alternatehistory.com

October 1977

Bean, Evans and Lousma eyed the incoming Soyuz.

"The reds are coming" Lousma said.

"Houston, this is Mankind, hum, the Soviets have jettisoned their Soyuz, hijacked our ship and are now asking for political asylum. Waiting your instructions." Alan Bean laughed loud. "Imagine their faces in Mission Control."

The hatch opened. Anotoli Filipchenko head appeared; as he warmly shaked hand of the soviet commander, Evans had a brief glance within Soyuz 22 cramped orbital module. Early on there had been talks about repeating Apollo-Soyuz, or to bring Salyut back into the bargaining. When both proved impossible, and with Big Gemini maturing quite well, the Soyuz-Helios solution become a natural winner.

So a large pressurised module had been handpicked on McDonnell Douglas production line, and half of it outfitted as a makeshift American laboratory of obvious Skylab and Enterprise heritage. There was a strong European participation, notably from Germany – it was a consolation prize after the sortie lab had been withdrawn in favor of the Agena Space Tug.

Then the Helios cargo module had been shiped to the Soviet Union; at a plant near Moscow the module had been given a Salyut treatment, and then, once ready, it had been shipped back to the United States and mated to both the crew module and to the Titan that would carry the whole thing into orbit.

By contrast with that messy, two years process the docking and crew entry had been a rather straightforward affair. It had been much simple than the previous joint flight, since, rather ironically, the American side had now an atmosphere similar to the Soyuz. Or Salyut, by the way. What a mission that would have been - had Helios docked to a soviet space station. But NASA had missed again a rendezvous with the Soviet station.

The Soviets had given the same reasons they had given five years earlier. That Salyut was still not ready was hard to believe. Whatever the reasons, Big Gemini had been more than a backup to the lost station: the pressurised module by itself was nearly as big as a Salyut. The cargo section had been outfitted as a so-called International Space Platform, and filled with Skylab and Salyut experiments. Over the course of the mission, 72 scientific experiments were carried out, spanning the fields of atmospheric and plasma physics, astronomy, solar physics, material sciences, technology, astrobiology and Earth observations. The mission would be twice as long as the first shot, and the crews even exchanged positions within their respective cockpits - although only in orbit, of course. The time had not come yet for a true crew exchange, where astronauts would come down in Kazakhstan and cosmonauts at the Cape. The defection of Viktor Belenko to Japan aboard its MiG-25 had evidently made both sides nervous.

Nikolai Rukavishnikov joined the party. The atmosphere was cordial, the five men shared their meals: tubes of bortsch filled with bortsch, tubes of bortsch labelled vodka which contained bortsch, and, unknown to the ground, tubes of bortsch that contained vodka - unlike Apollo-Soyuz, this time the vodka was for real.

The next day the ground awoke them with the Beach Boys hit Wouldn't it be nice and, as result, all day long Bean couldn't got the damn song out of his head.

They posed for a memorable photo. Bean sat ackwardly in the Soyuz cockpit, running into the walls every time he moved a finger. He couldn't believe the Soviet didn't have, somewhere, a roomier and more advanced ship. There was not much room for cargo, for food and clothes and water and other goodies that made a station a liveable place. Whether or not the Soviets were developing an Agena or a Big Gemini remained an unsolved mystery. Even Soyuz toilet didn't stood a chance against Helios bathroom, a welcome change from those horrible bags they used in Apollo... well worth seven years in bathroom hell, Bean though. During his lunar flight, he had prefered a massive dose of imodium, so huge he had not shit for the whole trip. Now he happily noticed how the Soviet crew settled for the American toilet rather than their own Soyuz gear. Shitting in the same orbital poo-hole; long live detente. He smiled.

Down on planet Earth Glushko monitored the mission progress. He had not realized it before, but it actually was a boost for his own plans. Big Gemini had made the Soyuz look pathetic, and that would help the TKS, which by pure coincidence was very similar to the American manned ship.