By Astrophilatelie Martin
47 years ago, on July 15, 1975, the Apollo-Soyouz ASTP mission.
It was quite nice this appointment in space, announced with great publicity, American astronauts (Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald Slayton) and Soviet cosmonauts (Alexis Leonov and Valery Koubasov). The project, conceived in 1972, was to transform a merciless rivalry into a joint venture resulting in a fruitful exchange of technical information between the two rivals.
Soyouz and Apollo flights were becoming almost routine. Nevertheless, meeting and towing in the space of two vehicles of different designs was not so easy. The project took three years to complete. It is necessary to build a special mooring system, coordinate procedures and, of course, remove language barriers.
Russian and American teams training at the City of Stars and Houston. Mixed Soviet and American tech teams accompanied them. In July 1975, everyone was ready to exchange in space the long-awaited memorable "Shake-hand".
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