On this day in 1975, United States Air Force General Thomas Stafford shook hands with Soviet Colonel Alexei Leonov through a set of hatches in their respective space capsules.
As you can partly hear here, each man used the other’s language. The mission also saw Donald “Deke” Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts who had been deprived of a spaceborne billet owing to a health issue, finally travel into space.
President Ford and Premier Brezhnev spoke to the astronauts. Here is an excerpt of Ford’s conversation:
[THE PRESIDENT.] It has taken us many years to open this door to useful cooperation in space between our two countries, and I am confident that the day is not far off when space missions made possible by this first joint effort will be more or less commonplace….
COL. ALEKSEI LEONOV. Mr. President, I am sure that our joint flight is the beginning for future explorations in space between our countries. Thank you very much for very nice words to us. We will do our best….
THE PRESIDENT…. As the world’s oldest space rookie, do you [SLAYTON] have any advice for young people who hope to fly on future space missions?…
MR. SLAYTON…. Well, yes, I have a lot of advice for young people, but I guess probably one of the most important bits is to, number one, decide what you really want to do and then, secondly, never give up until you have done it….
I remember this—truly or not—especially the footage. It made a big impression on me. Much later, when I saw Billy Bragg perform this song it made me deeply sad.
I know we should be—and should have been—fixing our hopes and spending our money improving things here on earth, but those spaceships rising toward heaven were something to see.
30 comments
July 17, 2008 at 9:40 am
ajay
“I always knew I’d live to see the first man walk on the moon. I never dreamed I’d live to see the last” – Jerry Pournelle
Stephen Baxter wrote the short story “In the MSOB”, collected in “Traces”, which is a very grim elegy for the space programme, seen through the eyes of an aged and senile Apollo astronaut. (It’s also a very good depiction of senility).
July 17, 2008 at 9:51 am
TF Smith
They still are.
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/images/launch.gif
And, given a reasonable level of funding and political will, humanity will see someone walk in Gene Cernan’s footsteps within our lifetimes.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/2nd-gen-airbag-test.html
Real interesting history going on as we speak.
July 17, 2008 at 10:00 am
eric
They still are.
Where I grew up you could see the shuttle launches, most times. But the shuttle is, you know, supposed to be a pickup truck, a delivery van, a … shuttle. It lacks glamor. Especially since Feynman.
July 17, 2008 at 10:07 am
Neddy Merrill
They wouldn’t let you wear your hat in space anyway, Eric. I have a sort of soulless preference for unmanned space stuff, so when I hear the word glamor I brace for a moondoggle.
Favorite Billy Bragg rhyme: “I look like Robert DeNiro/I drive a Mitsubishi Zero.”
July 17, 2008 at 10:11 am
eric
unmanned space stuff
I do like the Voyager plaque, which has of course turned up in both Star Trek and Doctor Who, that I can remember.
July 17, 2008 at 10:11 am
TF Smith
I understand your point, Eric, and agree, but still … I see the everyday, workaday presence of humanity off this world, 24/7, 365 days a year, as pretty damn glamorous – from a historical POV, that reality is amazingly significant.
Certainly something new under the sun for H. Sap.
July 17, 2008 at 10:18 am
ari
Not to mention, Eric, that pickups are plenty glamourous, you coastal elite, you.
July 17, 2008 at 10:20 am
JPool
And on the other side there’s the classic:
“I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? / I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care”
July 17, 2008 at 10:21 am
eric
pickups are plenty glamourous
You cheered at the end of Easy Rider, didn’t you?
July 17, 2008 at 10:22 am
eric
the classic
I love that song. Which is better: the Kirsty MacColl single, or the Billy Bragg demo?
July 17, 2008 at 10:23 am
eric
I see the everyday, workaday presence of humanity off this world, 24/7, 365 days a year, as pretty damn glamorous
Fair enough; I tend to see the current space program as basically treading water. But maybe that’s just my disillusionment speaking.
July 17, 2008 at 10:35 am
SomeCallMeTim
You cheered at the end of Easy Rider, didn’t you?
Who didn’t? Gawd, that’s an awful movie, and it just seems to go on and on and on. And I like Peter Fonda.
July 17, 2008 at 10:39 am
eric
Gawd, that’s an awful movie
Actually, I mostly agree there, Tim, but I was making a point.
Obligatorily indefensible gratuitous artistic judgment: The Limey is the best film to have Peter Fonda in it.
July 17, 2008 at 10:42 am
JPool
Personally, I have to go with the demo. Nothing against Kirsty MacColl, but I fell in love with “A New England” on Back to Basics/i>, and the first time I heard him perform it live was during an accoustic tour he did with Robyn Hitchcock.
July 17, 2008 at 10:51 am
JPool
Stupid missing angle bracket.
The Limey is the best film, but Ulee’s Gold is his best performance.
