ASTP Crew Defection

What if, for whatever reason, one or both members of the Soviet crew during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975 decided to defect to the United States? This would be done during the actual mission in space (to make a bold public statement) while the Soviet crew was visiting the Apollo spacecraft (which would be considered U.S. territory, right?)

How could this be done, i.e. would the Soyuz be able to land somewhere in the United States or other allied nation? What are the short and long term political consequences?
 
Well there is the problem of the whole other member. Might get violent considering they would have both been ex military and probably know some hand to hand. Probably not for space though.

Probably depends on who is holding the tradition soviet space gun.
 
What if, for whatever reason, one or both members of the Soviet crew during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975 decided to defect to the United States? This would be done during the actual mission in space (to make a bold public statement) while the Soviet crew was visiting the Apollo spacecraft (which would be considered U.S. territory, right?)

How could this be done, i.e. would the Soyuz be able to land somewhere in the United States or other allied nation? What are the short and long term political consequences?

Both reentry vehicles have survival equipment for exactly the number of crew members that go up. A defected additional person will most probably die from multiple damage to vital organs on reentry. And they know it well.

In any case, the cosmonauts are pretty much the most celebrated people in the Soviet Union, enjoying advantages they can hardly expect as defectors in the USA. Why should they defect? "American dream"? They already reached everything they wished for.
 
Well there is the problem of the whole other member. Might get violent considering they would have both been ex military and probably know some hand to hand. Probably not for space though.

Probably depends on who is holding the tradition soviet space gun.
Space Commie fight!
 
As said earlier cosmonauts lived a fairly sheltered and luxurious life so their incentive to defect seems tiny when compared to say, a lowly Soviet seaman on a ship or a soldier at a distant post. Also the Soyuz spacecraft depends greatly on ground control for operations, so a "defection" landing seems very unikely to me. Very interesting scenario though.
 

The Vulture

Banned
Although I do love the idea of two cosmonauts wrestling in a zero-g fight to the death, I don't think it's very likely they would try to defect. I would imagine cosmonauts to be innately patriotic, as well as enjoying their hero status within the USSR.
 
What about Deke Slayton going over the the Soyuz to make room in the Apollo for the defector? Surely the Soviets aren't going to torture Slayton when he arrives in the Soviet Union.
 

Michael Busch

What about Deke Slayton going over the the Soyuz to make room in the Apollo for the defector? Surely the Soviets aren't going to torture Slayton when he arrives in the Soviet Union.

Even if they weren't defecting, that would have been an impressive gesture of cooperation (even more than the mission was in TTL).
 
As said earlier cosmonauts lived a fairly sheltered and luxurious life so their incentive to defect seems tiny when compared to say, a lowly Soviet seaman on a ship or a soldier at a distant post. Also the Soyuz spacecraft depends greatly on ground control for operations, so a "defection" landing seems very unikely to me. Very interesting scenario though.
It depended on ground control partly because they were afraid of cosmonauts defecting.

We should also look at the crew of the Soyuz, though. The commander was Aleksei Leonov, who was also the first man to undertake a spacewalk, and was selected for several cancelled Soviet missions including their moonlanding. He was more of a hero than most Soviet cosmonauts, and the next year was made Chief Cosmonaut. Overall, I'd guess he was unlikely to defect.

That leaves the flight engineer, Valerii Kubasov- like Leonov, on his second flight. I can't see a reason why he would defect- though he would have reasons to doubt the reliability of Soviet spacecraft. He was twice scheduled to fly on missions that would have killed or did kill their crew (Soyuz 2, which had the same faulty parachute as Soyuz 1 and ended up being launched unmanned, and Soyuz 11, which depressurized on reentry), and his previous mission had been affected by an electronics failure.

If it did come to a fight between Leonov and Kubasov, I'd guess Leonov would win- he's military and Kubasov isn't, plus he underwent 18 months of intensive zero-G training (unlike Kubasov) in preparation for his spacewalk. But remember, there are also the 3 Americans on board...

Still, I don't think that the Apollo could land safely with an extra man. The only possibility would be to somehow fool the Soyuz's systems into landing it in (say) North Dakota. The US crew were all test pilots, and Kubasov was the only engineer on board. It could possibly be done, but I'd guess that Leonov would have to be co-operating or dead, and instructions would have to be sent up from the US to Kubasov.

The use of Skylab as a place for either an American or the defector to wait temporarily is out- there are no Apollo craft left to send up and get him. Of course, with enough pre-planning (had Kubasov somehow contacted American agents in Russia), that could be changed...
 
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Fascinating idea.

So, what about Riain's suggestion? The defector takes the place of Deke Slayton or another astronaut in the Apollo capsule? Which means the only way the "bumped" American can return to Earth is aboard the Soyuz. It would take some balls on the part of the American astronaut.

The Soviets are in a horrific PR spot here. The world is watching, even more so once the defection takes place. There will be live feeds from the US side of the mission so the fait accompli being presented to the Soviets is known to everyone; they can take the American aboard the Soyuz or leave him to his fate aboard the Docking Module.

I don't think that, already facing a huge loss of face over the orbital defection, the Soviets would refuse to take the American aboard. If anything, they'll bend over backwards to show how wonderful they are and how "ill" the defector must be.

As for the identity of the defector, space missions in the US always have a back up crew and I'm assuming the Soviets followed the same practice. (Edit: Wiki says they did for this mission.) Anyone know anything about Anatoli Filipchenko or Nikolai Rukavishnikov? (Wiki has the former becoming an OKB chief and the latter worked for Energia.)

Give one of the four on the Soviet side an ill-timed tummy ache and you could plausibly substitute someone else.


Bill
 
Also keep in mind that the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft were designed with very specific height and weight requirements for the seats and spacesuit interfaces into the spacecraft life control system, so it wouldn't be as easy as simple "switching places". In fact, part of the reason that the Russians developed newer versions of Soyuz in the post-USSR days was to allow for taller crewmembers.
 
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