. While they had never refused to provide information, they were however slow at providing it. This particular problem was a product of the totalitarian system under which the Soviets lived. Regardless of whether they were in Moscow or Houston, the Soviet team had to refer to their superiors before they could provide many kinds of information. In many cases where the Soviets did provide requested documentation, they lacked necessary detail to the level required by NASA. To the Soviet's credit, when the NASA team justified their need for specific information or expanded details, the Soviets provided the additional data even if you had to remind them three or four times in touchy situations. 

One additional stumbling point in the communications along these same lines occurred when the issue of docking orbit was being resolved. The Soviets suddenly, out of the blue, requested that the orbit be reduced from 232km to 10km lower. Citing the reason as being due to a "technical glitch" in the orbital flight mechanics of the Soyuz, the request caused some confusion and concern amongst the NASA engineers who felt the explanation of the nature of the "glitch" didn't really make sense. When pressed for details, the Soviets finally admitted that the true issue was that the Soyuz 7K-M was restricted to an orbital ceiling of 225km due to the additional weight brought on by the modifications for ASTP. While things were finally worked out, it demonstrated that the when it came to making changes or solving problems caused by hardware shortcomings, the Soviets preferred a technical rationale to directly admitting limitations or asking for assistance. The best way to describe it was "saving face". 

As this short-changing of information  happened more often than not in the early stages of the project, the NASA team found themselves a bit frustrated until they began to understand the paranoia and self-preservation instincts that ran thru their counterparts; after all, most of them had survived Stalinist Russia, and while things were not the oppressive "fart at the wrong time and you and your family are sent to Siberia or worse!" regime, controls were still pretty tight at the level the Soviet team existed at. The American side of the project would have to perform some delicate diplomacy and fear control to ensure that discussions were still timely and open with complete disclosure. 

"Docking Ring's Connected To The Neck Ring..."
On the left, the actual Docking Module takes shape at the North American assembly plant. Meanwhile, on the right, the US prime crew gets its first briefing on the DM Trainer, the petals not yet installed at the time.

Not all of the apprehension came from the Soviet side, however. The US Congress - specifically Senator William Proxmire, who we'll deal with later in this document - wanted assurances that the Soviets could pull off their side of the mission, and that if they failed once Apollo was in orbit that the mission was stocked with enough science and contingency operations that a solo flight would not be a total waste of funds they're rather have stuffing their own worthless Pork Barrels. Congress was, naturally, given assurances and presentations to back them up, but the constant threat still hovered over the project despite the SALT accords and President Nixon's own backing. Nixon, however, was up to his peace signs and flapping jowls in his own problems, and was not far off from resigning from the Oval Office. Luckily, his political demise did little to derail progress on ASTP. Proxmire, on the other hand, was just beginning in his anti-ASTP crusade.

Another source of apprehension was a bit closer to home. By the point in the ASTP negotiations, the NASA PAO hadn't even been brought into the picture. The reason for this was simple: the Soviet system does not recognize our most holiest of holies, Freedom of the Press. The NASA brass actually feared that the PAO would disrupt the delicate balance of the negotiation process if they started throwing their weight around. Prior to their being included in the negotiations in October of 1973, NASA PAO director John P. Donnelly was told up front by George Low that the PAO could do nothing that would cause the negotiations to stall or fall apart. As a compromise, Low allowed something that had not been allowed on any previous manned flight to date: Since public exposure of the project - especially television - was a major objective of ASTP and therefore accorded a high priority second only to flight safety, the PAO had a far greater input into mission flight plans than ever before. 

Still, the PAO had their share of negotiation difficulties with their Soviet counterparts, and while some areas were still not totally resolved by the time ASTP was completed, enough of an agreement for joint press coverage was worked out to provide both sides real-time access for the press to conduct event coverage, and to provide both sides unprecedented views of each others' worlds both inside and outside of the project's confines. 

By the end of 1973, a target date of July 1975 for the mission looked extremely feasible. Both the Soviet and American teams had made considerable progress in resolving issues with diplomacy and technology and were highly confident that both sides would be ready at or before that date. ASTP appeared to be immune to outside political events as well; major national and international crises had not intruded into the isolated environment the two teams had enclosed themselves in. Most of them were unaware that there had been a war in Israel during Yom Kippur until weeks afterwards, and quite a few were unaware to just what extent the state of chaos the Nixon's presidency was in. 

There were still a number of technical issues that both nations had to resolve in the mission design before they could assure a safe docking of both spacecraft and an on-orbit meeting of crewmembers. The technical challenges included different measuring systems, the different spacecraft and thus mating adapter designs, and different air pressures and mixtures. 

The atmosphere issue was solved as follows: Apollo would continue to operate at its standard pressure -  258 mm Hg - while Soyuz' cabin pressure would be lowered after docking to eliminate lengthy pre-breathing periods required to prevent the Cosmonauts from contracting the bends. When taking a brief look at the specs for both spacecraft, logic dictates that the easiest solution have been to utilize the same atmosphere in both ships with regard to total pressure and partial pressures of oxygen. However, Apollo was limited to a cabin pressure 325mb, while Soyuz was restricted to an oxygen content no higher than 40 percent due to fire safety restrictions. The Soviet's agreement to modify Soyuz to accommodate these design changes wound up allowing both sides to greatly simplify the onboard hardware on both spacecraft, which in turn also meant that the mission itself would have more time for experimentation and other operations as transfers between the two ships could be conducted in a shorter time with fewer procedures.

"Androgyny Is Not Just For David Bowie Or Lou Reed Anymore"
On the right, ASTP engineers look over a Soyuz androgynous docking system assembly prior to a mechanism fitness test conducted in bldg 13 at JSC. On the left for comparison is the Docking Module Trainer from directly head-on from the Soyuz side, with a dummy of Tom Stafford inside waiting to shake hands.

With the final stumbling block in the Docking Module (DM) design out of the way, construction was begun in late 1973 by North American's Rockwell International Division out of Downey, California. Rockwell was also the prime contractor for Apollo, and also was contracted to handle the tasks of upgrading CSM Stack 111 to ASTP specifications. To meet the pressurization requirements - again, Apollo's cabin atmosphere was 100 percent oxygen at 0.34 atmosphere pressure, while that of Soyuz was nitrogen/oxygen at 1.0 atmosphere -  the DM had the ability to raise or lower the module pressure between 0.34 and 0.68 atmospheres to facilitate crew transfers without prebreathing.

The ASTP Docking Module, or DM, was essentially an airlock with docking ports on both ends to allow crew transfer between the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. Stats-wise, the DM was 3.15 m long, 1.4 m maximum diameter, and weighed 2,012 kg. The pressure vessel was formed from a welded cylinder of 1.58 cm thick aluminum, with a tapered bulkhead and tunnel section on the Apollo CM and a machined base assembly and bulkhead on the Soyuz end. Gaseous oxygen and nitrogen were stored in four identical spherical tanks external to the pressure vessel an two pairs shielded by insulated covers. A total of 18.9 kg of N2 and 21.7 kg of O2 were stored in the tanks. Both the pressure vessel and external gas tanks were covered with an external insulation cover made of thin Inconel over a multi-layer insulation blanket separated from the vessel by a framework.

The pressure vessel was constructed from a welded cylinder of 1.58cm thick aluminum, On the end where the Apollo CSM Stack would dock, the bulkhead and tunnel assembly was tapered, while on the Soyuz end of things the docking port consisted of a precision machined base assembly and bulkhead designed to Soviet specifications; which, of course, meant the use of their proposed Universal Docking System and a chance to vindicate the design.

Systems and equipment-wise, the DM was equipped as follows:

• A systems module containing:
  • Control and Display Panels
  • VHF/FM Transceiver Systems
  • Environmental Control Systems
  • Storage Compartments
• Additional equipment including:
  • Oxygen Masks
  • Fire Extinguisher
  • Floodlights
  • Handholds
  • Communications Circuit Junction Box
  • MA-010 Multipurpose Furnace
• Two Removal Stowage Lockers containing
  • TV Equipment
  • Spare Equipment

All docking module electrical power was supplied by umbilical from the Apollo CSM Stack. Unlike the Lunar Module, there were no carbon dioxide filtration systems inherent to the DM. All CO2 removal was done by either the Apollo or Soyuz environmental control systems.

