Apollo- Soyuz, as I lived it a half century ago Pt6

 

DEKE FLIES APOLLO

Today it was Leonov and Kubasov’s turn to begin their return to Earth in the Soyuz, and my brother Craig was doing a great job recording their departure while I sat on the dock with my new amazing girlfriend. Undocking took place at 8:33 in the morning Windover Lake time on July 19th and Deke Slayton was finally able to pilot a spacecraft on orbit. 

It was April 2nd, 1959, when Donald K. "Deke" Slayton got the the phone call informing him that he had been selected to be one of the group of seven original U.S. astronauts. 

He had flown 1,431 hours and 63 combat missions in World war II and later countless hours as a test pilot for the Air Force before turning his skills toward a new organization called NASA. According to his book "Deke" he had known all along through the astronaut selection process that he would make the cut. When the announcement was made as to which three of the seven astronauts would fly first, his name was not on the list. He wasn't disappointed because a minor health ailment, other than his heart skipping a beat occasionally, had cropped up. Then later when he was grounded after being scheduled to fly right after John Glenn's mission, Deke's position as head of the astronaut office saw him flying with assorted other astronauts for more than a decade. Yet, he was never allowed to fly a spacecraft. By the way, it was Deke who had pushed to have the term "capsule" changed to "spacecraft" early in the Mercury program. 

Now, on the 19th day of July 1975 he finally got to hand-fly an actual spacecraft, (note: in "Deke" he states that it was Saturday the 21st of July- that Saturday in 1975 was actually the 19th.) Deke had practiced the maneuvers many times in the simulator thus now he backed Apollo off and then eased in to re-dock. Similar to Stafford's problem, the sun's glare was in Deke's eyes making it difficult to get the alignment. Additionally, a slight incorrect nudge in the hand controller and his correction caused a slight bump when contact was made and Soyuz shook a small bit as hard dock was achieved.

Dressed in their full pressure suits, in case something may go wrong and Apollo may crash into their Orbital Module, the two cosmonauts were seated in the Soyuz Reentry Module. Soyuz was a completely passive vehicle. The reason being that Soyuz 19 had a limited command and control capability, limited propellant reserves and very limited sighting alignment along the docking axis. So, her crew were just along for the ride. Apollo, on the other hand, had no such limitations having been designed to not only rendezvous and dock in Earth orbit, but also while on the way to the Moon and while in lunar orbit. It also had the capability to transition down from a high lunar orbit and go the rescue of a disabled lunar module.

Once the second docking had been done the two spacecraft were in range of Soviet ground stations and the crew could make a live broadcast down to the Soviet people. Thus, Leonov and Kubasov made their way back into the OM and did a show demonstrating how they made a meal in space. As soon as they were finished, they closed their hatch and fastened back into their couched in their DM awaiting the final undocking.

At 11:26am Windover lake time, with Deke's hands on the controls the two vehicles smoothly undocked and maneuvered so that the Apollo would blot out the sun and form a man-made eclipse that the Soviet crew photographed. Considering that the U.S. Skylab had just compiled enough imagery of the sun to keep the solar physics community busy for about two decades, this must have been our effort to allow the Soviets to catch up a bit. Otherwise it would have been nothing more than a pointless egghead exercise. Additionally, Deke did a scheduled fly-around Soyuz. Then he burned the Apollo's RCS thrusters to place the spacecraft in a position 1km above and behind Soyuz. Once out of range of ground stations, Stafford called Soyuz and asked how they were doing? Leonov answered that they were resting. Just then the Apollo crew played a cassette tape of girls giggling in the shower that Brand had brought along and told Soyuz that the Apollo crew were working hard. All jokes aside, Deke had done an amazing job of space piloting.

In Mission Control, the flight surgeon's readout showed a steady, flawless heartbeat from Deke Slayton's monitors.