July 15: A handshake in orbit
On July 15, 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project launched, the first joint US-Soviet space mission. Tonight's film: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
On the morning of July 15, 1975, a Soyuz 19 lifted off from Baikonur, out on the Kazakh steppe, carrying Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov. Seven and a half hours later an Apollo followed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, crewed by Thomas Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand. Two days after that, on July 17, 222 kilometers above the Earth, the two craft docked. Stafford opened the hatch and shook Leonov’s hand.