• Prime Crew:
  • Commander (CDR): Brigadier General Thomas P. Stafford
  • Command Module Pilot (CMP): Vance D. Brand
  • Docking Module Pilot: Donald K. "Deke" Slayton
• Some side notes:
  • Stafford, a veteran of Gemini 6, Gemini 9, and Apollo 10, and served as NASA's Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations since 1971. He retired from NASA after ASTP and returned to the Air Force as a 2-star general until his final retirement in 1979. 
     
  • Brand, highly regarded among the NASA brass for his qualifications, had been backup CMP for Apollo 15 and the second and third manned Skylab missions. He would eventually command three Space Shuttle flights before moving on to Wright-Patterson AFB to work on NASP and other projects. 
     
  • Slayton was also a "rookie", but since being grounded by overcautious doctors prior to his Delta 7 flight he served as Director of Flight Crew Operations just prior to finally and deservedly being cleared for flight status after being grounded over a decade. After ASTP, Deke, as he's know to his colleagues and fans alike, went on to assist with Space Shuttle testing, and test landed the Enterprise in 1977. He died of cancer in 1992, his heart 100% healthy almost as a middle finger of salute to the doctors who grounded him for so long.
     
  • One additional side note about Slayton and how he came back to flight status comes from sci.space.history's Henry Spencer, who offered this concept during a discussion regarding the feud between NASA's first flight director Chris Kraft and Original Seven Astronaut Scott Carpenter:

    "One big reason why Slayton was a dead cinch for assignment to Apollo-Soyuz was that it took him out of his entrenched position as boss astronaut, making it easier for Kraft to assert more authority over the next occupant of the chair. In this context, revamping the draft crew assignment, and giving Slayton himself a lesser spot, may have been Kraft's way of saying "Deke is no longer in charge here". 

    Quite a few revelations regarding Carpenter's flight have come to light since both his and Kraft's autobiographies saw print in 2002, and finally starts to shed some doubt upon Kraft's assessment that Carpenter was not qualified to be an Astronaut. One day I'll take on this particular topic and give it the old OM spin
    

• Backup Crew:
  • Commander (CDR): Alan L. Bean
  • Command Module Pilot (CMP): Ronald E. Evans
  • Docking Module Pilot: Jack R. Lousma
    
• Some side notes:
  • Bean, a veteran of Apollo 12, was the fourth man to walk on the Moon. He was also an artist of fair to good quality, but a man not to be trusted with TV cameras that use vidicon tubes. At the time of the announcement, Bean was training as CDR for the 2nd Skylab manned mission. Bean retired from the Navy after ASTP and remained with NASA head of the Astronaut Candidate Operations and Training Group. He retired from NASA in 1981 and thereafter became a space painter of some repute. No, really. He's actually quite good. Expensive, but good!
     
  • Evans was also a veteran who served as CMP of Apollo 17. Lousma was a rookie who had worked on the support crew for Apollo 13, and was considered the strongest candidate for the Apollo 20 CMP slot, a flight which never flew. Evans retired from NASA in 1977 to become an aerospace consultant. He died of a heart attack in 1990.
     
  • Lousma, like Bean, at the time of the announcement was training as CMP for the 2nd Skylab manned mission. Lousma would eventually fly the Space Shuttle on it's third mission and the only Shuttle mission to date to land at the auxiliary backup landing facility at White Sands.
    
• Support Crew:
  • Dick Truly
  • Karol Bobko
  • Bob Crippen
  • Bob Overmyer
    
• Some side notes:
  • The four support crewmen hold interesting places in history. All four were transferred to NASA in 1969 following the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a Department of Defense-backed space station and manned spy satellite involving the Air Force's Blue Gemini program. During the preparations for ASTP, they served as stand-ins for the prime crews in a number a time-consuming but critical activities, including mission planning sessions and manned development and checkout tests of the flight hardware. During the flight Truly, Bobko and Crippen also served as Capcoms for the flight on the Houston side of the joint Mission Control network. Overmyer, who worked extensively with the Soviets in mission planning and crew training and had a higher familiarity with the language, would be one of the technical advisers at the mission control center in Kaliningrad during the flight. 
     
  • All four would eventually continue their careers with NASA and fly the Space Shuttle in the 80's. 
     
    • Bobko would move on to aerospace consulting and runs SPACEHAB.
       
    • Crippen would move up into administration amidst the administrative shakeups following the Challenger mishap
       
    • Truly would go on to become NASA Administrator from 1986 to 1991 to a level of success that's still being debated vehemently
       
    • Overmyer would retire after Challenger and spend the next ten years doing really bad John Maxson impressions - read: "Challenger wasn't an accident but murder" and generally making himself and MSNBC Space Correspondent Jay Barbree look like a couple of morons until Overmyer's death while testing a light airplane in 1996.

The Soviets announced their crew five months later on May 24th, 1972 to coincide with the opening of the 1973 Paris Air Show and to drum up more publicity and anticipation for the ASTP exhibit to be displayed at the Air Show. This was a first for the Soviets, as policy dictated that Cosmonauts were never identified until they had completed their missions. The crews were announced as follows:

• Prime Crew For Prime Soyuz:
  • Commander (CDR): Alexei Arkhipovitch Leonov
  • Flight Engineer (CDR): Valeriy Nikolayevich Kubasov
     
• Some side notes:
  • Leonov was a veteran of the Voskhod II flight, during which he had performed the first EVA and almost became the first to die from an EVA as a result when his overinflated suit became jammed inside the ship's inflatable airlock. Leonov never flew again, but after being promoted to major general following ASTP, continued to work as part of the upper hierarchy of the Soviet program until 1982. To this date he keeps himself in good enough physical condition that if the Former Evil Soviet Empire doesn't fly him up on the same grounds that NASA sent up John Glenn, then they deserve to have to resort to flying androgynous boy band members to ISS for funding. 

  • Kubasov had been the backup technical scientist for Soyuz 5 and flew as flight engineer on Soyuz 6, and flew one final flight on Soyus 36 to Salyut 6, where he returned on the -previous- mission, Soyuz 35! The Soviets did a lot of crew swapping like that when they ferried crews up to their space stations.

• Prime Crew For Backup Soyuz:
  • Commander (CDR): Anatoliy Vasilyevich Filipchenko
  • Flight Engineer (CDR): Nikolay Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov

• Some side notes:
  • Filipchenko, part of the 1963 Cosmonaut group, served as backup command pilot for Soyuz 4 and command pilot on Soyuz 7. Of more Cold War note, he was part of the MiG 105 "Spiral" team, a Soviet attempt at a small-scale lifting body similar to the X-38 that Congress refuses to fund due to their stupidity. 

  • Rukavishnikov joined the Cosmonaut team in 1967, and was assigned to one of the various Lunar Flight teams the Soviets bounced around with until the cancellation of the Manned Lunar LK programs. Recent documents show that he was tentatively assigned as part of the prime crew for the second Soyuz 7K-L1 circumlunar mission, and eventually flew as test engineer for Soyuz 10. He later flew on Soyuz 33. 

• Support/Backup Crew:
  • Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov
  • Boris Dmitriyevich Andreyev
  • Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko
  • Aleksandr Sergeyevich Ivanchenkov

• Some side notes:
  • All four of the support crew were rookies who were part of the 1970 Cosmonaut class, and served in various support roles at Baikonur and Kalinigrad.
  • Dzhanibekov's support crew position was his first assignment, and served on only one other support crew after ASTP. Afterwards he flew on a total of five Soyuz missions, and performed two EVAs as part of the assembly of Salyut 7.
  • Andreyev served on several support crews, but never flew due to unspecified medical reasons.
  • Romanenko served on the Soyuz 16 support crew, and after ASTP flew on Soyuz 26 he served as flight engineer, and performed an EVA to inspect the docking port for Salyut 6. He returned to the station on Soyuz 38, and flew his last mission on Soyuz TM-2, where he performed three spacewalks while docked to Mir. 
  • Ivanchenkov served on quite a few support crews, but flew on Soyuz 29, where he performed an EVA, and flew again on Soyuz T-6 to Salyut 7.

Much to the chagrin of the corporations and military industrial complexes who use the Paris Air Show to sell weapons, the ASTP exhibit's position in the parking lot meant that it was the first exhibit to be seen upon entering the show grounds. Instead of seeing vehicles that could move large amounts of people and cargo with great ease sitting next to vehicles that could destroy large amounts of people and cargo with just as great an ease, the first thing most visitors saw was an exhibit dedicated to a symbolic expression of growing cooperation in space.

