Made prior to the Apollo-Soyuz flight, this film “Apollo Soyuz” describes the mission and features footage from both Russian and USA sides of the mission. It was narrated by Yul Brynner and Paul Picerni, produced by David Gerber, and written and directed by Byron Morgan. This mission was conducted in July 1975 and was the first joint U.S.–Soviet space flight, and the last flight of an Apollo spacecraft. Its primary purpose was as a symbol of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time, and marked the end of the Space Race between them that began in 1957.
Some of the interesting footage in this film includes shots of historical Soviet missions from Sputnik (2:21), Laika (3:13), and more. At 3:21, the U.S. Vanguard rocket explodes on the launch pad. At 4:00, NASA is created from NACA. At 4:34 another American rocket (appears to be a Titan) explodes during launch, followed by another failure to launch. At 4:57, the Soviet space lab Sputnik III is shown and rare footage of Lunik I. At 5:32 Soviet ground stations are seen. At 5:46 the 1962 launch of a USA Venus probe is shown. At 6:06 the launch of the X-15 research aircraft is shown from the B-52 “Balls Eight”. At 6:53, the historic Soviet launch of Yuri Gagarin is shown. At 7:30 the Mercury astronauts are introduced. At 7:43 Alan Shepard’s historic mission is shown. At 8:00 John F. Kennedy salutes Shepard at the White House. At 8:34 JFK makes his famous speech at Rice about the space race: we mean to lead it. At 9:00 Titov is shown in space. At 9:16 John Glenn’s historic mission is shown. At 10:11 photographs from weather satellites are exchanged and analyzed. At 10:33, the last of the Mercury mission astronaut missions are shown. At 10:54, Nikolaev and Vostok III , IV, V and VI are shown. At 11:10 newspapers celebrate Valentina Terechkova’s flight. At 11:43 early footage from Ranger is shown of the Moon. At 12:10 Komarov is shown and Alexei Leonov with his first spacewalk, followed by White’s spacewalk. At 12:59 the memorial for the Apollo I crew is shown. At 13:54 models of various moon probes including Luna 9 are shown. At 15:00 the Apollo program is shown, with American astronauts on the Moon. At 16:20 the Apollo Soyuz mission is introduced as an Aeroflot airplane arrives in the USA with Soviet Cosmonauts preparing for the joint mission. The delegation visits Washington, D.C. and meets with President Gerald Ford. A reciprocal meeting is shown in Moscow. Preparations for the mission are shown in depth. At 24:20 the astronauts and cosmonauts visit Walt Disney World in Florida where they fraternize with Donald Duck, Pluto and Mickey Mouse.
For the U.S., the Commander was Thomas P. Stafford, Command Module Pilot Vance D. Brand, Docking Module Pilot Donald K. “Deke” Slayton. For the Soviets, Commander Alexei Leonov
Second and Flight Engineer Valeri Kubasov.
The Apollo Soyuz mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments (including an engineered eclipse of the Sun by Apollo to allow Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona), and provided useful engineering experience for future joint US–Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir Program and the International Space Station.
ASTP was the last manned US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981. It was also U.S. astronaut Donald “Deke” Slayton’s only space flight. He was chosen as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in April 1959, but had been grounded until 1972 for medical reasons.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
