40th Anniversary of the Historic Apollo-Soyuz Mission is Remembered

e e e e e e e e e e e e e 3 engine sequence start 1 Z launch commit we have a liftoff all engines building up thrust moving out clear the tower all Roger Tower clear Roger Tom you got good thrust on all engin you're right on the money seconds we're on the way stand by for mode one Bravo mark one Bravo One Bravo Roger Houston your go for [Applause] [Music] station both control centers Moscow and Houston have given a go for docking [Music] Apollo Houston I got two messages for you mosow is go for docking Houston is go for docking it's up to you guys have fun all right sounds good system is ready good job I am approaching so please don't forget about your engine less than 5 m distance 3 [Applause] m contact capture tell Professor buv it was a soft docking well done Tom it was a good shot oh they're looking forward now to shaking hands with you on in B you all right on a show you L three the camera got it it'll stay open go ahead go ahead Lexi okay turn on the camera hit the remote okay here glad to see you [Music] here new possibilities are opening up for Fruitful development of scientific cooperation between countries and the peoples in the interest of of peace and progress of all Humanity I wish you successful completion of the planed program and a safe return to Earth Leonid BR astronauts on L gentlemen let me call to express my very great admiration for your hard work your total dedication in prep preparing for this first joint flight it's taken us many years to open this door to useful cooperation in space between our two countries and I'm confident that the day is not far off when space missions made possible by this first joint effort will be more or less common place and may I say in signing off here's to a soft Landing thank you thank you Mr President the total uh system we have demonstrated here the new docking device the Rendevous system using techniques in both countries the communications and procedures of techniques could be available in the future if required not on an instance notice but it could be available so I think we have taken a great step that indeed we have opened a new era in the history of man on this and it will be beneficial e go go retro go GNC go follow control 99 hours 29 minutes phas elapse time flight director Frank Littleton pulsing his flight controllers Ecom reports everything looks fine okay everything's up great sheep up here the only thing we're concerned about is that you've got all your splice down part's coordinated over well I've uh been working on that okay sounds good you and Valeri kubasov were selected for for a project that many would say was as significant as perhaps landing on the moon that to link up your soou vehicle with the American Apollo spacecraft in this technical concept and a born out of a political gesture and a technical demonstration what did you think of this project what its goals were and what you thought the accomplishments would be when you and valer were selected to represent Russia I can only say that I'm very glad that the uh government uh while addressing different countries our government said that the crew performed flawlessly Flawless that's the actual word they used and uh we should not forget about the specifics of that particular time Cold War the humankind was at the precipice literally but uh we were lucky to have had very smart people Kissinger cigan Fletcher who understood the situation that was going on on the ground and they managed to make certain steps to have fixed this situation to grow some seed of trust that people manage to uh treat each other differently I think this program turned out to be a lot more important for our countries and particularly the political aspects because six billion people were watching us and they could realize that there is a way to live differently there is a way to deal with each other in a different manner Alexa you and your crew mates um felt at the time that you were about to do something very significant I think that would change us Russian relations did you that's exactly what it was I strongly felt that I received a task which was a really a task with huge magnitude we were supposed to show the entire world that we are human beings that we work together in the most sophisticated area of human activities it was a very important task and the rest of the people involved in the preparations for this flight they were thinking exactly along the same lines and they were thousands literally thousands of people in both countries who were involved and they made everything they could and made it really conducive for us to succeed and prior to the launch and during the during the doning and everything was designed on the ground uh between our countries and our respective uh experts from both countries which let us actually succeed Alexi many many people say that the close personal bond that you forged with Tom Stafford uh was the key to the success of Apollo soyu uh you call each other brothers to this day you correspond with one another frequently you talk to one another frequently what was the most important factor that emerged from your personality Tom Stafford's personality that created a friendship and a bond that made this Mission successful and made you lifelong brothers did way prior to so Apollo just pretty much like media always do uh they uh select the best players during the hockey tournament or the best crew members that uh deserve flying and when we have started doing this similar effort media folks ended up assigning Stafford and myself as a best crew and I met him for the first time in 1970 he came to Russia to uh be in Moscow during the funeral of my backup crew the brai vov and PV he he decided to come to Moscow by himself although the state department uh did not allow him to do so and those kinds of things used to be frowned upon back then but he came to Moscow anyway and uh I was asked to join him and to spend more time with him while in Moscow and I started taking care of him he's been calling me a brother for a long long time and I don't have any close relatives no no parents they all are gone and when you have all of a sudden a brother it's uh it just makes the world uh for me and we have common children I helped Tom adopt two sons from Russia and now they are grown up guys they are students their surname is Stafford my granddaughter's name is Karina just the same way as uh Thomas's granddaughter and we have a lot in common we meet uh two three times a year Alexi when you look back at um Apollo soyu four decades ago you look today at the International Space Station which many people believe would not have been possible without Apollo so what do you see as the legacy of your career that particular flight and where are we going from here in the future after hour flight there was another program joint program shutle program uh they have done everything very accurately which was basically the continuation of what we have studied and it was a part of cooperation