Word: staffords
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...approach to the beetle-shaped Soviet Soyuz, whose features appeared so clearly on TV screens that sunlight could be seen glinting off its winglike solar panels. Then came the slight bump as the two ships, now somewhere over the North Atlantic, made contact. "We have succeeded!" Apollo Commander Tom Stafford exulted in awkward Russian. Replying in English, Soyuz's skipper Aleksei Leonov exclaimed, "Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands. Good show...
Smiling Faces. Drifting freely inside the cylindrical-shaped docking module linking the two spacecraft, Stafford and his crewmate Donald K. ("Deke") Slayton went through an elaborate checklist as they prepared to open the safelike docking door separating them from the Soyuz crewmen. At times the mission controllers in Houston had to remind the astronauts not to obstruct the view of the cameras ("Could you move to the left or right, please...
Finally, Slayton tugged on a large handle-like latch, and the door swung open, exposing the smiling faces of the two waiting Russians. Stafford called out ebulliently, "Tovarich [friend]!" Leonov's reply: "Very, very happy to see you. How are things...
...Texas barbecues or rubbernecking at Florida's Disney World. All former military pilots (see box page 55), they soon became such good friends that they could kid one another about their language problems. The Soviets liked to joke that the mission had three official languages: Russian, English and Stafford's Oklahoma twang...
THOMAS P. STAFFORD, 44, Apollo's Annapolis-trained commander, is an Air Force brigadier general, a coolly gifted pilot and co-author of two basic manuals on test flying. Stafford has logged 290 hr. 15 min. in space, dating back to ins first Gemini flight in 1965 with Wally Scinrra. In orbit, Math Winz Stafford liked to amuse inmself by using pad and pencil to race mission control's computers in solving maneuvering problems; sometimes he won. Stafford was born in Weatherford, Okla., and he and ins wife Faye have two daughters. Though often nettled by Soviet secrecy...