Another reason for the exhibit's success was that there were actual Astronauts and Cosmonauts in attendance to glad-hand the crowds. Cosmonauts Leonov, Kubasov, Filipchenko, and Yeliseyev, along with Astronauts Cernan, Evans, Schmitt and Stafford, all posed for photographers(*), signed autographs, and fielded floods of questions from the media, visiting dignitaries, and the general attendees. All the while the two teams worked as one group, showing the world that the cooperation their respective PAOs were hyping on was in fact a reality; somewhat of a surprise in those days of the Cold War! 

To say that the ASTP exhibit was a success might be a bit of an understatement. It was, in fact, the showpiece of the entire 1973 Paris Air Show. Besides being very well received by visitors, the tent was perpetually packed with the curious until the show closed, even when there were no crew members manning the exhibits. While the arms dealers may have bitched about the distraction, the display actually helped attendance and gave the show a larger level of publicity and visibility, all at the expense of the two superpowers. In all, over 400,000 visitors attended the 1973 Paris Air Show, exceeding previous average attendance by almost thirteen times, and an estimated 98% of those attending visited the ASTP exhibit at least once. You can't beat advertising like that, kids!

(*) Not that you can find any of these on the Internet, dammit!

Quite possibly the biggest hurdle the crews had to accomplish was learning each other's language. Pilots know two languages inherently: the one they're taught from birth that allows them to communicate, and the one of understanding what flight is all about that they share with the rest of those reaching for the Ziggurat. The latter lingo the two crews had no problems understanding each other on; the latter waswell, let's just say it's far easier for Russian speakers to learn English than vice versa.

Not that the Right Stuff would admit to it at first. During the July 1972 meeting, Tom Stafford informed the press that Russian was nyet problém. The fact that the correct phrase should have been nyet probléma dla tebya clued the Russian press that the Americans still had a long way to go. Language training had been discussed in by both sides early on, and all agreed that some formal program of training was required in order to get the crews' skills in each other's language up to speed. The big question was how to get them up to speed in a reasonable time without impacting training schedules for the spacecraft.

At the time there were three accepted methodologies for teaching foreign languages available for the Astronauts:

• Enroll in a formal course such as those offered by the State Department Foreign Service Institute or the Department of Defense language schools
• Contract with a university to provide instruction similar to those provided by the Government
• Bring special instructors and tutors onsite to work with the crewmembers as they trained for the hardware and operational aspects of the mission

Each had their drawbacks. Both formal schooling options required a full year or more of residential study, even for the crash courses that were offered; the crew quite simply could not be away from active training for that long a period without destroying the training schedule. To narrow things down further, NASA management wanted to use only Government training resources to keep costs down, which eliminated using college resources. The solution came in the form of a compromise in early 1973, when NASA officials worked out a deal with the Foreign Service Institute to send instructors to work onsite at JSC with the crew. The approach worked somewhat satisfactorily. By the time the Soviets arrived to join in the training sessions in July 1973, both Slayton and Stafford(*) had received well over 100 hours of Russian instruction; by the end of the year, they'd both almost tripled that amount. When training commenced, Deke had noted in a memo that he believed 300 hours of studying Russian would be sufficient, but upon reaching that point both he and Stafford realized that their training was nowhere near complete. 

..By the end of Skylab none of the backup or support teams - again, including Brand - had taken any lessons in Russian. To make matters worse, during the November 1973 training sessions at Baikonur, Astronauts had discovered that the Cosmonauts were much more adept at speaking English than they were at Russian. Turned out that each member of the two the Soviet prime crews had their own individual instructors, and were studying English nearly eight hours a day! 

In addition to the technospeak, the Russian crews were being trained on more than just the technical jargon. Colloquial English was receiving a high degree of attention, including contractions, slang and nuances. They had gotten so good at it that they could translate jokes so that gags normally only comprehendible by native Soviets could be understood by Americans. Stafford immediately advised NASA that the Astronauts needed the same level of training in order to keep up with their counterparts, and steps were taken to secure additional tutors in time for the US team's return to Houston in January 1974. 

By March of 1974, both the prime and backup crews received 3 to 5 hours of language training daily, Monday thru Friday. If they had any spare time they even carried portable cassette players to review their instructor's lessons.

(*) Brand was still involved with backing up Skylab at the time Russian training commenced. He would later play catchup with the rest of the support crews after Skylab was completed.

Probably the most famous visits were the aforementioned spending sprees to the local department stores, where the Soviet team purchased everything they could that was necessary for a decent standard of living in the Soviet Union, all at a discount price. Next to that came the trip to Disney World in Florida, where Mickey, Donald and Goofy - the Disney character, not newly-promoted President Gerald Ford - met both teams and gave them Mouskaears of all things. The other famous trip was to the Texas Folklife Festival being held in San Antonio on the old Hemisfair grounds, where the Russian team experienced and finally comprehended the "great melting pot" that the United States had been for almost 200 years. They were also taken to sporting events, rodeos, nightclubs, historical and entertainment attractions. If it was within distance, the NASA team made sure the Russians experienced it. It led to a major reduction in tensions that were already being reduced by the language training; more importantly, it helped relieve the stress of training that would be there normally if there were no differences. 

(*) If this sounds like a condemnation of the standard practice of concentrating the culture aspects in the first year of language studies, then making the next two to four years a dry concentration of verbs, nouns and other construction rules, it is. When polled, the majority of people who've taken a foreign language enjoyed the first year because of the culture exposure, but hated and even despised the years after because all that was taught was the words and the basic usage, but not the true meaning and context behind them. 

"You Can Bring A Commie To Culture, But..."
Pick the caption that works best for you: "One Red Man Meets With Real Red Men!" "If we try to scalp him, will the Cossacks come charging over the hill to the rescue?" "Kak!" "No, Kemosabe, the word is 'How!'" (Hey, at least I didn't throw in that shot of Leonov with the belly dancer)	One of the few pictures from the infamous snowball fight of 1973. This brought a new definition to the term Cold War. To this day, neither side will admit who really won. My money's on the Russians due to home field advantage.

Many of the areas previously unseen - much less heard of - by Western eyes were suddenly accessible by the American team. Zvezdny Gorodok was, with only a few exceptions required due to security concerns of the KGB and the Red Army, almost as open as KSC or JSC was at home. They were even allowed to visit the home of someone who was only known prior to his death as the Chief Designer. The cottage of Sergei Korolev had been preserved in Leninsk(**) as a historical monument, and at that time the true scope of his involvement and effect upon the Soviet space program was still not widely known. It was almost as if a pilgrimage was being made by the very visit.

One humorous story was related by the Astronauts regarding their being in Russia during - of all things - the Fourth of July. After attending a cocktail party hosted by the American Ambassador, the Soviet and American crews returned to the Astronauts' hotel at Zvezdny Gorodok to finish off the night with another round of drinking and boasting (*) Suddenly, Ron Evans began setting off a string of firecrackers. Since this naturally sounded like gunfire, and the majority of the locals had no clue what Americans do on July 4th, the entire base went on full alert. Next thing they knew, both teams found themselves about to be accosted by the local constabulary! At the police arrived, Stafford fired a small rocket over their heads of the policemen as the entire group cheered and raised their glasses in toast. After recovering from the brief startling caused by the loud report, one of the officers approached the group. Stafford suddenly called out in Russian, "Dobriy vecher. Kak vi pozhivaete", which translates essentially as "It is the day of our revolution!" To everyone's surprise, the officer - who must have realized who the group consisted of by now - nodded that he understood Stafford's explanation, and left the team to continue their revelry, shaking his head in amazement as he went back to the barracks.

In the end, the language barriers, while not impenetrable, proved to be ones that weren't going to be 100% surmounted by the time ASTP flew. During training it became apparent that the ground controllers - who had less cross-language training than the crews - were having problems understanding the other side's language over their headsets. When you combine the unavoidable radio noise and static with a voice that's attempting to speak a language it has only just learned, and is doing so in an accent that is unlike any you've experienced for any length of time, and then you pipe this over a headset using ear speaker assemblies from circa 1960, the chance for miscommunication becomes doubled, if not tripled. It was decided that since the crews were having much less trouble understanding one another's attempts at Russian or English, the US crew would communicate in Russian, the Soviet crew would use English, but if circumstances determined it either crew could revert to their native language as necessary. In turn, when communicating with ground controllers the crew would use the native tongue of their respective controllers to help eliminate confusion, with the crews ready to step in and translate on demand.

