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 20 hoax The hoaxer apparently used these photos to create the image of a pock-marked alien spacecraft on the moon. The NASA photos are real. However, NASA never claimed they include images of alien spacecraft. The object in question is apparently nothing more than a natural part of the lunar terrain. Apollo 16 photos of the same crater taken a year later show no evidence of artificial structures. In truth, Apollo 20 was a mission that never got off the ground—literally. It was one of three lunar missions NASA cancelled due to lack of funding along with Apollo missions 18 and 19.