by General Thomas Stafford, who has died aged 93, was not one of the 12 astronauts to walk on the Moon, but in May 1969, as commander of Apollo 10, he played a vital role in a dress rehearsal for the lunar landing which he took. within nine miles (14km) of the lunar surface and cleared the way for Apollo 11 two months later.
He also presided over the first Soviet-American link in space in July 1975, which began the thaw in the 30-year Cold War between the two superpowers. To match the rank of General Alexei Leonov, the colorful cosmonaut who commanded the two-man Soyuz spacecraft with which Stafford achieved the Apollo feat, Stafford was made a brigadier general (one star), the first astronaut to achieve such a feat. . high class
The two commanders swam towards each other in the docking tunnel between Apollo and Soyuz, ending in an awkward bear hug, and shaking hands – the first international handshake in space. Leonov said, in English: “Very nice to see you!” Stafford expressed the same sentiment in Russian, but in such a broad Oklahoma dialect that Leonov later said that three languages were spoken on the mission: Russian, English and “Oklahomski”.
NASA had calculated that the symbolic handshake would take place over Bognor Regis, but due to delays it took place over the French city of Metz instead.
Three years of planning, as well as the flight itself, were full of jealousy and political rivalry, and it was the warm personal friendship that developed between the two commanders that saved it. As it was, during the three days when the two craft were docked or maneuvering at a height of 125 miles (200km) above the Earth, the American Apollo provided the world with wonderful pictures of Soyuz, but the Russians provided none of Apollo, because,. they said, to camera problems.
As a result the Soviets were under the impression that the Russians were in control, but the much more versatile Apollo spacecraft, with its larger fuel reserves, did the docking and most of the maneuvering. Mutual respect between astronauts and cosmetics gradually overcame national differences, however, and 30 years later the US-led international space station could not survive without Russian support.
Thomas Patten Stafford was born on September 17, 1930 in Weatherford, Oklahoma, and graduated with honors from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1952 with doctorates in law, science and humane letters. He was commissioned into the US Air Force and in 1955 was assigned to Hahn Air Base, Germany, where he flew F86 fighters and co-authored flight test manuals for pilots.
He was selected for NASA’s second group of prospective astronauts in 1962 and flew the first two of his four space flights during the series of 10 Gemini missions – a two-man spacecraft in which he played a pioneering role in learning orbit rendering techniques for vehicles enable. dock in space.
Unlike those on the previous one-man Mercury flights, the Gemini astronauts had computers that enabled them to control and maneuver independently of ground control. Because backup commander Stafford had to take the second of these flights, Gemini 9, when the main crew was killed in an air crash.
Another Stafford crew member, Gene Cernan, made history with a two-hour spacewalk, and the new controls enabled the pair to splash down just over half a mile (or less than a kilometer) from the recovery ship. Stafford then led mission planning and software development for Project Apollo, and played a leading role in organizing the series of missions that made the final lunar landings possible.
Commanding Apollo 10 during the final maneuver, Stafford launched from Apollo and, together with Cernan, flew the lunar module almost to the surface of the Moon, returning eight hours later to the first docking to orbit the moon with the parent spacecraft. They were not spared to land, as they did not have enough fuel to take off again. When they returned, with John Young piloting Apollo, the spacecraft reached 24,791 miles per hour, the highest speed achieved by Man.
After landing on the Moon Stafford was appointed as the head of the astronauts, responsible for the training and selection of the flight crew. In this capacity he played a major role in plans for joint Soviet-US flight.
This was part of an agreement on the peaceful exploration of outer space made by President Nixon and Soviet prime minister Alexei Kosygin in May 1972. It suited the two superpowers, bridging the gap between the end of the Moon race and the next developments in space exploration. .
The two crews were selected and announced two years before the 1975 flight date, the first time Russia named cosmonauts before they flew. Both countries picked veterans, since diplomacy was needed as well as experience: Tom Stafford for the US with Deke Slayton, the only one of the original seven astronauts who had never flown, and Vance Brand, with years of experience backup. General Leonov, who made the world’s first spacewalk and established his own power base in Russia, was named in charge of Soyuz, supported by Valeri Kubasov.
For the Americans, the first shock was that they would not dock as expected with the Salyut space station, but directly with the Soyuz spacecraft, with much less opportunity to penetrate Soviet space secrets. Many thought the docking would never happen, especially when Tom Stafford told the Russians that the mission had to be cancelled, after they blocked his requests to go to Baikonur in Kazakhstan to inspect the Soyuz.
That alarmed his NASA bosses, as 4,000 jobs depended on the mission. But the Soviets also needed him to go forward, and the next day Leonov threw an arm around Stafford and said: “What’s the problem? Of course you can go to Baikonur.”
Then the Soviets produced their first ever press kit – at 204 pages long, it was twice the size of NASA – and began a simultaneous countdown of spacecraft 10,000 miles (16,000km) apart. Despite the concern when Deke Slayton told a news conference that the Soviets had a “lousy political system” and wanted no part of it, the two-day dock eventually took place.
It was not without some confusion, however, with Leonov chiding Soviet Mission Control for their impatience, telling them: “We are preparing to receive our guests.” President Ford spoke to all five astronauts, but Brezhnev’s congratulations had to be read by a Soviet television newscaster.
Leonov, a talented artist, made light of the political bickerings by drawing and showing to the cameras his caricatures of the American astronauts – including one of the bald Stafford as if he had a full head of hair – and played a major role the friendship they formed. in the subsequent gradual thaw in East-West relations.
For NASA, however, the celebration at the end of a successful mission was marred by disaster during reentry when the exhausted American astronauts failed to operate several switches properly, causing poisonous gases to be drawn into the spacecraft. All three suffered blistered lungs and were hospitalized in Honolulu for two weeks.
When he left NASA in 1975, Stafford began a new and varied career, assuming command of the USAF Flight Test Center at Edwards, California, with the rank of major general. Three years later he was promoted to lieutenant general, and sent to USAF headquarters, Washington, DC, as deputy chief of staff, research and development.
There he began work on the F117A stealth fighter and the technology that led to the revolutionary B2 stealth bomber, and was a defense adviser to President Reagan. By 1990 he was chairman of a committee advising on how to achieve President George HW Bush’s vision of a return to the Moon and subsequent exploration of Mars – a so-called “road map” for the next 30 years US manned space flight program. .
When that work was completed, under the Clinton Administration in 1994, Stafford co-founded a technical consulting firm and became a director of six corporations, including the world’s largest hard drive maker. He also served on various NASA boards, advising on problems ranging from the Hubble space telescope to those related to the space shuttle and the international space station.
Thomas Stafford received many honors, and in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma, the airport was named after him.
With his first wife, the former Shoemaker Faye L, Stafford had two daughters. He later married Linda Ann Dishman of Oklahoma, with whom he had two sons.
Thomas Stafford, born 17 September 1930, died 18 March 2024
