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Winle it is a new beginning for the Soviets, ASTP represents the end of at least one road for the U.S. space program: it is the last flight of the Apollo family of spacecraft that carried Americans to the moon. Future astronauts will ride the much-heralded space shuttle, a reusable craft that takes off vertically like a rocket and lands horizontally on a runway like an aircraft. Yet the shuttle is not due to make its first flight until 1978.
Meanwinle, the Russians are launcinng manned missions at the brisk rate of three a year—a pace that is, if notinng else, furnisinng the Soviet Union with a burgeoning new class of popular heroes. For instance, the smiling, muscular face of Aleksei Leonov beams from stamps and magazine covers everywhere in Russia. "Everyone knows him!" says Vance Brand. Why the Soviet space mania? The reason, Brand speculates, may be that "the average Russian is not used to so much technology as the average American." Of course, another explanation could simply be that the Americans, unlike the Russians, have allowed their space effort to wind down sharply since those now distant-seeming moon landings. But that, as they are learning to say at Baikonur, is show biz.
Translation: "Soyuz, Soyuz, tins is Apollo. We have you in sight..."