(*)  Remember, these are test pilots, kids, so don't try this at the frat house!

(**) Leninsk was, at the time, a modern city built in the middle of the harsh, foreboding desert of Kazakhstan to provide logistical support to the space projects at the Baykonur Cosmodrome, and living quarters for the estimated 50,000 workers and their families who were involved with the Soviet space efforts originating from the region. 

On a side note, the very name Baikonur Cosmodrome used to irk the hell out of ABC News Science Editor Jules Bergman. Bergman was considered the most educated and knowledgeable of the Apollo-era TV news reporters, but was also known for being a bit stuffy, quite a bit boring, at many times extremely anal about details and facts, and sometimes a bit tactless with ramming those facts down your throat. The best example of the latter being his infamous description of what would happen if Apollo 13's heat shield was cracked and the crew tried to reenter. 

Demonstrating the immolation of the shield using a big blowtorch and a sample of the actual honeycombed ablative, Bergman shocked the hell out of viewers by narrating each step of the sample destruction and explaining how if this were to happen to the Apollo 13 CM the crew would be incinerated. To make matters worse, he did this without considering the possibility that the families of the crew were watching - which they were. It's estimated that after Bergman pulled this visual stunt, as much as 40% of his viewing audience switched over to view Walter Cronkite's coverage over on See-BS. "Unca Walter" was the type of guy who could relate that sort of doom'n'gloom, but still extrude confidence and hope unto his viewers. 

But I digress. During an interview with the Apollo crew, Stafford had referred to Baikonur as making KSC look "very small" when Bergman launched into the following tirade:

"Baikonur, if you'll look on the coordinates, is 135 miles [217 km] away or something. Tyuratam may only be a railhead, but it is the Tyuratam Launch Complex. They call it Baikonur, I know I'm going to call it Tyuratam. ABC is going to call it Tyuratam. SAC [Strategic Air Command] calls it Tyuratam. Can we once and for all straighten that out and arrive at a name for it, Tom?"

To Bergman, calling the Soviet space facility "Baikonur" was like referring to KSC as the "Tampa Space Port." Stafford, on the other hand, made it clear to Bergman that Tyuratam was only "a little bitty old city" that butts up to the new city called Leninsk. Slayton, in turn, added that if the press really wanted to call the area what the Soviets called it, then it's called Baikonur. Not that this settled the issue for Bergman, but for the rest of the press and their readers it did seem a convincing argument. After all, who would you believe? A single combat warrior hero or a stuffy old boring TV newshound?

In actuality both sides were right on the issue. The Cosmodrome was an area 85km from North to South, and from 125km from East to West, a territory as great as Moldova and take up a large chunk of the Texas Panhandle. An area that big would easily have several designations just to make sure you're talking about the right area of the big area. Internally, the Cosmodrome was given the designations NIIP-5 and GIK-5 in official - read: military and not generally for public consumption - Soviet histories. The entire area was also universally referred to by both Soviet military staff and engineers as Tyuratam, which was, in fact, a "little bitty old city" that Leninsk was built adjacent to. For years the CIA referred to unidentified objects imaged from the region as "TT-" designated objects, and referred to the region itself as Tyuratam even in their official documents and Presidential briefings. Even the first N-1 image was itself referred to as TT-5 until its true nature was discerned. 

Since the fall of the Evil Soviet Empire, the name for the entire Cosmodrome facility region - with the exception of Leninsk - has officially been referred to in all Russian documentation as Baikonur or Baykonur, the latter being the lesser-used Kazakhstani spelling. So, call it Baikonur or even Tyuratam, the average Boris Vodkanovitch or Valentina Baboochka would know just where you were referring to these days with nyet problema!

Over the next eighteen months, the two teams continued to work out additional differences to make ASTP a reality. While the majority of these were technical in nature, there was one that was political in nature that, while it truly had no chance of derailing ASTP, it did cause unnecessary irritation to both sides. The difference was over safety, and the source of the irritation was the "honorable" US Senator from Wisconsin, William Proxmire.

Considered a maverick by his Senate colleagues, and a colossal asshole by everyone else in Washington, Proxmire's platform claimed to oppose wasteful government spending, and his most frequent targets were the US Armed Forces and Government-supported scientific programs and organizations such as - you guessed it - NASA. In 1971 he managed to convince Congress thru bullying and playing to the press against financing Boeing's 2707 Supersonic Transport (SST). He also served as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee for two terms (1975–81, 1987–89). During this time, Proxmire wrote two caustic and biased diatribes against Government spending, Report from Wasteland (1970) and Uncle Sam - the Last of the Bigtime Spenders (1972), both of which were loaded to place the blame on the Republican Party.

Shortly after he assumed office, President Gerald R. Ford, received a briefing from NASA Administrator James Fletcher on the status of ASTP. Ford, a leading supporter of the project, was assured that ASTP was on schedule, all political, technical and safety issues had been or would be addressed, and expressed hopes that the President would take an active part in the ceremonies surrounding the final Apollo launch. 

Meanwhile, the report was forwarded to Proxmire, who raised red flags - no pun intended - all over Washington. On April 5th, 1975 the Soviets experienced a launch failure which the Soviets weren't too quick in relaying all the details. As it turned out, Soyuz 18-1, carrying Oleg Makarov and Vasili Lazarev was launched for rendezvous with Salyut 4. During staging, the Soyuz 11A511 booster's third stage failed to separate from the second stage before the engines ignited. With the remaining stack losing velocity and shaking itself apart, Makarov demanded that ground controllers start abort procedures. However, due to a malfunction in the telemetric systems, ground control failed to  the launch vehicle gyrations in their telemetry and assumed the Soyuz was relaying false information to the crew. 

After it became apparent that the booster separation did in fact fail to occur - imagine a Russian Gene Kranz saying to a Ukranian Sy Liebergott "They're talking about 'bangs' and 'shimmys' up there, Sy. That don't sound like telemetry failure to me!" - Soyuz finally was separated from by ground control command at 192km Following a greater than 20G reentry, the Soyuz reentry module landed in the Altai mountains, where it tumbled hard down a mountainside, and was snagged in some bushes just short of a precipice in a fashion that led some Western observers years later to question whether the Soviets had hired Chuck Jones to write the mission plan. 

Makarov and Lazarev, cut off from all radio contact with Baikonur and Kalinigrad, were unsure as to where they landed. Their best guess was near the Altai Mountains - a large mountain system situated in the southern part of Siberia, at the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China - and then became quite concerned that they may have landed in China and would face internment. After exiting the module lest it continue to fall over the into the precipice, the crew sat for an hour in the cold next to the capsule. Lazarev had suffered internal injuries from the high-G reentry and tumble down the mountain side and the focus was then shifted on getting him medical assistance. The crew were soon discovered by locals speaking Russian who confirmed they were still on home soil and assisted them in contacting Soviet officials for recovery. Ironically, both cosmonauts were denied their 3000 ruble spaceflight bonus - one of the perks that both US and Soviet test pilots have a common desire for - and had to appeal all the way to Brezhnev before getting paid.

With the exception of the flight pay issues, a nutshell version of the above explanation was included in the briefing documents presented to President Ford. Proxmire, on the other hand, demanded more details. Fletcher then forwarded the senator a full explanation on the launch failure based on all available data at the time. Unimpressed, Proxmire demanded to know what the Soviets were doing to prevent these problems from happening again, and wanted a full update ASAP. With ASTP around the corner, Proxmire expressed "concern" that if the Soviets were flying faulty boosters then lives would be at an unnecessary risk from attempting a mission he already felt was a "waste" of tax dollars.

When the Soviets were pressed for more details on the abort, they assured NASA officials that preventative steps had been taken to improve the safety of the entire booster stack. A more reliable relay had been installed, and the pyro circuitry had been modified to prevent a premature firing of the explosive bolts. It turns out, tho, that these modifications had already been added to launch vehicles prior to the failure; Soyuz 18-I used a version that was, essentially, a surplus booster. The booster variant with the design changes had in fact been flown successfully ten times - including two unmanned ASTP-related test flights and Soyuz 16. 

