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 Lunar Module Apollo Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module, or simply lunar module (LM, pronounced "Lem"), originally designated the lunar excursion module (LEM), was the spacecraft which was flown to and landed on the Moon. The lander spacecraft were built for the US Apollo program by Grumman Aircraft. The lunar module, consisting of a descent stage and an ascent stage, was ferried from the Earth to the Moon attached to the Apollo spacecraft command and service module (CSM), approximately twice its mass. The ascent stage carried a crew of two who flew the spacecraft from lunar orbit to the surface and later