Apollo-Soyuz: The Handshake that Ended the Space Race

The 1975 American/Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) was the first crewed international space mission and brought to the conclusion the Space Race, the competition for space superiority that kicked off in late 1957 with the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite. A symbol of cooperation and detente during the Cold War, ASTP was a docking of an American Apollo spacecraft with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. This laid the groundwork for large-scale joint programs like Shuttle-Mir and the International Space Station. Crew training procedures and docking technology developed during ASTP are still used today.