This convinced NASA that the Soyuz 18-I abort was an anomaly that would not impact the progress ASTP, nor pose any hazard to either crew. Furthermore, should any unforeseen event prevent the successful launch of the prime Soyuz, the Soviets would still have a second Soyuz stack and crew ready for immediate launch. Fletcher relayed this to Senator Proxmire in detail, and had concluded that such a failure had very little chance of repeating itself and jeopardizing the safety of the the mission. 

If it were any normal politician Fletcher was dealing with, that should have been the end of it. However, Proxmire wasn't happy with Fletcher's report because it didn't give him the answers he wanted. He requested that the CIA give him an assessment of the actual safety and reliability levels of Soviet spacecraft and technology. Shortly afterwards he voiced the following concerns to some of his fellow Senators:

"Since April of 1967, the USSR has conducted 18 manned Soyuz flights. Of these, two have been catastrophic failures with loss of four lives. In addition, two other flights, Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 15 have had docking problems and cannot be considered successes. Most recently was the launch failure of what would have been Soyuz 18. Thus, five out of 18 Soyuz flights have been marred by some sort of failure."

Turns out, tho, the CIA had already been working on such a report, and was more than happy to give it to him. On  July 2nd, Proxmire voiced yet another objection to the joint flight by making public the testimony of a top CIA official who had raised flags of his own about the ability of the Soviets to control two space shots at one time. The top-level spook was referring to the fact that ASTP would be conducted while the Soviets had Soyuz 18 docked to Salyut 4.

Soyuz 18 - the replacement flight for Soyuz 18-I - had been launched on May 24th,1975. Proxmire, feigning concern for crew safety again, urged NASA to postpone ASTP until the Soviets brought Soyuz 18 down. Fletcher passed on the concerns to the Soviets, who assured him that, although the orbits of Salyut 4 and ASTP would only intersect and possibly cause communications problems twice, both intersections involved the same Soviet ground station, and then only for very brief intervals of about 0.5 and 1.5 minutes. Should there be any confusion, ASTP communications would have priority. Fletcher once again went back and told Proxmire that, based upon the data available and the nature of the two missions, the Soyuz 18/Salyut 4 mission constitute no hazard to ASTP, and that there was no reason to delay the mission whatsoever.

As you probably guessed, Proxmire refused to quit beating this dead horse of his. He started inserting anti-ASTP articles in the Congressional Record, and on the eve of the launch on April 14th fired off another salvo. Citing "leaked" CIA data, Proxmire complained that:

"The Soviets have encountered severe problems in space and their technology is inferior to that of the U.S. in almost every category.

• the Soyuz rendezvous and docking system has failed almost half the time
• the current level of Soviet preparation still is below that of the US
• the threat of a minor fire poses a moderate risk to the ASTP while a major fire is much less likely
• Soviet communications are not up to the quality of US communications
• Cosmonaut training and ground control crew proficiency are inferior to that of US counterparts.
• There has been some technology flow to the Soviet Union as a result of the ASTP. Future joint missions would pose more of a potential for technology drain
• the primary advantage to the USSR from the ASTP has been in observing US management and program operational techniques
• the Soviet lunar program has produced a string of failures.

In summary, the US has a significant technological lead over the USSR in the following areas: communications, management and quality control, handling of emergency situations, launch coordination and procedures, computerized functions, capability for inflight mission changes, space medicine, and crew training."

(The above is sung to "For God's Sake, Sit Down, John!", the opening musical number from the play 1776. In Proxmire's case, that should be "Sit Down And Shut The Hell Up!")

All this feigned concern for safety surprised most in the aerospace industry who'd become familiar with the senator's track record. Tom Stafford even noted that this was the first time the senator had ever taken any stance about aerospace safety. Stafford, like most people, realized that the issue here wasn't safety. Proxmire in his idiocy was bullheadedly opposed to space flight. Whether his concerns were genuine or most probably not, neither NASA nor the Soviets shared them. Everyone was ready for launch, and all were standing behind the "go!" given during the Headquarters Flight Readiness Review the previous month.

Bottom line: Proxmire was, is, and always will be a short sighted moron who had about as much business being a US Senator as a dead skunk lying in the road. And if you're some student using this for a book report, feel free to quote me on this.

.Apollo was successfully launched at 2:50pm CDT the same day and achieved orbital insertion just shy of 10 minutes of ascent. While both Brand and Slayton were the rookies, Slayton was by all accounts the most jubilant of the two. Considering how long he'd been grounded, and the highly bogus-in-retrospect reasons for his grounding, Slayton's flight was as much a vindication as it was a triumph. Considering the amount of good he did as the Astronaut's direct boss for almost 15 years, and the impact he had on how events in NASA history played out so successfully thanks to efficient crew assignments, Slayton would have not been wrong to have also viewed his flight as a deserved reward. 

Less than two hours later, the CSM Stack was separated from the S-IVB stage, and the crew began the Docking Module extraction process. At this time the crew encountered its first glitch of the flight; When Stafford looked through his alignment sight (COAS) at the Saturn IVB and docking module, the positioning of the two vehicles was such that all he could see was the glare from the sunlit earth. The glare was so bright that the illuminated crosshairs in the reticule were washed out and appeared at first to have a blown light bulb. Wisely, Stafford elected to wait until the two craft were positioned differently so that the Sun's glare was less of a hindering factor. Moving the CSM Stack toward the S-IVB until about only 10 meters separated them. the Apollo crew assumed station keeping. As the two orbited around the Earth, their position relative to the Earth changed accordingly due to the nature of orbital mechanics. As the glare subsided, Stafford guided Apollo in to complete the docking, and extracted the DM successfully.

 For the next two days the two ships performed timed maneuvers required to bring the two spacecraft to a visual rendezvous. After extracting the DM, Apollo was now in an orbit 173.3 by 154.7 km with an orbital period of 87 minutes, 39 seconds, and an orbital velocity of 7,820 meters per second. Additional maneuvers would bring Apollo and Soyuz into the proper orbital relationship for rendezvous. Apollo's orbit was circularized at 167.4 by 164.7 km at 6:35pm CDT. From this orbit, the first phasing maneuver was executed at 8:28pm CDT to provide the proper catch-up rate. This 20.5-meter-per-second change placed Apollo in a 233- by 169-km path, and following a final phase and plane correction maneuver of 2.7 meters per second during the 16th revolution, would allow docking with Soyuz 19 to occur on the Soyuz' 36th orbit.  

One of the concerns that came up while the crew slept was the fact that this particular probe was the same probe used on Apollo 14. During the docking and extraction of the LM from the S-IVB, the nose of the probe refused to latch on to the attenuated target in front of the LM top hatch. The Apollo 14 crew had to apply thrusters against the LM while activating the latches to secure a hard dock. This fix worked, and the mission was allowed to continue with the probe stored for later analysis, where afterwards it was  checked out and recertified before eventually being installed on CSM-111. As a result there were those who suspected at first that the probe had some inherent defect that didn't show up until it was in a microgravity environment. 

Thankfully, the problem turned out to be more of an annoyance than a show-stopper. Upon further analysis, it became apparent that a pyro cap had been installed improperly, and was blocking the tool hole, preventing the probe from being disassembled. After the problem was duplicated on the ground, the crew were informed of the fix procedures as follows:

• Re-engage the probe back to its fully locked position.
• Remove the pyro cover
• Straighten out the misaligned pyro cap
• Repeat the first 11 disassembly steps
• On the 12th step insert the key and unlock the capture latches

Five minutes after completing an minor altitude correction maneuver at 7:56am CDT, the Apollo crew attempted radio contact with Soyuz 19. Four minutes later, Brand reported that he had sighted the Soyuz in his sextant, and another five minutes later voice contact between the two ships was established. 32 minutes later, Kubasov turned on the ranging tone transfer assembly to establish ranging between the ships. The initial report showed the distance between the two ships had been reduced to 222 kilometers. At 9:12am CDT, using orbital mechanics to their fullest, Apollo first executed a coelliptic maneuver that sent the craft into a 210km by 209km orbit to allow Apollo overtake Soyuz and intersect its orbit as planned, then executed a 0.9-second terminal phase engine burn at 10:17 which brought Apollo and Soyuz 19 within 35km of one another. The crew then began to slow Apollo's approach as it continued on the circular orbit that would intersect that of the Soyuz. 

