🔴 The Apollo Soyuz Mission - (1975)

The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) "Experimental flight Apollo-Soyuz", commonly referred to by the Soviets as Soyuz–Apollo), conducted in July 1975, was the first joint U.S.–Soviet space flight, as a symbol of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time. It involved the docking of an Apollo command and service module and the Soviet Soyuz 19 capsule. The unnumbered Apollo vehicle was left over from the cancelled Apollo program and the last Apollo CSM to fly. This mission ceremoniously marked the end of the Space Race that had begun in 1957 with the Sputnik launch.

For those not familiar with the subject, Apollo-Soyuz was a mission involving an United States Apollo spacecraft and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft docking with each other in earth orbit.

This documentry is filled with good footage. The mission was, to a large extent, more symbolic than anything else, but still a major step for later missions ("Mir-Shuttle" comes to mind).

According to Wikipedia, this was the last Apollo flight, as well as the last manned NASA flight until the shuttle was launched in the early 1980's. Actually, they mention the shuttle very briefly towards the end (shame it didn't live up to expectations).

But the footage includes some interest moments, including people around the world watching the mission on their TV sets. A russian cosmonaut jokes that he wants to be a Hollywood star. The leaders of both nations talk to the astronauts/cosmonauts. In one brief scene, we see space food of the time ("WTF?" was my reaction to the toothpaste-like nature of some of the food).

The whole documentry, while certainly sugar-coated and "safe", is of interest to those interested in both the Cold War, and those interested in 1970's manned-space missions.

It has somewhat slow pacing but does have merit.

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