Around 15 - 24 July 1975, the historical space race finally ended. The Soviet Union and the United States, rivals in the achievement of a range of goals in the bid to put men and women into space, came together in a historical joint mission. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was a mission to unite the rival agencies by launching two separate crewed capsules, from Russia and then from the US, to join in orbit and dock, by means of a special adaptor airlock. For the first time ever, astronauts and cosmonauts met in space in what became a temporary station in orbit.
The American crew included Deke Slayton, who had originally been chosen as one of the first Mercury Seven astronauts, but had never made the mission. On the Soviet side, was Alexei Leonor, the first man to complete a spacewalk in the early Voskhod 2 flight in 1965. This would be the last Apollo mission and the final capsule based launch for NASA, as it moved onto the Space Shuttle six years later. The Soyuz vehicle is still in use today, to ferry cosmonauts to the International Space Station.
As I write, the latest uncrewed US mission to return to the moon, Artemis, waits on the launch pad, following an aborted launch some days previous. Part of the bid to return to the moon by 2025 and create a gateway to Mars, the Artemis will launch the Orion capsule into lunar orbit before returning to Earth. Launch is rescheduled at this point for September 3. While anticipating the return to the moon, I came across a number of books for my collection, most notably being a small paperback commemorative volume about the Apollo Soyuz mission.
A difficult item to photograph, due to its age and stiff binding, the little book is original 1975 printing and includes lots of interesting photographs and illustrations,
As befits such a historic mission, there was lots of press coverage and mementoes produced across the world to mark the occasion, such as postage stamps and cigarette cards such as these shown here,
Space postage stamps from all over the world are always an interesting and varied source of detailed paintings, drawings and graphics depicting various events on a small scale.