As the two spacecraft approached one another, they did a little recon to verify their respective ship's integrities. For pretty much the entire world, this was the first time a Soyuz of any make or model had been viewed while in orbit. Images are as follows: Top Row: Apollo with Docking Module as viewed from Soyuz during approach (left); B&W backup camera shot from Apollo shortly after docking, Soyuz can be seen with solar panels deployed, and yes, that's the Earth in the background (middle); A view of Apollo with DM attached (right). Bottom Row: Soyuz 19 side view with whited out Earth in background (left); Rear end of Soyuz 19, as viewed as only a fighter jock would have preferred viewing it just five years earlier - with it's rear end in his gunsights (right);

At 10:46am CDT, Houston Capcom Dick Truly informed Stafford  "I've got two messages for you: Moscow is go for docking; Houston is go for docking, it's up to you guys. Have fun." As Stafford called out distance readings to Leonov in Russian, the Soyuz crew moved back into the descent vehicle and closed the hatch between them and the orbital module as a precaution. Similarly, the Apollo crew had sealed both the CSM and DM hatches prior to docking. Leonov then performed a 60° roll maneuver to put Soyuz into the proper orientation relative to Apollo for the final approach. 

On the television monitors of the mission control centers in Houston and Moscow, Soyuz was seen through Apollo's color camera as a radiant green waspish object against the deep black of space. Stafford continued to call out the range as the two spacecraft came closer. "Less than five meters distance." reported Stafford, "Three meters. One meter. Contact." As the hydraulic attenuators of the DM absorbed the force of the impact, Leonov happily announced "We have capture, . . . okay, Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands now!" The docking was so precise that upon post-docking analysis it was found that the center of the COAS was sitting right on the center of a bolt that held the center of the target in for Soyuz. Clearly a dead center alignment!

After during the pre-exchange checkout of the DM, one more minor glitch occurred; When Slayton opened the hatch into the docking module, the crew caught the pungent scent of burned glue. After a very brief delay in an attempt to track down the source of the smell, the odor disappeared and the crews were cleared to continue procedures for opening of the hatches between the two spacecraft.

As preparations continued, Soviet TV newsman Viktor Balashov(**) read a message from Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev over the air-to-ground link:

"To the cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Valeriy Kubasov, Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, Donald Slayton. Speaking on behalf of the Soviet people, and for myself, I congratulate you on this memorable event. The whole world is watching with rapt attention and admiration your joint activities in fulfillment of the complicated program of scientific experiments. The successful docking had confirmed the correctness of the technical decisions developed and realized by means of cooperative friendship between the Soviet and American scientists, designers and cosmonauts. One can say that the Soyuz-Apollo(*) is a forerunner of future international orbital stations.The detente and positive changes in the Soviet-American relations have made possible the first international spaceflight."

(*) As part of the early compromises in terminology, the US team referred to ASTP as Apollo-Soyuz, while the Soviets used the reference of Soyuz-Apollo. Go figure.

(**) My old Russian prof at Texas U mentioned Balashov on a couple of occasions, and mentioned that he was considered the TASS equivalent to "Unca Walter" himself, Walter Cronkite. However, google couldn't dig up anything on Balashov except for his mention on NASA's ASTP pages. If you've got a link to any bio data on him, pass it on!

Finally, at 2:17:26 pm CDT on July 17th 1975, Stafford opened the hatch leading from the DM to the Soyuz orbital module. With thunderous applause filling both control centers and clearly audible over their headsets, while passing above Metz, France, Stafford and Leonov shook hands for the first time together in space. Outside of some typical fighter jock banter, neither gave any majestic speech for the ages. To them, it just a friendly greeting between a bunch of guys as if this were an everyday occurrence.

Once cabin integrity between the Soyuz and the DM were verified, the reunited crewmen began the televised ceremonial phase of the mission. President Ford, whose support for ASTP had eclipsed that of his predecessor, spoke with both crews during the live telecast. Much to the surprise of the crew and the ground controllers, an enthusiastic Ford hit the crew with a barrage of questions, and talked almost twice as long as what was scheduled in the mission plans. Ford began the call with a note of congratulations:

"Gentlemen, let me call you to express my very great admiration for your hard work, your total dedication in preparing for this first joint flight. All of us here in the United States send to you our very warmest congratulations for your successful rendezvous and for your docking and we wish you the very best for a successful completion of the remainder of your mission."

The President spoke to Stafford, Leonov, Slayton, Brand and Kubasov, questioning each on various aspects of the mission and their personal observations about its meanings. The highlight of the conference came when Ford pointedly asked Slayton the now-famous question:

 "as the world's oldest space rookie, do you have any advice for young people who hope to fly on future space missions?" 

Slayton responded with advice that was purely inspirational, and summed up what Deke was all about:

"Decide what you want to do and then never give up until you've done it." 

Kubasov stole a bit of the show himself with his response to Ford's question about those notorious space meals. He noted wryly that meals for space were different than the one the crews had shared with the President, especially since there was neither seafood nor beer available during the flight! After nine minutes into a five minute call, Ford concluded the call by wishing both crews a "soft landing."

(*) Brand remained in Apollo as mission requirements stated that at no time would either spacecraft be unmanned. The crews would shuffle around between the two cabins over the duration of the mission so that all would get a chance to visit the other side.

Afterwards, the four men settled down to their first joint meal in space, which unlike the previous events was a rather quiet one. When pressed for comment on this by the press, Flight Director Glynn Lunney responded with a wry comment to the effect that the crews had not talked much during their meal because "their mothers told them not to"; The truth of the matter was that both crews were both tired and a bit hungry by dinner time, and reserved most of the eating period for just that. After dinner, Stafford and Slayton bid farewell to Leonov and Kubasov, and at 5:47pm CDT returned to Apollo. While Slayton closed the DM hatch the Soviets secured their hatch, and they began the required pressure integrity check. At this time the first real glitch with the DM itself appeared when a possible leak through the two hatches leading into the Soyuz was detected by the Soyuz monitoring equipment. While the leak was eventually determined not to be serious, this flow of gas between the two hatches resulted in the crews being delayed in starting their sleep periods until 7:36pm CDT, a bit later than planned.

After breakfast and basic shipkeeping duties, Kubasov and Brand conducted the second live broadcast session from what Kubasov jokingly referred to as "your Soviet-American TV center in space!". Kubasov orchestrated an enthralling tour of Soyuz 19, pointing out what each of the various instruments were for, and even showed Brand in the the food preparation station - what Kubasov referred to as "the kitchen". Afterwards, Stafford gave Soviet viewers a Russian language tour of Apollo, with Leonov along for occasional comedy relief. 

Despite the appearance to the home viewer of simplicity, the space television production was additional proof that the two sides could overcome their differences to ensure mission success. As with all other aspects of the flight, each live broadcast required several hours of negotiation and planning. The broadcasts were a major hit with Soviet viewers, who were enthralled by the live coverage as previous missions were never carried live. With US viewers, tho, shows from 225 kilometers up had by that time seemed commonplace; the fact that most networks curtailed coverage or delayed footage until the evening newscasts didn't help matters much in this regard.

During this phase of the 2nd transfer, Brand and Kubasov began filming science demonstrations intended for use in science classrooms back on Earth to demonstrate the effects of microgravity on the basic principles of physics, such as the gyroscope. As each experiment was recorded, Brand narrated in English while Kubasov followed with the Russian translation. The film was later circulated throughout both nations to the delight and appreciation of students and educators both.

At 10:43am CDT, Brand and Kubasov moved over to Apollo while Stafford and Leonov moved into Soyuz, each transfer undergoing the same DM pressurization sequence. Each transfer required that the atmospheric composition of Soyuz had to be checked to make certain that the N2 levels remained stable. Once everyone was in place, the hatches between the Soyuz orbital and docking modules were closed as a further step toward maintaining the proper cabin atmospheres. This exchange was referred to in the mission plan as the 3rd transfer.

The 3rd transfer's highlight was a ship-to-ground press conference. Unlike the Q&A session with President Ford, this one was structured so as to adhere closer to the flight schedule. Questions had been collected in advance from the news services by the respective PAOs, and were read to the ASTP crew by Valeriy Vasil'yevich Illarionov of the Soviet team, and US support team member Karol Bobko. Most of the questions and their responses were friendly and well in the spirit of the mission. 

