Apollo–Soyuz Test Project made the Soviet Union's policy of détente official in his 1956 doctrine of peaceful coexistence at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the two nations seemed to be in perpetual conflict. Due to tense relations, space cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union was unlikely in the early 1970s. On June 7, 1971, the USSR had launched the first piloted orbital space station, Salyut 1. Meanwhile, the United States had launched the Apollo 14 mission several months prior, the third spacecraft to land humans on the moon. Each side gave the other little
Apollo 11 even if it could not be justified on military, economic or scientific grounds. After consulting with his experts and advisors, he chose such a project. On May 25, 1961, he addressed the United States Congress on "Urgent National Needs" and declared: The effort to land a man on the Moon already had a name: Project Apollo. An early and crucial decision was the adoption of lunar orbit rendezvous, under which a specialized spacecraft would land on the lunar surface. The Apollo spacecraft therefore had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only