Apollo-Soyuz Lessons
What We Can Learn From a Forty-Year Old Handshake in Space, Ron Garan
“For the first 15 years of my adult life, I trained to fight the Russians as a fighter pilot during the Cold War. On April 4th, 2011, two and a half decades after joining the U.S. Air Force, I stood at the base of a rocket that would take me and my two Russian crewmates, Sasha Samokutyaev and Andrei Borisenko, into space from the same launchpad as Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, fifty years before.”
Related: History Remembered: The 40th Anniversary of the Flight of Apollo-Soyuz
I’ve met and worked with a fair number of people from Russia and China. Leaders may have their devious goals, but for the most part people are the same the world over, and when you work as a team you generally develop mutual respect, and the prospect of killing someone you know personally whether with nuclear or conventional weapons seems insane.
That was the hope of Arthur Clarke, and was why he strongly supported working with the Russians and the Chinese.
In fact remember ‘ping pong’ diplomacy? That was before Mr. Nixon went to China. We learned that Chinese were ordinary. And that they were crazy-good at table tennis 🙂
Sigh. In my part of the world I naturally have many friends from Latin and South America. These relationships authenticate and inform my understanding of immigration.
Similarly the middle east, where I spent some time and where I learned the same thing: the world over all people want is to make a better life for their kids.
People get along just fine. Then the damn politicians get involved.
I coulda sworn they hated us for our freedoms.
I was told so over and over.
Trouble is that most people reading this don’t remember the Apollo Soyuz missions, never heard of them, and don’t believe they happened.