During the conference, all agreed that it had been a very rewarding two days in space, and that the success of the mission was the result of, as Stafford put it, "the determination, the cooperation, and the efforts by the governments of the two countries, by the managers, engineers, and all the workers involved." Stafford also noted that the extent of the newfound cooperation would depend upon "the determination, the commitments, and the faith of both countries and of the world." Leonov then added that the "climate of detente and a developing cooperation between our countries  has made this mission possible!"

While most of the questions were of a positive note, after Kubasov fielded questions regarding his experience with metallurgy in microgravity, a question was tossed at Stafford on his opinion on whether spending money on space programs was justified when there were so many problems in the world that needed solving. Having heard this line of garbage before, Stafford handled this deftly and professionally by first noting that this was not a new question. Stafford expressed his belief that any costs would be repaid by the long term benefits, with science and material applications the most likely areas of payoff. But the most important aspect was the uplift to the human spirit, a belief that the entire crew admitted to honestly sharing. The crew agreed that they preferred news of peace and tranquility, and Kubasov expressed strong hopes that all children would have a future filled with peace, so that they would never have to know what it was like to lose parents or loved ones in a war.

On a lighter note, when asked how he liked the American food, Leonov diplomatically answered with a smiling but surprisingly straight face what would be considered one of the two great lines of the mission:

"I liked the way it was prepared, its freshness! But as an old philosopher says, the best part of a good dinner is not what you eat, but with whom you eat. Today I have dinner together with my very good friends Tom Stafford and Deke Slayton because it was the best part of my dinner."

Mention was made during the conference of  Leonov's artistic abilities. When a Soviet reporter asked Leonov to transmit a sketch that would depict the meaning and essence of the joint mission, Leonov held up a US flag and Stafford held up a Soviet flag, an abstract message even Joe Punchclock and Ethyl Bluehair could have gotten. Leonov, with artistic aplomb, then went on to show the television audience a number of sketches that he had drawn;  A"whole cosmic portrait gallery," as he put it.

Slayton was then asked how the experience of space flight compared to all the stories he had been told over the years he was grounded. He said that he did not think he had discovered anything new.

"We've had the same kind of problems up here that people have complained about since MR-3Not enough space, and a little congestion to the time line, difficulty in keeping up with things. It's a lot slower getting things done up here than you realize when you're down there in one-gIn some respects, it's easier because weighty things are easier to move around, but, on the other hand, everything just tends to take off if you let go of itit's been a great experience. I don't think there's any way anybody can express how beautiful it is up here!"

When the crews were queried about their opinions on the future of Mankind in space, each had their own opinions. Leonov was convinced that mankind was just at "the beginning of a great journey into outer space," and added that he hoped to have a chance to fly again. Stafford agreed and also expressed hopes that he would one day fly one of the early Shuttle missions. "And I would hope that if Alexei would have a vehicle developed by [his] country that we could fly . . . in a joint mission." said Stafford, to which Leonov added with zeal, "I would always like to fly with friends . . . whom one trusts and with whom it is not dull to work!"

Following the completion of the press conference, the crews turned their attention to the joint scientific experiments. Slayton took photos of ocean currents off the Yucatan Peninsula and in the Florida straits as part of the earth observation experiment for Farouk El-Baz. Attempts were made to take observations of the red tide phenomena in full bloom off the coasts of Tampa and Cape Cod, but was prevented by excessive cloud cover in the regions. Similar observations by Brand of the US East Coast were also hindered by the clouds. As a bit of historical note, as the ships passed over the state of Massachusetts, Brand noted to the ground that this was the state that from which Robert H. Goddard had launched the world's first liquid fueled rocket on March 16 1926.

With Slayton running the TV camera, Stafford shook hands with Leonov and Kubasov, bidding them farewell at about 3:49pm CDT on July 18th 1975. All hatches were sealed by 4:00pm CDT, and once final pressure integrity checks were completed  the crews set about performing their planned closeout tasks; stowing all loose equipment no longer needed and making certain that all was in readiness for their next meal. With two days of joint activities completed, the crews racked up the following transfer statistics: Stafford spent 7 hours, 10 minutes aboard Soyuz, Brand 6:30, and Slayton 1:35. Leonov was on the American side for 5 hours, 43 minutes, while Kubasov spent 4:57 in the command and docking modules. 

After being docked for just under 44 hours, Apollo and Soyuz 19 undocked to begin the next phase of the mission - docking exercises. Both ships assumed station-keeping at a range of 50m while Apollo was steered between Soyuz 19 and the Sun. From this position, the diameter of the CSM stack formed a disk which blocked out the sun - an artificial solar eclipse.  This permitted the Soviet crew to perform photography of the solar corona, something normally available only during a natural eclipse. The data would be combined with coronal observations taken during Skylab, giving scientists an opportunity to compare the findings. This "artificial solar eclipse" experiment would wind up being the last American chance for such information gathering until the Shuttle assumed operational status.

Following the solar eclipse experiment, the two spacecraft were docked once again. Three hours later the two ships undocked for the second and final time, and maneuvered to a station-keeping distance of 40m to perform an ultraviolet absorption experiment. This experiment was designed to more precisely determine the levels of atomic oxygen and atomic nitrogen in near-Earth orbit. Apollo projected monochromatic laser beams at a series of reflectors mounted on  Soyuz 19. Three passes at 150, 500 and 1000m were performed as part of this experiment, with only the closest pass being one of the very few failures during the mission due to the Soyuz being misaligned. Afterwards, the ships separated to pursue independent operations. Apollo performed a separation maneuver at 1:42pm CDT to prevent any possibility of collision with Soyuz. This placed Apollo in a 217 by 219km orbit, with Soyuz safely below and moving ahead of Apollo at a rate of 6 to 8km per orbit. 

On July 20th, the Apollo crew conducted the first phase of what would be 23 independent experiments. This phase included earth observation, experiments in the multipurpose furnace, extreme ultraviolet surveying, crystal growth, and helium glow. During their work Capcom Bob Crippen read the crew the latest news stories, and concluded with a historical note:

"Six years ago today at 3:17:40 central daylight time we landed on the Moon. At 9:56, that's when Neil said his famous words about 'small step for man, giant leap for mankind

Meanwhile, the Soyuz 19 crew completed final Earth and solar photography experiments, and took status photos of the joint zone-forming fungi experiment. Following a 10-hour rest period, the Soyuz 19 crew ate breakfast, donned their space suits, and prepared for the de-orbit burn. As with the rest of the mission, crowds gathered in homes and stores with televisions around the Soviet Union to watch the live broadcast of a Soyuz recovery - something most people never saw until after it happened and TASS released the film of the success. American audiences would also be able to view the landing, but due to the early hour far less numbers would be awake at that time.

The de-orbit burn occurred at 5:09am CDT on July 21st, and jettison of the orbital and descent modules came nine minutes later. After the ionization blackout during reentry, Soviet air rescue pilots began receiving radio signals from the spacecraft at approximately 5:40am CDT, and shortly after sighted the chutes in full deployment. As Soyuz floated downward, America's most beloved news anchor, "Unca" Walter Cronkite, provided commentary in his own unmistakable style and confidence-inspiring tone. Despite negative commentary on the color quality of the pictures(*), the fact that they were coming live from behind the Iron Curtain was nothing less than extraordinary!

Just prior to touchdown, the Soyuz automatically fired a set of landing rockets which negated most of the descent velocity of the descent vehicle. A cloud of dust engulfed the craft as it landed at 5:48am CDT, and briefly scared the crap out of those viewers who didn't pay attention to "Unca Walter" when he explained this during his commentary. Three minutes after landing, at 5:51am CDT, a slightly shaky Kubasov was the first to exit, his seat being nearest to the hatch. Leonov emerged a couple of minutes later, and his flight engineer smiled broadly and waved triumphantly to the press allowed on the scene. The Apollo crew were updated on the successful landing by Houston, who in turn asked Houston to relay their comrades their best and to say that they were glad to hear that everything went well. 

