Apollo-Soyuz 50th Anniversary: A Handshake in Orbit That Transformed the Space Race

Some 140 miles above France, American astronauts opened a spacecraft hatch and found themselves face to face with cosmonauts from the Soviet Union.“Glad to see you,” Col. Alexei Leonov spoke in accented English to Brig. Gen. Thomas Stafford of NASA.“Ah, hello, very glad to see you,” General Stafford responded in his own accented Russian.The two men then shook hands.Today, Russian and American astronauts routinely share rides to the International Space Station, no matter the geopolitical conflict that divides their nations. But in the summer of 1975, seeing two men from rival nations greet each other in orbit across a bridge between their docked spacecraft was a powerful and unprecedented gesture witnessed by millions on the world spinning below.The handshake, which occurred 50 years ago this July 17, defined the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first international human spaceflight. That simple symbol of partnership between bitter competitors remains an enduring legacy of the mission.“It’s amazing to think that two diametrically opposed countries with different systems and cultures, essentially ready to destroy each other, can somehow cooperate and do this highly technical, complicated mission,” said Asif Siddiqi, a professor of history at Fordham University and an expert on Russian space history.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.