" APOLLO-SOYUZ TEST PROJECT " NASA SPACE PROGRAM COLD WAR ERA PUBLICITY FILM 71942

Video from the channel PeriscopeFilm about Apollo–Soyuz, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 14:45. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.

NASA informational film, part of its special reports on aeronautics and space, presenting the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) before the flight. It features cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the Soviet commander, and astronauts Deke Slayton, docking module pilot, Vance Brand, command module pilot, and Thomas Stafford, the American commander. Slayton explains the docking module, the mission's only newly built piece of hardware: an airlock with a docking mechanism at one end, needed because Apollo used pure oxygen at about five pounds of pressure while Soyuz used air at atmospheric pressure. To avoid lengthy pre-breathing, the Soviets would lower their spacecraft's pressure to ten pounds.

It was filmed during preparations, in the project's third year, with launch planned for July 15 of the following year. It includes scenes of joint training in the United States and in Star City, language study, the work of controllers and interpreters, and the crews' free time.

Brand summarizes the plan: Soyuz would launch from Baikonur, and Apollo, seven and a half hours later, from Cape Kennedy; after about two days of pursuit, the spacecraft would remain docked for two days with four crew transfers. The Soviets would fly for six days and the Americans for nine, splashing down near Hawaii. Around 27 experiments were planned, ranging from stratospheric aerosols to crystal growth and the study of interstellar gas in the extreme ultraviolet. For the main commands, each crew would speak the other's language.