(*) The Soviets used the rather inferior SECAM system developed by the French. SECAM is a French acronym for Sequential Color with Memory, and was developed more in protest than in competition with the BBC-backed PAL standard that became the European standard in the 50's. The Soviets adopted SECAM as a gesture of good will to the French, who were becoming a socialist country as the DeGaulle era began to wind down. In fact, DeGaulle became the first Western person period to visit Baikonur, which some believe may have been one of the "deal sweeteners" the Soviets gave the French in return for the SECAM specs.

While both PAL and SECAM use wider channel bandwidth and frame rates of 25/second with 625 lines/frame, and promise better picture quality than the NTSC system used in the US, SECAM's handling of color phase and sync rates tend to result in very poor conversion quality when compared to how PAL converts to NTSC. The poor quality "Unca Walter" complains of is how the on-the-fly conversion of the live feed appears to be washed out, slightly out of phase, and imbedded with annoying scan lines not normally seen with NTSC. From someone who watched the feed live, it looked a lot like a VHS tape whose contents were 4th generation dupes - copied from tape to tape at least three times with no correction in the signal strength - with the last copy being recorded at the slowest possible speed.

Prior to jettison of the DM, the crew participated in a final, 32-minute press conference from space. The crew were again asked to speculate on the future of manned space flight in general, as well as on possible trips to Mars and their own participation in the upcoming Shuttle program. Their answers optimistic, and laced with a good dose of  humor. In one of the more memorable comments, Slayton told the press that he had done nothing in space that his 91-year old aunt could not have done. This sent reporters and researchers scrambling to find out her name because it wasn't included in the press kit, and nobody at the NASA PAO had it on hand! Shortly after, Mrs. Sadie Link found herself inundated with calls from reporters looking for quotes regarding her own opinions of her spaceworthiness. Following the final press conference, Crippen gave the crew a verbal "thumbs up" for their handling of the more banal questions, then gave them a bit of unexpected good news: Leonov had been promoted from colonel to major general.

One final task occurred prior to DM jettison: the crew filled the DM with all the trash and disposable equipment, a procedure harkening back to the LM jettison after ascent from the Lunar surface. After donning their space suits per flight safety regulations, the crew jettisoned the DM at 2:41am CDT. After confirming the DM was tumbling into space at exactly the proper rate required for the doppler tracking experiment, Stafford executed the separation maneuver to increase the distance between Apollo and the DM required for the necessary doppler measurements. The docking module would continue on its way until it re-entered the earth's atmosphere and burned up in August 1975

The doppler tracking experiment was essentially in competition with the geodynamics experiment. In unison, these experiments would verify which of the two techniques would be best suited for studying plate tectonics from earth orbit. While the geodynamics experiment utilized Apollo and the ATS 6 communications relay satellite to measure the existence of "mass anomalies" greater than 200 kilometers in size, the jettisoned DM and the CSM Stack would in theory have their orbits affected by the greater gravitational forces exerted by these mass anomalies, thus proving their existence as well. Once the two spacecraft were separated by 300 kilometers, if their  orbits were perturbed, the radio signals transmitted from one to another would correspondingly be affected resulting in a difference in doppler radar returns.

 The next day, after breakfast and a final round of medical data gathering, the crew initiated the de-orbit burn at 3:37pm CDT. Six minutes later, the CSM stack was separated into its component parts, and the Command Module began reentry. Until ionization blackout, Slayton and Brand gave commentary on the gravity conditions and the spectacular fireball that the last Apollo CM was engulfed in. At 4:14pm CDT, signal and visual acquisition was regained with the crew, and four minutes later the final Apollo splashed down ~ 7,300 meters from the recovery ship USS New Orleans. It was at this time the only major mishap in the mission occurred.

While everyone in the Houston MOCR was celebrating, unbeknownst at that time was that while the CM was floating down on its three parachutes, the crew were inhaling toxic nitrogen tetroxide fumes. The descent phase had gone without a hitch until ~15,000 meters, when the crew began preparations for chute deployment. Due to some confusion resulting from excessive noise in the cabin caused by external sources - specifically, the command module's thrusters, excessive intercom static, and the passage of the craft through the atmosphere at high speeds, the RCS thrusters were not disabled prior to chute deployment. As a result, when the spacecraft began to sway under the chutes, the RCS thrusters activated and attempted to keep the ship in a stable position. 

This might not have been a problem except that prior to drogue chute deployment the cabin pressure relief valve had opened automatically. In addition to drawing in fresh air, it also brought in the nitrogen tetroxide from the RCS thrusters located less than two feet from the valve. The crew immediately went into coughing fits, but managed to complete the rest of their landing checklists before splashdown. At that point, the spacecraft went into a Stable-2 position - tipped over with the nose down in the water. Before the Astronauts could activate the uprighting system - a series of balloons that would force the ship's nose above the center of gravity and tip it back on its heatshield - they were faced with the need to do something about the cabin air before they succumbed to toxic hypoxia. 

Strapped to their seats upside-down due to the Stable-2 position, Stafford had to unstrap himself, drop down to the control panel, locate the emergency oxygen masks, and get them on not only himself, but Slayton and Brand. Slayton was in the process of getting nauseous from the tetroxide fumes, Brand had actually passed out, having been the closest to the vent when the fumes invaded the cabin. After recovery and transport to the New Orleans, the crew was then moved to a two-week hospital stay in Honolulu for treatment from tetroxide inhalation. All three recovered with flying colors, save for Slayton, who was discovered to have a non-malignant lung tumor during treatment. 

After Slayton's recovery, all five of the ASTP crew went on publicity tours of both the USSR and the US of A. In both countries the crews received very warm public receptions, validating the success of ASTP in it's major political goal - proving that the two rival superpowers could work together for a common, peaceful goal. 

The competition of the Space Race produced the first manned space flights in the early 1960s, but just a little more than a decade later this particular rivalry had been converted to friendship, cooperation, and above all else friendly competition where it was needed the most. In fact, the outcome of the mission had a far more lasting effect upon their relationship. Many of the Soviet engineers who worked on ASTP later became involved with ISS development, and were involved in the Shuttle-Mir missions as well. The compatible docking system that NPO Energia built for ISS was derived from the androgynous system used for ASTP. While ASTP may not have provided the best example of how to build a joint space station, but it did provide the grounds and justification for the spirit and initiative to actually build it.

And that, kids, is the point most critics miss when denouncing ASTP and even ISS. While many anti-NASA critics - including a not-so-honorable "senator" from Wisconsin, his comrade-in-ignorance from Minnesota, and their sycophants in the press - denounced the Joint Mission as a waste of money, they did so totally ignoring the most important aspect of the mission. There was a key difference between ASTP and the other attempts in the detente process was that where SALT lived up to its last initial to the fullest - talk, talk, and more talk. As Yoda would have said, for ASTP there was no try, only do. SALT I may have opened the door, but once the politics were checked outside that door success was all but unavoidable. The spirit of the mission could not be stifled.

 While it may have been the end for Apollo, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was a beginning of the spirit of detente being more than just a goofy word with little impact. Although future geopolitical events would have their own chilling and thawing effects upon the Cold War, if anything ASTP was the first fire lit by both sides in an attempt to melt the ice for the right reasons, and the only one that arguably was a resounding success. Over a decade after the fall of the Evil Soviet Empire underneath its own Communist-imposed fragile infrastructure, the fact that the United States and the now-renamed Russian Federation have forged a friendship that's stronger now than ever in the history of the two superpowers can be traced not to the arms talks of the 70's, but to the Joint Mission those talks made possible. 

Actions do speak louder than words, and over a quarter of a century later the message of ASTP is still being heard. it still exists as a testament to cooperation, and a monument to our ability to get through those troubled times without having turned each other's back yards into glassed-over parking lots illuminated by the Cherenkov effect.

• October 11th, 2002 - v1.0 posted online at OMWorld.

• December 29th, 2002 - Tweaked a few HTML glitches, added brief notes regarding Slayton's selection as part of the ASTP crew, as well as a brief note regarding Brezhnev's penchant for a certain US TV oatburner.

• July 17th, 2005 - OM gets slapped silly for not having this page updated with new, higher-quality images of the DM Trainer in time for the 30th Anniversary of ASTP. Mea Culprit.

• September 24th, 2005 - Revised format for new sci.space.history support website.\

• February 2nd, 2006 - Added brief forward regarding the DM Trainer exhibit being given a major upgrade at Space Center Houston.