_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [86]
President Gerald Ford could hardly wait for his chance to talk to the astronauts, especially to Deke Slayton.
“As the world’s oldest space rookie, do you have any advice for young people who hope to fly on future space missions?” the President asked.
“Never give up,” Deke chuckled. “Decide what you want to do and then never give up until you’ve done it.”
Until now, the Russian and American spaceflight had been an Apollo show. It was time to prove cosmonaut skills as well. The two spaceships separated. Aleksei Leonov flew Soyuz 19 through several maneuvers and then, as slick as a greased pig, the master cosmonaut who was the first human to walk in space slid the two ships together for a perfect hard dock.
There remained no question that in a space emergency, either nation could fly to the rescue of the other.
Only a few years before, a joint American-Russian space mission would have been judged unthinkable. Now five persons from both countries gathered 140 miles above the planet and held news conferences with the worldwide media. That was the lasting foundation and the heart of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Earth’s two most powerful military nations, bristling with antagonism and weaponry, met peacefully, in full cooperation.
When it came time for the final separation between Apollo-Soyuz, Deke Slayton got his chance to fly in space. He took the controls of Apollo and with a deft and sure hand, developed first in the European and Pacific campaigns of World War II, he backed Apollo away from Soyuz and began flying dazzling maneuvers around the Soviet ship. They flew together for a short time.
After six days in space, Leonov and Kubasov fired Soyuz’s retro-rockets and began their trip home. Soviet television for the first time showed live coverage of a Russian spaceship parachuting to its touchdown, and the Apollo crew applauded.
Soyuz was home, but Apollo’s trip was not yet done. After all, it was the last Apollo out, and the astronauts wanted to stay in orbit as long as possible.
Predawn the following day, salmon fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska looked through scattered clouds. One star in the night moved. It first appeared above the northwestern horizon, a sharp pinpoint of light that quickly grew in size as it traveled across the top of the world and sped away silently in a long, sinking fall across the curve of the planet over Canada. The bright messenger in the heavens was in fact America’s last Apollo, sweeping toward daybreak.
Deke Slayton braced himself at Apollo’s large viewing port and looked downward, awed by the deep orange glow of dawn directly ahead over Lake Superior, and with his practiced eye, his skill of searching for landmarks from a lifetime of flight, he checked the southern shore of the lake against the sparkling lights of Duluth. Now he followed the Mississippi River winding southward, dawn reflecting off the muddy water. He looked for the confluence of the Mississippi with the Wisconsin River, and when he found it, there was La Crosse, unmistakable with its night lights still glowing in the dawn, and from 140 miles high, the town of Sparta—his hometown—was securely in his sight. Five miles below Sparta, the countryside flowed along hills and valleys that were the most familiar place on Earth to Deke, his family’s farm. One hundred-sixty acres still held the footprints of his boyhood years.
Deke Slayton felt at home in two places at the same time. Down below, a forever place in his memory, and here, home in his immediate physical surrounding—within the interior of the last Apollo he had waited so patiently to fly.
One home was lasting. His home in space was another question. It would be at least four, more realistically six, years before the new Space Shuttle would launch. But despite the uncertainty of the astronauts