U.S. ambassador Tefft stresses importance of intl space cooperation
MOSCOW. July 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The Soviet-U.S. Soyuz-Apollo experiment, the 40th anniversary of which is marked on Wednesday, was of tremendous importance for international space cooperation, U.S. ambassador to Russia John Tefft has said.
The Apollo-Soyuz project was an irreplaceable, invaluable predecessor of the Mir-Shuttle program and the International Space Station (ISS) that is now flying, said Tefft who attended events marking the 40th anniversary of the space project in Moscow.
He reminded his listeners that U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko are onboard the ISS now and will work in space together for a year.
Next week another international expedition will be launched with an American, a Russian and Japanese aboard, Tefft noted. This is a tremendous achievement of cooperating in space, he said.
The ambassador called the Apollo-Soyuz experiment a wonderful first landmark in the history of cosmonautics. He said that in its course complex technical tasks had to be tackled for the docking of two spaceships, Apollo and Soyuz, that had absolutely different atmospheres aboard.
The ambassador reminded listeners that after docking the crews spent 46 hours in a joint flight. It was not only a great technical victory of engineers and all specialists on Earth, it was also a great achievement of all the five crewmembers, he said whilst addressing participants in the Apollo-Soyuz experiment - Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and U.S. astronaut Thomas Stafford.
The ambassador praised as staggering the friendship that connected Leonov and Stafford for all the years that followed.
