by Jay Chladek
Apollo Salyut?
During the early discussions between NASA and the Soviets after the Salyut station’s early success, the working groups had proposed an Apollo spacecraft docking with a Salyut. Given the fact that Salyut had evolved with the military Almaz space station project and its relatively short gestation period as a civilian station, the proposal to use it in a joint project is somewhat surprising. The idea put forth was that a Salyut could be equipped with two docking ports. One would be the normal type to allow for docking with a Soyuz craft, and a second port would be androgynous and able to accommodate an Apollo spacecraft.
Salyut was preferable to Soyuz thanks to its mission-duration capabilities. An original-configuration Soyuz vehicle was only capable of independent flight of up to a week at most. Granted, Soyuz 9 had flown an eighteen-day mission, but the rendezvous and docking equipment were removed to handle the increased consumables and air-purification equipment. A Soyuz equipped with a new docking device could not be stripped down that way, as the R-7 launch vehicle still had a weight limit.
In April 1972, after much negotiating, things were in place for the formal mission proposal to be drawn up, which the leaders of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would sign at a summit meeting the following May. NASA officials visited Moscow to help negotiate the final elements of the agreement, but before discussions got underway, a statement was made to the Americans. The Soviets had concluded that it was technically and economically unfeasible to modify a Salyut for use in the docking mission by a planned 1975 mission date. The current Salyut design only had one docking port, and it would cost both time and money to modify it for a second one. Therefore, it was recommended that they proceed with using just the Soyuz if all other aspects of the mission could be met with no further difficulties. The Americans were surprised by this change but accepted it. An Apollo craft would dock with a Soyuz, not a Salyut, and it would be a relatively short-duration mission.
ASTP Is Born
On 24 May 1972 President Nixon and Premier Kosygin signed the Nixon-Kosygin accord on space. With this agreement, the proposal between NASA and the Soviets became an official space mission with a target launch date of mid-1975. There was still a lot of work to be done, but now the engineering teams could get on with the tasks of turning designs into hardware, refining procedures, and planning for actual spaceflight. In June 1972 the mission officially became known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, or ASTP.
The plan on paper was simple. An Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft would both liftoff from their respective launch sites and then rendezvous and dock in orbit. They would carry out various ceremonial activities to commemorate the event and conduct joint scientific experiments. All of this would all be carried out on live television internationally.
For this mission, not only would Soviet citizens get to watch live coverage of the mission on the American side, international press would be covering the mission live from the Soviet Union as well. This caused some problems between the Soviets and NASA’s public affairs people, and many of these problems weren’t fully ironed out until only a couple of weeks before launch day.
One of the dictates of the agreement was that the flight crews and the support crews for each side of the mission would have to be chosen two years before the planned launch date. The primary reason was that these astronauts, cosmonauts, and controllers would have to begin training together as a team. This is not something that could be thrown together at the last minute. The language barrier would also be a problem until each team learned the other team’s language well enough to communicate critical commands at a moment’s notice.
During the next meeting of the working groups, held in July of 1972, the Soviets revealed that they would have two Soyuz spacecraft ready for launch on the first day of the mission. This seemed a little odd since the Americans knew the limitations of the Soyuz included not being able to stay aloft for as long as an Apollo CSM. Logically, the Americans considered it a good idea to launch Apollo first and have the Soyuz launch second. The Soviets didn’t agree, and they felt it was better to launch a Soyuz first, be it the primary spacecraft or the backup if something went wrong. The backup spacecraft and crew would be kept operational and ready to go. That way, if a launch delay occurred on the American side with the Apollo unable to be launched before the Soyuz had to come home, the second craft would fly. The Americans didn’t fully understand the reasoning, but they accepted it. Prestige issues may have been at work here. The Soviets were first with Sputnik and with Gagarin, so why shouldn’t they launch first?
The Soviet members also questioned why NASA wanted to fly the mission above 230 miles in orbit. Since no specific reason was given, the Soviets wondered why it couldn’t be lowered a bit. Finally, after a direct question was asked, the real reason came out. The Soyuz could not orbit that high. So the orbital altitude for the mission was lowered. The Soviets weren’t necessarily trying to hide their capabilities intentionally. Pride likely got in the way, as the Soviets seemed to be reluctant to reveal that the Soyuz craft had certain limitations compared to the Apollo one.
For the rendezvous, it became apparent early on that the Apollo craft would be the primary vehicle involved with the task of locating the Soyuz and docking with it. After the first docking, the pair would undock, and the Soyuz would maneuver to dock with a passive Apollo craft. But the pair wouldn’t get far enough away to require a new rendezvous procedure. Because of his experience in rendezvous with the Gemini 6, Gemini 9, and Apollo 10 missions, astronaut Thomas Stafford was assigned to the first working group to help hash out the rendezvous details. Soviet cosmonauts Nikolayev and Yeliseyev were assigned to the same working group thanks to their combined experience. The first training sessions for the assigned flight crews for ASTP were scheduled for mid-1973.