between U UHA and Russia and then we logically arrived that the idea of putting together an international Spa Space Station 400 tons of weight one and a half hectare of solar areas th000 cubic meters of habitable space Russian segment us segment European segment alog together seven modules Russian segment five modules and this is the area where we have permanent presence of three to six crew members at all times and we used to have as many as nine crew members at some point and this is continuation of what we have been doing all our lives and I was actively working in the area of training of those crew members eventually getting to the International Space Station we're honored today to be joined by General Tom Stafford a legendary figure in human space flight history commander of Apollo soyuz whose 40th anniversary is coming up here very shortly what did you think about Apollo soyuz when it was first proposed and what did what did you think the ultimate objective would be I wasn't thinking so much where how far away down the road it would lead as I was well we can demonstrate to the world that two countries with different languages different units of measurements and certainly vastly different political systems could work together for a common goal but this would be a good thing it could demonstrate and help a lot of understanding in in the world on what we're doing because of the close personal bond that you and Alexi leonov forged uh many say that that was the ultimate success to Apollo so use what was the most imp important factor between the two of you uh that emerged uh that bonded a friendship like no other we've ever seen in human space flight history knowing that this Mission had to be a success and all that just our personalities it worked out great and today I consider Alexi like a brother to me I was an only child so I call him W brought and tell you how close the Friendship has gotten his granddaughter who was named Karen and that's name after my daughter and when my oldest daughter had her last boy her last son she named him Alexi you were the master of rendevu you had pulled off a of Rendevous during Gemini and Apollo of course so from that aspect I don't think you believed that that was going to be a big issue what did you think was going to be the most intricate part of this Mission from a technical standpoint well from a technical standpoint uh two things one they flew at an atmosphere of sea level pressure you know 21% oxygen 79% nitrogen where we flew with 5 lbs per square inch total of pure oxygen and then how we had to work this together and so that's where the docking module came in good we also use it as an air lock to go up and down and we got them to lower their pressure down to you know over a period of two days to 10 a little over 10 PBS and this doesn't hurt you just regular atmospheric mixture so that would that was one thing the other one was on the docking mechanism and the the main thing was not the engaged part but the latching and hold part but it worked out beautiful and of course on the other side of the coin never far uh away was the whole importance of the political aspect of this and I just can't even imagine how you and your crewm mates dealt with the political pressure of making this a success well well we said we we taught thought that this would be you know just like a standard Mission and you think just like a test pilot and uh so we made it a point and so did the Soviet side we kept politics completely out of it we never discussed politics it was just the mission and we were going to make it a success and then there's a moment of History docking so the two vehicles doc you're joined together first time in history did you feel at that point a sense of history at all no main thing was to be sure we we do we got the soft Dock and I I greased it in just right on so there and then we had to have the hard dock where the other the light to retract and those lights just pull in and snap and we got to make sure everything was solid and so the hatch is open there's Alexi and you both seem to be a bit reluctant to move toward one another until you all coaxed each other to shake hands what a moment was that one of the the greatest moments of your space flight career at that point I think so I I think so I I've had several Great Moments you know during the first Rond in space first flying the lunar module the first Rondo around the Moon jeene cernon his first Space Walk getting him back in was a great moment I'll tell you and uh so there's a few ones and definitely you're right that that was really one of the Great Moments but again no thought of politics at that point here here an American and a Soviet former adversaries are shaking hands in space together did you not feel some political accomplishment as well as just the technical amazing aspect of reaching this good friend and brother of yours now for some reason politics because to me here here was a kind of a fellow crewman and also his other person valer who had worked hard with us for two years and we' accomplished it we had done it we' worked out and teamw worked together you know this mission on Apollo soyu 40 years ago is still considered by many uh almost universally as uh the key the birthplace if you will to the development and construction of the International Space Station uh did you ever believe that a laboratory of that magnitude and capability a city in the sky if you will uh could be built and operated on a permanently occupied basis no I knew we' do things in the future I was very optimistic we'd go on and do some more things like the shuttle was planned and and we' have maybe a shuttle to a sause or maybe a new spacecraft would do something like that but to the magnitude that the space station is today nearly a million pounds and 15 countries working together no I didn't think that because you know just the United States and the Russia pardon me the Soviet Union was the only one that had the capability so but uh I think it's wonderful and I'm very glad honored I'm still involved with the uh the program and I chair the advisory committee for the U International Space Station that's for safety and operational Readiness and it's really started out with shadir which was a natural extension and then from shadir to the International Space Station this fall uh will Mark the 15th anniversary of a permanent human occupancy on the space station which is remarkable in its own right as you look back uh in in the home stretch of the first two decades of the space station what do you think is the most important accomplishment of this complex this this Global project well to me the most important part is bringing these 15 countries together and having been able to agree to work on things and see how in a way how flawlessly it's gone on I I look back now in a perspective back say over my shoulder in history so I think it's it was really wonderful I had the opportunity to work with Alexi leonov and Val kubasov the other Soviet peoples now Russian and grou and bring this together