space stations

Soyuz
The Soyuz spacecraft was initially designed to carry two cosmonauts at a
time, but was later expanded to accommodate three passengers. It consists
of an Orbital Module, a Descent Module and an Instrumentation/Propulsion
Module.




 The apollo-Soyuz Mission
By the mid-70s, things had changed. The US had won the race to the Moon,
with six Apollo landings between 1969 and 1972. Both nations had launched
space stations, the Russian Salyut and American Skylab. With the Space
Shuttle still a few years off and the diplomatic chill thawing, the time was
right for a joint mission.
The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project would send NASA astronauts Tom Stafford,
Deke Slayton and Vance Brand in an Apollo Command and Service
Module to meet Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Leonov and Valeriy Kubasov
in a Soyuz capsule. A jointly designed, US-built docking module fulfilled the
main technical goal of the mission, demonstrating that two dissimilar craft
could dock in orbit. But the human side of the mission went far beyond that.
On July 17, 1975, the five explorers and the two craft – launched two days
before – approached each other for docking. As Stafford guided the Apollo
forward, Soyuz commander Leonov quipped, “Tom, please don’t forget about
your engine.” With a live TV audience watching, the two craft finally met:
“Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands now.”

 The Apollo Soyuz Test Project Crew Deke Slayton, Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, Alexei
Leonov, Waleri Kubassov.

 A few hours later it was the crew members who were literally shaking
hands, exchanging hugs and ceremonial gifts, including US, Soviet and United
Nations flags, commemorative plaques, medallions, certificates and tree seeds.
The crews received a congratulatory message from Soviet premier Leonid
Brezhnev and a phone call from US President Gerald Ford.
Apollo Commander Stafford had another unique cultural exchange for
the cosmonauts. He’d gotten country music star Conway Twitty to record
‘Privet Radost’, a Russian version of his hit ‘Hello, Darlin’. About an hour
before the two craft undocked, the song was played from orbit and heard
all over the world.
The Apollo crew returned to Earth on July 19, and their Russian counterparts
two days later. It would be two decades until the countries teamed up
again with the Shuttle-Mir program, but the seed was planted. As Brand said,
“I really believe that we were sort of an example … to the countries. We were
a little of a spark or a foot in the door that started better communications.”
  
Salyut

Chelomei and his staff developed a military station for two to three cosmonauts,
with a design life of 1 to 2 years. They designed an integrated system:
a single-launch space station dubbed Almaz (“diamond”) and a Transport
Logistics Spacecraft for reaching it. Chelomei’s three-stage Proton booster
would launch them both.
Almaz was to be equipped with a crew capsule, radar remote-sensing
apparatus for imaging the Earth’s surface, cameras, two re-entry capsules
for returning data to Earth, and an anti-aircraft cannon to defend against
American attack. It would be the world’s first military space station.

 

 model of the Salyut space station

 Skylab
While the Soviets were the first to launch the space station with the Salyut programme,
reclaiming their pride in the field of space, the Americans weren’t far
behind. On May 14, 1973, NASA launched a Saturn V rocket carrying its first
space station, Skylab. This too would be a monolithic station, constructed in its
entirety on the ground before being launched into space. Crew would use the
Apollo spacecraft to board it.

 Skylab