Work on the joint-docking hardware went ahead with only minor problems. The NASA people didn’t consider the problems to really be any different than what might happen at the level of NASA and its contractors. But for ASTP, both countries’ teams were acting as equal partners and learning to work together. With a contractor, NASA can unilaterally dictate what has to be done, and the contractor does its best to accommodate the decision. For ASTP, there were elements of give-and-take from both sides, but each team worked the problems and found innovative solutions along the way.
In October 1972, work continued at the next meeting in Moscow. The teams did preliminary reviews of the docking hardware and made some decisions about the atmospheres flown on each spacecraft and the docking module. During docked operations with the Apollo CSM, the pressure in the Soyuz would be lowered, and the gas mixture would be 40 percent oxygen and 60 percent nitrogen. Any higher oxygen content would increase the fire danger. The reduced pressure aboard the Soyuz would mean that crewmembers in the airlock transferring to Apollo would only need to prebreathe oxygen for about an hour instead of the nearly three hours required when transferring from sea level pressure to an environment with pure oxygen at 5 psi.
The Crew of ASTP
In January of 1973 the flight crews for ASTP were announced. On the American side, the mission commander would be Gen. Thomas Stafford. This would be his fourth spaceflight. Stafford had no plans to fly in space after Apollo 10 and instead moved into management. But his participation in the state funeral for the Soyuz 11 crew and being one of the heads of the astronaut department meant that Stafford was known and well respected by members of both countries. His involvement in development work on ASTP as part of the working groups also meant that he had direct experience in developing the rendezvous and docking procedures intended for the flight.
The command module pilot for this flight would be Vance Brand. Brand was a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot and a test pilot with lots of experience. At the time of his selection to ASTP, Brand was performing duties as a backup commander for one of the Skylab missions, so he wouldn’t be available for ASTP training for about a year.
Even with his flight status restored, the remaining Apollo and Skylab assignments had been spoken for. That left ASTP or early shuttle flights as possible spaceflight opportunities. Slayton wanted to command ASTP, but NASA felt Stafford would be a better choice with his experience. Slayton was assigned to the crew as docking module pilot (DMP). For launch and landing, he would occupy the flight engineer seat originally assigned to lunar module pilots in Apollo, but he would also get stick time flying the Apollo during the second of two planned dockings with the Soyuz and during one of the formation flying experiments.
For the Apollo backup crew, Al Bean would be the mission commander, Apollo 17 veteran Ronald Evans would assume command module pilot duties, and the docking module pilot assignment would go to Jack Lousma. Like Brand, Bean and Lousma wouldn’t really be able to participate in joint training exercises until after their mission to Skylab had returned home, but they would be available for training before Brand.
On the Soviet side, Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov were assigned as crew of the Soyuz. Like Slayton, Kubasov had some not-so-good experiences with doctors, thanks to the botched tuberculosis diagnosis that scrubbed both him and Leonov from Soyuz 11. Both cosmonauts also had trained for Salyut flights that ended in launch and deployment failures. The Soviet half of ASTP seemed like the perfect mission for two cosmonauts who had already been in training for quite a while.
In an interview he gave for NASA’s oral history, Stafford mentioned that he was expecting Shatalov or Nikolayev to be assigned due to their rendezvous-and-docking experience. But ultimately he understood why Leonov was selected for command, since assigning to this mission the first person to conduct a space walk provided some excellent public relations opportunities for the Soviets internationally. For the ASTP cosmonaut backup crew, the Soviets selected Anatoly Filipchenko as commander and Nikolai Rukavishnikov as flight engineer. Rukavishnikov was a veteran of Soyuz 10 and, like Leonov and Kubasov, had spent a long time in perpetual training thanks to the back-to-back failures of two DOS stations.
26. The official ASTP crew portrait. Seated (left to right) are Slayton, Brand, and Kubasov, while standing behind (left to right) are Stafford and Leonov. The model in front represents the Apollo and Soyuz craft with the specially designed docking module between them. Courtesy NASA.
The Language Barrier
The astronauts and cosmonauts knew from the day they were selected that they were going to have to learn each others’ languages. The Soviet crewmembers had already begun classroom sessions to improve their English-language skills. Stafford grew concerned when he learned of this. If the Americans didn’t get up to speed quickly, they would quickly fall behind. The astronauts began private tutoring sessions on their own until NASA finally made time in the training schedule for dedicated language classes. Russian is not an easy language to learn, and it takes a fair amount of effort to speak properly, let alone to read and write. Plus, with any language, there are little subtle nuances and phrases that crop up. A concept that might have a one-word description in one language might not necessarily have exactly the same meaning, let alone a single-word translation, in the other language. Ultimately, Stafford estimated that during the last sixteen months leading up to the mission, he conducted about a thousand hours of Russian-language study alone. It was a similar situation for both Slayton and Brand. According to Stafford, the crew needed every bit of language training they could get.
