Be that as it may, the world was not at all going to endlessly take the Americans' word that they have success in conquering space.
Already in the 70s of the twentieth century, a situation developed when the world needed to present at least one real proof of the effectiveness of the American space program. Since the Americans themselves do not have any objective evidence that they have been on the Moon and that they have at least some success in space exploration, it means a "receipt" that the Americans really achieved everything they say should " write "one who has real success in space exploration, ie. THE USSR. This is how the idea of a joint US-USSR space flight was born. And here's a coincidence - in April the Americans finally transfer the lunar soil to the USSR, and already in the next month, on May 24, 1972, a joint space flight program was approved by the Agreement between the USSR and the US on cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes " Soyuz-Apollo ". Anyone who is even a little familiar with how agreements are concluded between business entities know that any agreement is preceded by preliminary work, during which the terms of this agreement are developed and agreed upon. And the larger the agreement, the greater the amount of preliminary work, which means the longer the preparatory period. And in this case, this is not just an agreement between economic entities - here an agreement between two ideological opponents. Those. there were a great many issues that required agreement. Moreover, technical issues in this aspect were not the most important. If, of course, the USSR and the US were really ideological opponents. Thus, the agreement on a joint flight was worked out long before the date of its conclusion, against the background of the fact thatthat the Americans were clearly pulling rubber with the transfer of lunar soil. It should be noted that the USSR at any moment could prove the American lie that they were on the moon. In this case, it would not even be necessary to send astronauts to the Moon ourselves, it was just necessary to send the Lunokhod to the place on the Moon where the Americans allegedly visited. Apparently, Soviet scientists have already tried to do this during the launch of Lunokhod-2, which landed only 170 km from the Apollo 17 landing site, which by space standards is almost a direct hit. Soviet scientists have already tried to do this during the launch of Lunokhod-2, which landed just 170 km from the Apollo 17 landing site, which by space standards is almost a direct hit. Soviet scientists have already tried to do this during the launch of Lunokhod-2, which landed just 170 km from the Apollo 17 landing site, which by space standards is almost a direct hit.
And here is the diagram of the route along which Lunokhod 2 was moving.
It turns out that Lunokhod 2 headed to the landing site of Apollo 17, rested on the hills and turned east, after which it got up due to malfunctions: Lunokhod 2 got inside the lunar crater, where the ground turned out to be very loose, the lunar rover took a long time skidded until it backed up to the surface. At the same time, the thrown back cover with a solar battery apparently scooped up some of the soil surrounding the crater. Subsequently, when the lid was closed at night to preserve heat, this soil hit the upper surface of the lunar rover and became a heat insulator, which during a lunar day led to overheating of the equipment and its failure. In this story with the hit of Lunokhod 2 in the lunar crater and the subsequent failure, there is a lot of incomprehensible things, some even see a spy trace in this.
Be that as it may, but the launch of "Lunokhod 3" to the moon could fully answer all questions related to the stay of the Americans on the moon. There is every reason to think so, since Lunokhod 3 was not only technically more advanced than its predecessor, but could be landed on the moon even closer to the landing site of the American lunar expedition - after all, even by landing on the moon Lunokhod-2, Soviet specialists on in fact, they proved that they can do it.
But the Soviet political leadership came to the aid of the Americans, which banned the launch of Lunokhod-3 because they did not allocate a single rocket for such trifles as debunking their ideological enemy.
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What is a joint flight? In technical terms, this is, first of all, the exchange of technologies. Mixed Soviet-American working groups were created to jointly work out technical solutions. Soviet and American scientists and designers were faced with the need to solve a whole range of problems related to ensuring the compatibility of means of mutual search and rendezvous of spaceships, their docking assemblies, life support systems and equipment for mutual transition from one spacecraft to another, communications and flight control, organizational and methodological compatibility.
The scale of the tasks facing the developers was truly cosmic. And this was primarily due to the dense technical backwardness of the Americans. Suffice it to say that the life support systems of the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft were incompatible, primarily because of the difference in the atmosphere. in Apollo, people breathed pure oxygen under reduced pressure (≈0.35 atmospheric), while breathing pure oxygen for a long time is extremely harmful to the human body. On the other hand, the Soyuz maintained an atmosphere similar to that of the Earth in composition and pressure. Air circulation and air conditioning systems were built on different principles. Communication between the atmospheres of the ships would lead to a breakdown in the automatic control of these systems. For these reasons, the direct transfer from ship to ship was impossible. Simple airlock could not be used due to decompression sickness during the transfer from Soyuz to Apollo. A transition module is needed. Etc. etc.
It should be noted that the androgynous-peripheral docking station APAS-75, which was developed and produced in the USSR, was installed on the Apollo and participates in the docking. But at this time, the Americans allegedly already had a more perfect docking station, which proved its perfection during flights under the American lunar program.
The fact that the transient module was launched together with the Apollo and the Soviet docking station was used directly indicates that technologies were transferred from the USSR to the US, and not vice versa. Since the US was responsible for the technical implementation of the combination of space technologies. And the Americans really needed new technologies, because if they had not received them, the American space industry would have "bent" already in the mid 70s of the twentieth century. To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at this scheme, which is widely known in the world in different variations of execution (paintings, photographs).
Apollo - left, Soyuz-19 - on right.
This section of the spacecraft Soyuz-19 and Apollo. This section clearly shows that the main volume of the American spacecraft is occupied by propulsion engines, engines of maneuvering systems, and a life support system.
The presence of a propulsion engine on the spacecraft itself, i.e. the combination of the spacecraft with the booster stage of the launch vehicle indicates the low power of the American rocket engines, which required a reduction in the weight of the payload intended for launch into space. This was done in two ways: by reducing the functionality of the manned space module and by combining some of the nodes of the space module and the booster stage of the launch vehicle. That is why the Apollo astronauts are left with only a small space in which there are three chairs.
The Soviet spacecraft, on the other hand, consists mostly of living space. That is why during the joint expedition the cosmonauts and astronauts lived in a Soviet ship.
By the way, there were other reasons for the American astronauts staying in the Soviet spacecraft. The fact is that the short duration of American space flights was due to a number of reasons, among which not the least was the provision of the physiological needs of the human body. Namely, we are talking about the fact that before the Americans received full access to Russian space technologies after the collapse of the USSR and began to fly on a regular basis to the Russian space station Mir, they did not have such a necessary thing as a toilet bowl. The duration of the space flight of American astronauts was largely determined by the capacity of their pants. Therefore, skin diseases of American astronauts were common in those days. Diapers used by mothers to ensure the comfort of their newborn babiesare of space origin - they were designed to increase the length of stay of American astronauts on a spacecraft.
Be that as it may, but in 1975 (July 17 - July 19) the first international space flight took place - "Soyuz-19" Alexey Leonov and Valery Kubasov, both of the 2nd flight and "Apollo" astronauts Thomas Stafford - commander, 4 1st flight, Vance Brand - command module pilot, 1st flight, Donald Slayton - docking module pilot, 1st flight.