A Brief History
On July 15, 1975, the United States and the USSR simultaneously launched manned spacecraft, an American Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz capsule, bound for a rendezvous in space, the first ever international space effort.
Digging Deeper
The mission was part of an ongoing diplomatic effort to ease Cold War tensions between the superpowers, with the 3 man Apollo capsule docking with the 2 man Soyuz capsule via an intermediate docking section.
Aside from the feat of a successful space docking between spacecraft from separate nations, the crews performed joint space experiments and their first ever in space international handshake became a sensation.
Space exploration has since become a truly international endeavor, and astronauts from 44 different countries have made space flights, and even private space ventures have begun. The current International Space Station is of course a fine example of international space cooperation.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Froehlich, Walter. Apollo Soyuz. US Government, 1976.
Tan, Sheri. Handshake In Space: The Apollo-Soyuz Mission. Soundprints Corp Audio, 2011.
The featured image in this article, an image courtesy of Heritage Auctions of an Apollo–Soyuz medallion, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
