Today is the 36th anniversary of the final splashdown of an Apollo capsule. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was a one of a kind orbital mission that featured the first docking between spacecraft from different countries, presaging the comings and goings at the International Space Station today. The docking module that Apollo brought into orbit was basically an Apollo-Soyuz adapter, with incompatible docking systems at the two ends. The one at the Soyuz end became the model for all later docking systems, and the Americans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese and European Space Agency all use versions of it today. This mission was the one and only space flight for Deke Slayton, the last of the Mercury Seven astronauts to make it into space, his career bookending the first phase of the US space program.
After ASTP the Americans did not put an astronaut into orbit for six years, including the entire Carter administration. The space shuttle launched in 1981, and the final shuttle mission landed just the other day, closing the second phase of the US space program. It will be several years before Falcon/Dragon, or Atlas/Orion, or some other American combination starts hauling astronauts into orbit. In the meantime, though, and unlike the late Seventies, US astronauts will continue to get into orbit aboard the good old reliable Russian Soyuz.
Robert McCall painted the Apollo-Soyuz image above. He is perhaps best known for his 2001: A Space Odyssey posters.
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