Celebrating 50 Years of Historic Space Diplomacy: The Moment Astro and Cosmonauts Shook Hands in Orbit

It’s been 50 years since the Apollo program had its last big moment. The Apollo-Soyuz mission launched a U.S. spacecraft and a Soviet Soyuz into space, marking a historic collaboration.

This mission was particularly special for astronaut Deke Slayton. He was part of the original Mercury 7 crew but was grounded for health reasons. By the time he was cleared to fly again, it was a race against time. Apollo-Soyuz was his last chance before the Space Shuttle era began in 1981.

Chris Kraft, a key figure in NASA, expressed his joy about Slayton’s final flight in his book, *Flight*: “Of the Original Seven, Deke got his ride last. We owed him that.”

On the Soviet side, Alexei Leonov—famed as the first person to walk in space—commanded the Soyuz crew. This mission marked his final space journey as well.

The Apollo spacecraft, sometimes called Apollo 18, along with a docking module, launched from Kennedy Space Center. Meanwhile, Soyuz 19 lifted off from Baikonur in the Soviet Union. Both missions launched on July 15, 1975, and achieved a historic docking just a few days later on July 19, 1975.

This docking was no small feat. The Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft couldn’t connect directly due to differences in their atmospheric pressure. A special module acted as an adapter. The Apollo capsule was pressurized at about five psi of pure oxygen, while Soyuz operated at sea level pressure. The module allowed both crews to safely exchange between their crafts, including shaking hands and sharing meals.

Leonov remembered the moment the hatches opened: “At that moment, I felt that everything I had been through as a cosmonaut … had been worth it.” He even surprised the U.S. crew with tubes of borscht disguised as vodka, adding humor to the mission.

Despite the good spirits, challenges were never far away. During a second docking maneuver, Slayton accidentally misfired a thruster, which nearly caused a collision. Leonov later noted, “There was a real threat of damaging the joint docking mechanism.” Fortunately, they corrected the mistake swiftly.

Upon returning to Earth, the Apollo crew faced another danger. During re-entry, they accidentally inhaled fumes from their spacecraft’s toxic fuel, which could have been lethal. Deke later reflected, “A lethal dose of that gas was four hundred parts per million. They estimated that we had inhaled it at three hundred parts per million.” Fortunately, no one was harmed.

The Apollo-Soyuz mission was the last crewed flight for the U.S. until the Space Shuttle took to the skies in 1981. It was also the last time a crewed U.S. spacecraft launched from American soil until SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in 2020. This mission set an important precedent for international cooperation in space missions, despite subsequent cooling relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Leonov later voiced the mission’s significance by saying, “Our mission had paved the way for future cooperation in space.” The legacy of Apollo-Soyuz resonates today as space agencies continue to work together, proving that collaboration can transcend political boundaries.

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