by Aleksei Tarasov

 An American astronaut's Russian brother

Millions on Earth watched in amazement as astronaut Stafford, opened the entry hatch of the Soyuz 19 spacecraft and shook hands with cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. The joint Soyuz-Apollo mission in 1975 was one of the first steps in ending the Cold War. For space travelers themselves, the flight turned out to be something more than successful scientific collaboration or means to a political rapprochement.

- General Stafford, you are one of the most famous astronauts in the American space program. You are well-known around the world. You could have easily chosen to live anywhere, yet you continue to reside in Oklahoma where you were born. What is it that keeps you “loyal” to your native state?

- I have two daughters that live here in the Oklahoma City area. They work as schoolteachers. My wife Linda also has a son and a daughter here. It is easier to stay in touch.

I’m also involved in helping the space museum in the city of Weatherford. It is slowly growing. It started as a little glass case in 1980. The museum was really not my idea. I was very honored when Weatherford built a new airport and named it after me.

The first two rooms of the museum were finished in 1993, and I though that will be all. It has grown a whole lot. We now have the most complete collection of model boosters in the world. The boosters all arrived to Oklahoma from Russia.     

- During your innumerable space missions, did you think of home?

- When you are up there in space, you are concentrating on the mission. It is the same as when you fly an airplane – short and concentrated. You think of home before you go. You think of home when your are coming back. During the mission itself, there is very little time for reflection. I had some time to think of what I would do after coming back to Earth when we were flying back from the moon.

- If you would not have been born in Weatherford, Oklahoma, but in some different place, would you still have become astronaut Thomas Stafford? How does a young man from a small town go to the moon?

- Growing up in a small town that had only 2 500 people was very nurturing. I was the only child. My father was 50 when I was born. My mother was 36, and she was a teacher. My parents gave me a lot of help and care, as well as the desire to achieve. So did my teachers. How can you go to the moon from a small Oklahoma town? You need to work hard. You need to have a good background and work hard. I believe that it is still possible.

- What are some of your early childhood memories?

- I remember myself when I was four or five years old – mostly my mother and father and the neighborhood.        

- As you were growing up, who did you want to become? Did you have any role models?

- As a little boy, I was fascinated with airplanes. As it turns out, the first transcontinental route for air travel went down the old Highway 66. It went New York, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and then West to Los Angeles. Every afternoon I would see what I though was a big airplane, a DC-3.

I read books about Lindbergh and was very much impressed. I read a book titled We about him and his airplane. I also read about Willie Post.

- Throughout your career, what countries did you visit? Where was your first trip abroad to?

- My first trip aboard was in the naval academy. After one year, we went on a midshipman cruise to Europe. I was on Battleship Missouri. We went to France. I spent four days in Paris, which was very unique for me. I was impressed with the history - the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, and Napoleon’s tomb.

I cannot tell you how many countries I’ve visited. I’ve been to every country in Europe, to Russia and Ukraine. In Asia, I have visited Japan, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Loas, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Australia, and New Zealand. I’ve traveled around.  

- What are the wonders of the world that you visited? What interesting places have you seen?

- To me, the amazing thing was the architecture around the world. I admire the architecture of the different historical eras. All the way from the Pyramids to what you see at the Parthenon and at St. Peter’s in Rome. This is such a contrast to Western Oklahoma.  

When I first went to France in 1949, Oklahoma was only 42 years old.

- How do you remember Oklahoma in 1949? In what ways was it different?

- In those days, everybody rode a bus or a train. There were not nearly as many automobiles. There were no interstate highways or things of that nature.

There are two contrasts. The modes of transportation today are fantastic. The medical care and the communications are fantastic. Yet, on the other hand, when you read the paper, you are appalled at the murders and the assaults that happen. Things like that rarely occurred back then. The people changed. The metropolitan area increased.

- Can you name three of your favorite countries?

- They are England, Russia, and, I think, Australia. Why England? The natives speak English there! So much of my culture and history, so much of democracy and our legal tradition came from England. In Australia, the people are very friendly, I also like scuba diving. You can see the Great Barrier Reef from space. You look down and you can see it just like the Florida Keys. These are two of the most colorful areas on the globe that you can see from above – the turquoise, the whites, and all the other colors. 

- What is the most unusual custom that you have seen? What would be the most unusual dish?

- In China we had a one-hundred-year-old bird-nest soup. That’s not my favorite. I took part in a strange ceremony in Kazakhstan. We each took a bite of skin off a ram’s head.          

- You have met with many renowned and famous people: space explorers, scientists, and world leaders. What meetings and acquaintances were especially dear to you?

- Who I thought was very impressive of foreign political leaders was Anwar Sadat. He was outstanding. Anwar Sadat had to govern in an uneasy time and manage many factors and pressures. We visited his office, his palace in Cairo. His son was our escort. This was after Apollo-Soyuz.  In the United States, I admired Ronald Reagan. Of course, I knew him probably better then anybody else.  

