The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, 1972-1975

In the summer of 1972, President Nixon and Soviet Premier Kosygin signed the Summit Agreement Concerning Cooperation in Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes, in which, among other fields, they agreed to engage in a joint training exercise and experimental docking of their spacecraft: the Soyuz and Apollo cap­sules.51 This, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), for a few years functioned as what Administrator Fletcher described as a “major visible space accomplish­ment,” the likes of earlier Apollo missions and Skylab, or the upcoming Viking and Shuttle projects.52

With their administration a mere 14 years old, NASA staff had the foresight to consider documenting the history of ASTP even as Nixon and Kosygin were still in summit.53 In April 1974, Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell went to work. Stalking the halls of joint meetings, sharing coffee with NASA staff, and chatting over photocopiers, the two wove personal interviews, “desk archives,” technical data, and a flood of NASA’s internal correspondence into a rich account of ASTP. With this monograph, Ezell and Ezell explain the opera­tion of the joint working groups and the day-to-day engineering, the reflections of NASA and Russian engineers, as well as the activities of astronauts and cos­monauts in space.54 They illustrated the complexity not only of executing the project, but explaining its programmatic justifications.

In the summer of 1973 the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Olin Teague, contacted NASA administrator James Fletcher regarding Apollo-Soyuz. Teague, well aware of NASA’s difficulty in getting sus­tained support from their Soviet partners, wondered if it might be possible to add more scientific experiments to the payload, “making a justifiable, independent, scientific and technological contribution,” even without the Soviet Academy of Sciences.55 Recognizing that the Apollo-Soyuz mission was impossible without a Soyuz and its docking module, Teague went on in subsequent letters to explain that the “American public” must be well served by a productive US-only mission in the event of a Soviet pull-out. Teague offered his advice: “I believe that many of the alternate experiments identified by NASA are of sufficient importance to fully utilize the payload capacity of the vehicle.” If not more science, Teague determined that an additional trip to Skylab, “would also seem prudent.”56

With a budget of $10 million for experiments, and limits on both weight and volume, Fletcher agreed that the existing Apollo payloads may not fully justify a US-only flight. With an eye on the already tight budget, NASA was investigat­ing “several possibilities” for increasing payload weight and volume.57 Fletcher anticipated that his staff would complete the study in June and offered to brief Teague then.

Fletcher’s notes indicate that this correspondence resulted in an October 2, 1973, Congressional hearing. Within two weeks, Teague wrote Fletcher, stating that the hearing had been “most productive,” but reiterated concerns that NASA might do more to assure that alternative experiments or a visit to Skylab be used to justify the expense if the Soviets backed out.58 Over the coming months, the two, with occasional interjections from (intended) Command Module pilot Jack Swigert discussed the possibility of adding a number of elements to the mis­sion.59 They considered earth observation experiments (in the fields of geology, hydrology, oceanography, weather, global tectonics, and atmospheric sciences) and even the possibility of including another camera, intended to help petro­leum geologists who were at that time dealing with the oil crisis.60

Ezell and Ezell indicate that “George Low looked at the entire project from a political perspective” and, therefore, considered that a mission without Soviet participation was not practicable. However in the fall of 1973, Low explained that the $10 million budgeted for experiments was already enough to justify launch. In the October 2 testimony, Low had stated, “That is how the $10 mil­lion were arrived at. You asked the question, what would we do if the Russians for some reason were unable to fly with us, political, technical, or otherwise, and would the mission in itself with the $10 million worth of experiments. . . be worth flying.” Low responded with candor, saying that that depended on how early NASA might be notified of a Soviet cancellation and more important, how much of the full $250-million budget had been spent.61

Furthermore, Low reasoned that if the Soviets and/or the American public heard too much of alternative missions without the Soviets they might begin to question the viability of the scheme altogether. “I think,” Low stated, “that would be something that could be very easily misunderstood from the point of view of the other side if you started to plan what you are going to do if this mission doesn’t happen.”62 In a booklet titled “Notes for Meeting Congressmen Teague and Dr. Fletcher,” NASA staff explained (presumably to Teague) that ASTP was unlike previous Apollo missions that were based more upon scientific payloads. Contrasting Apollo 15 and ASTP, the booklet states,

ASTP is primarily devoted to proving out the docking system. ASTP is carrying a good complement of scientific experiments but of more significance, I believe, ASTP is conducting experiments in space that could be the precursor of derivative applica­tions in future manned spaceflight. Consequently, although the ASTP experiment payload is not exclusively devoted to science. . . it is a good viable package that has a potential of increasing the value of the use of space.63

Returning to Ezell and Ezell, “None of the alternatives seemed as desirable as the basic idea of a joint mission. . . It was a gamble, but the risk seemed to be a reasonable one.”64

And it was a gamble. The Soviet partners tended to operate “shrouded in mys­tery,” in Ezell and Ezell’s own words. Paperwork moved slowly, but Fletcher, like Low, remained optimistic. A Senate Briefing Book dating from 1973 contrasted Soviet performance in the space sciences with ASTP, human spaceflight versus robotic, stating that Soviet performance had improved. Indeed, past experiences in the sciences did “not match the positive, businesslike approach Soviets have taken to ASTP nor the detailed information exchange in ASTP.”65 When rep­resentatives of the American press contacted Fletcher, disputing their exclusion from Soviet centers, Fletcher responded, pointing out that with the exception of “independent activities,” the US press was welcomed to all ASTP proceedings. Additionally, news coverage of ASTP was by far the most liberal access ever to the Soviet space program. Never before had the Soviet public viewed such activi­ties live. Fletcher added that this openness had been extended to the American news media as the “most comprehensive release ever” of real-time information related to a Soviet space mission.”66

By the same token, historian Asif Sidiqi notes that with ASTP (or as it was called in the USSR, the Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight) an increasing number of key space complex officials became public figures. These disclosures, however, came alongside the standard fare of propaganda. Stakes were higher in the 1970s for the Soviets. In the public sphere, criticism mounted and due to a significant decline in the communist economy, citizens were less likely to be “vocally in favor” of the space program.67