July 17, 2008 at 11:01 am
Neddy Merrill
JPool, you’re contributing to weakness of will: I could see Robyn Hitchcock soon, but I shouldn’t. Dammit.
July 17, 2008 at 11:23 am
TF Smith
Eric –
My professional background includes some time in aerospace, including work on HSF projects; I think one of the issues with public perception of HSF is that the US and USSR/Russia and now the PRC have made it look so effortless.
It is not, of course; sustaining human life in the most hostile environment ever entered by human beings, and such that those same human beings can work and live for months at a time, is incredibly demanding.
To paraphrase another historian who wrote about another incredibly demanding human activity, “Everything in (spaceflight) is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.”
As far as pickups go, I always have liked this one:
“I’ve seen more of this state’s poor cowboys, miners, railroaders and Indians go broke buyin’ pickup trucks. The poor people of this state are dope fiends for pickup trucks. As soon’s they get ten cents ahead they trade in on a new pickup truck. The families, homesteads, schools, hospitals and happiness of Montana have been sold down the river to buy pickup trucks!… And there’s a sickness here worse than alcohol and dope. It is the pickup truck debt! And there’s no cure in sight.”
July 17, 2008 at 4:06 pm
bitchphd
The man and boy in my life feel the same way. What always got me about the space program was the stuff symbolized by that Soviet-American handshake, though: the sense that its real accomplishment was to make us better value the importance of our mutual humanity here on earth.
A couple months ago we went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory open house. It was interesting; I think Mr. B. was disappointed that PK wasn’t more excited about it, but PK (bless him) was absolutely infuriated that the scientists he tried to sell on his idea for a magnetically-driven train kept telling him that it would need to use electricity to power the magnets, because *he* wants the train to be 100% non-polluting (his idea is that the magnets move from negative to positive mechanically, driven by conductors at the stations who turn cranks). It made me really hyperconscious about the enormous environmental impact of this super-high tech stuff….
July 17, 2008 at 4:18 pm
FL
Wait, B, are you saying that maybe progress isn’t out there [gestures toward space] but in here [gestures to heart]?
July 17, 2008 at 4:26 pm
bitchphd
No, I am not saying that, you evil disgusting human being.
July 17, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Vance Maverick
I too thrilled to the moon landing, etc., but don’t think manned spaceflight is a great investment (except when there are domestic propaganda victories to be won). The canned pseudo-argument “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we do X?” strikes me as fundamentally sound. There’s so much to do.
My daughter was watching some space-related show, and I caught sight of one of the familiar Apollo launch clips. The visuals were really spectacular — even the film stock is distinctive and lovely, like those cool restored Melville movies (or 2001).
July 17, 2008 at 4:46 pm
eric
2001 is awesome, have we mentioned?
July 17, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Vance Maverick
Or Deserto Rosso. Probably not what NASA had in mind as a model.
July 17, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Vance Maverick
So much to do.
In sixth grade, thus 1976 or so, I remember a conversation with a similarly geeky classmate, who said he was interested in solar power because solar was like space. (Or, this being Southern California, perhaps it was, like, space.) I felt rather superior at the time, but Ben Sullivan, wherever you are, you were right.
July 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm
andrew
I sort of think of the space program the way the Simpsons portray the general public as thinking of it in the episode with the inanimate carbon rod. I used to like Tang, though.
July 17, 2008 at 5:11 pm
andrew
Perhaps I should add that there has not been a moon landing in my lifetime and I was still not alive for the moment covered in this post.
July 17, 2008 at 5:31 pm
bitchphd
Honestly, if Obama actually makes some substantive progress on climate change and renewable energy, I don’t care what else he does or doesn’t do.
July 17, 2008 at 5:59 pm
eric
I have to go with the demo. Nothing against Kirsty MacColl
The MacColl single contains a great verse that isn’t, if I remember correctly, in the demo:
There’s some version where it’s “When the bastard didn’t ring,” which as Billy Bragg says, is even better. (I think it’s the Too Much Joy cover.)
July 18, 2008 at 3:22 am
ajay
The Apollo program was halted largely because of financial pressures stemming from the Vietnam War – originally it was planned to go all the way to Apollo XX, and, had the 1969 STG recommendations been accepted, much further.
It was also budget pressure from the Vietnam War that led to LBJ’s decision to privatise the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thus laying the foundations for the horrible crisis we’re in at the moment.
July 18, 2008 at 9:29 am
TF Smith
The strategic point of HSF was and remains to ensure all the various technical means that quietly sustain a peaceful multipolar world remain unmolested. This is a very desirable state to be in.
It is also an on-going technological investment, and from the operational side of astronomical and meteorological research and services, there are a lot of tasks that could actually be done much more efficiently by a well-trained individual on the scene – as Jack Schmidt and Steve Sqyres have said repeatedly, field geology is the obvious example, but I’d add systems maintenance and replenishment – than by the most sophisticated remotely-operated vehicle.