Echoes Among the Stars: The Original Website
The First Era in Space, 1957-1975
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP)
July 15 - July 24, 1975
An Historic Opening
Designed as a joint venture of the American and Soviet space programs and a means of creating a better relationship between the two superpowers, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) provided a fitting end to the first era of space exploration. An unthinkable event throughout the years of the space race, American astronauts are here welcomed into the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Soviet Union’s secret launch facility. NASA photo.
ASTP: The Technical Challenge
The differing technical approaches that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had employed over the long years of developing their space programs provided some technically daunting obstacles to the joint ASTP flight. Most difficult was the creation of a docking system that could accomodate both the American Apollo and the Soviet Soyuz craft, so the two crews could link together in space. NASA photo.A Handshake Among the Stars
American astronaut Tom Stafford greets Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov during ASTP. The Apollo crew also echoed the U.S. program’s earliest years, providing a first spaceflight for Donald “Deke” Slayton, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts who had been sidelined for medical reasons but was finally cleared in time for the last Apollo-era mission. NASA photo.