- Russia takes a special place in your life – the first U.S.-Soviet space flight, your “Russian brother” Alexei Leonov, your two Russian children Stas and Michael, whom you adopted three years ago... How did it happen that you established a “family” relationship with cosmonaut Leonov?

- Our friendship started to develop over the course of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The commanders of the missions, they always relate more with anther commander. We had a lot to do in the two and a half years that the mission was being planned. Originally, the Soviets said that they would announce the crew only six months in advance. We said that it was unacceptable. We had so many things that needed to be worked out, all the communications mechanisms.

We had to understand the procedures and techniques. We went ahead and announced our crew two years and five months before the mission. The Soviet Union announced their crew two years prior to the flight. It was the height of the Cold War.

This cooperation dispelled some of the stereotypes I had about the Soviet Union. Until that time, everything I read about the U.S.S.R. was in the context of the Cold War. When I was assigned as the commander of the mission, I wanted to learn everything possible about the background to get to know the people I would be working with. I read all the books I could about the history of Russia. It was very-very fascinating. I've heard of a few of the characters, including Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, whose armies came through Russia in the thirteenth century. I then went to cosmonaut's Valery Kubasov's home town in the twin cities of Vladimir and Suzdal. I started to realize what the Russian people went through and how they came back.

I've heard about Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Again, it was the height of the Cold War, and I did not read as much about him here. In Russia, I went to the city of Kaluga that was his home. It was Tsiolkovsky that had all the theory about multi-stage rockets and many other technological dimensions of space travel. He developed it in early twentieth century. You look at his drawings… The airlocks that are used for people to go walking in space are the same as Leonov used and what we use on the space station today. He did not make any hardware. The first liquid rocket demonstration was made by Dr. Robert Goddard.  

- During the Soyuz-Apollo mission, when Alexei Leonov offered a toast to commemorate the union of Russian and American space efforts, he handed to you and your American crewmates tubes labeled Vodka extra. Were you hesitant to join your Russian colleagues in the celebration?

- Not really. I looked at it. We tasted Russian food as we prepared for the mission. They tasted ours, and we selected each other's menus. I saw the vodka label on one tube and the extra on the other one, but it was Russian borsch. It was a good joke. We always played jokes on each other. If things went well, we'd do this.

Country western singer Conway Twitty, whom I knew, had a gold record called Hello, Darling. One of my friends, a professor of Russian at an Oklahoma university phoneticized the song. After the spacecrafts undocked, we played the song for the Russians. When we returned back, I had a couple of hundred tapes made of the recording. The original tape I gave to Conway. It's now at the Country Western Music Hall of Fame.

Then there was also a tape Vance Brand made of girls in the shower.  

- How did you decide to adopt two kids from Russia?

- Linda is my second wife, and we were too old to have children. I knew that I wanted a son. She was very wise and said that it's better to have two boys, so that they keep each other company. As soon as she said two, I said they will be Russian. They are very hearty, very intelligent, smart, and hardworking people. The next morning I called Alexei Leonov and said that we wanted to adopt two Russian boys. I wanted two boys that are good in mathematics. If you're good in mathematics, that's your cognitive skills. My good friend Anatole Forestenko, who was my Russian professor, recommended me an organization called Catholic Social Services.

We brought the boys to the U.S. the first time for Christmas. We could not tell them that we'd be adopting them yet. Going back to the airport both of them were nearly crying. As soon as we got them on the airplane, I called Alexei and said we wanted them back. He greased the skids like that in Russia. We adopted the boys in March.  

- Did the children adapt well to the American life?

- They've adopted too well. We didn't take them to any Wal-Marts, only to little stores at first. They have never been to a restaurant before coming to the U.S. Their progress in school has been good. The first three months are frustrating. You need to get them into the English language. We had English teachers come here. We then sent them to an English immersion school.

We started them in school. They played soccer and made really good friends.  

- What is your schedule today? In what projects do you involve yourself? What goals do you set?

- At one time, I served on the boards of directors of nine companies on the New York Stock Exchange. I now serve on the boards of two companies. I chair the Independent Oversight Commission for the International Space Station. There are about eighteen volunteers like me and three paid full-time members of staff. I have my Russian counterparts that I meet.

At times, political decision-makers come to me for advice. The plans I made for President Bush and Vice President Quayle for returning to the moon and going on to Mars are still the basic blueprint that NASA is following today.

- General Stafford, is it difficult to be famous?

- I don't ever go out of my way to say that I'm Thomas Stafford. I’m more of the Neil Armstrong type. People recognize my name, of course. I was named the Airman of the Century. It came down to Wiley Post and myself. It was such an honor for me to be considered along with him.