There was also the question of what language would be used once the flight had begun. Tom Stafford was apparently the person who came up with the idea that the Apollo and Soyuz flight crews would communicate with one another in the other country’s language. So during communications to the Soyuz, Apollo crewmembers would talk in Russian, and the Soyuz crewmembers would talk in English. The benefit here is that for a crewmember speaking in his nonnative language, he speaks slower and more clearly to get the point across and to be understood more easily. Speaking in a native tongue—with astronauts speaking in English and cosmonauts, in Russian—might cause a critical detail to be missed if things are spoken too quickly. This became the accepted standard by both sides during joint training sessions as well as in phone conversations between the astronaut and cosmonaut crews. All crewmembers practiced as much as they could.
Tom Stafford’s own efforts to learn Russian became a source of humor. Stafford was born and raised in Oklahoma, and his distinctive Oklahoma twang carried over into the Russian language, causing a few curious grins and chuckles among the cosmonauts. In one conversation with the press, Leonov is reported to have said that with Stafford, they don’t speak “American-ski” or “Soviet-ski,” but instead they speak “Oklahoma-ski.”
During visits to the United States, Leonov had become something of a media darling, as his joyous smile and willingness to converse with members of the American media were infectious, as was his famous quote at one press conference, “I want to be [a] movie star.” Plus, his artistic skills had already made him something of a minor celebrity in European circles. For most Americans growing up at the time, Leonov and Kubasov were the first cosmonauts they had ever gotten to meet or see up close, and Leonov had a commanding presence wherever he went.
Snowball Fights and Fireworks
All members of the primary, backup, and support groups seemed to bond together quite well with their colleagues. On a visit to the Soviet Union in the winter, both sides took part enthusiastically in an impromptu snowball fight during one stop on a bus trip. On a summer visit by the Soviets to Houston a few months later, both sides participated in an outdoor cookout as if they had done it before. Because this mission was as high profile as it was, a lot of eyes were watching to see how international relations were proceeding. But very few problems cropped up, and things seemed to run smoothly.
27. The lighter side of training! Both crews practice the handshake on top of the docking module and Soyuz mockups. Courtesy NASA.
The Soviets also seemed to spare no expense in showing good hospitality to their American comrades. For earlier visits, NASA representatives stayed at a hotel near central Moscow and had to endure a long drive to and from Star City each day. The distance between the two locations was short by Western standards, but Soviet roads meant that a trip of only fifty-four kilometers usually would take over an hour one way. And today it is still a long drive. So the Soviets built a new hotel near Star City just for the Americans.
The Americans had a little fun at the hotel, as they figured every room was likely bugged and watched around the clock by the KGB. So when one American suggested that it might be nice to have a pitcher of water and some drinking glasses to no one in particular, a pitcher of water and drinking glasses were on the table the next day when they returned from work. Other “requests” made to “the walls” were granted in a similar prompt fashion.
Some awkward moments did occur, though. For example, during one visit to Moscow in July, backup Apollo command module pilot Ron Evans managed to sneak half a case of fireworks into the country. So on 4 July, the NASA contingent began setting off firecrackers and bottle rockets. Soviet neighbors became alarmed, and the police were call
ed. Soviet security assigned to protect the Americans was on high alert, while people were wondering what in the world was happening. But all was understood when the Americans explained that they were celebrating “the day of our revolution,” as Stafford described it.
A Science Directive
Although ASTP had endorsements by the governments of two nations and seemed to be on track for a successful outcome, there were concerns in Congress that something on the Soviet side might topple the plans to fly the mission at the last minute. To guard against this possibility, several members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate mandated that NASA should add a secondary goal that could be conducted independently, should the docking mission itself be called off. NASA briefly entertained thoughts of conducting a short-duration mission to Skylab, but the idea was dropped, primarily because the docking module they had spent time and money developing wouldn’t be used on a visit to Skylab.
It was decided that both the CSM and the docking module would carry scientific experiments. Ultimately, the Apollo portion of ASTP carried equipment to conduct twenty-eight different experiments on orbit. Five of them would be joint experiments with the Soviets, twenty-one would be American experiments to be conducted unilaterally, and two experiments would come from West Germany.
The Apollo service module contained experiment packages to study soft X-ray sources from celestial bodies, a telescope to study extreme ultraviolet light from sources other than Earth’s sun, and an instrument to study the sun’s helium glow. As part of a joint experiment, the Apollo would be used to produce an artificial solar eclipse that could be observed by the Soyuz. The Soviets would conduct observations of the sun’s corona while the Apollo observed the eclipse’s shadow on the Soyuz craft. Another joint experiment called for the Apollo spacecraft to beam light to a reflector on the Soyuz in order to study the concentrations and properties of atomic oxygen and nitrogen at the orbital altitude of both spacecraft. It required precision flying to do this. The results of this study would be used to help with the design of similar equipment for Earth-resource satellites.
