The Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight as a Political, Scientific and Technical Detente Project (On Materials from Russian Archives)

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The Détente Era — as political defusing of international tensions in the 1960s and 1970s — represents an interesting period in World History. The study of this era has a special appeal in connection with the experience of positive political, scientific and technical interaction between two superpowers: the USSR and the United States, — an experience that lacks at present days. One of the brightest symbols of the Détente was the joint Soviet-American space experimental program “Apollo-Soyuz Test Project” (ASTP), within the framework of which joint docking of spacecraft in orbital space was carried out. Based on documents from the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History and other published sources, including American ones, the article examines the history of the ASTP program as an important element of cooperation between superpowers in space during the years of detente. Special attention is paid to the factors that led to the beginning of cooperation, as well as the reasons why the docking of Soyuz and Apollo was not followed by projects comparable in scale and brightness. The authors come to two key conclusions. Firstly, the ASTP program, which arose as a purely scientific and technical project arising from the urgent tasks of developing manned space exploration, was inscribed in 1972 into the general agenda of bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington and became a politically significant project for both sides, the value of which was not directly related to its scientific and technical content. Secondly, the history of the ASTP clearly reflected the specifics of bilateral relations in the context of detente — both sides sought cooperation, but at the same time had clear limits of permissible actions and concessions, for which they did not go over.