Adam Savage visits Smithsonian’s @airandspace Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar to examine a piece of Cold War space history: the APAS-75 (Androgynous Peripheral Assembly System) from the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). As Apollo curator Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony and conservator Elizabeth Beesley explain, this module -- designed during the Cold War -- served as a universal airlock and docking interface that not only bridged two different spacecraft, but two radically different engineering philosophies as well. From contrasting U.S. and Soviet machining styles to bilingual Russian/English cockpit labeling to the conservation challenges of deteriorating insulation, join Adam for an inside look at the hardware that made history's most famous handshake in space possible. What do you think of the "androgynous" solution?
National Air and Space Museum: https://airandspace.si.edu/
Visit the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar Hazy Center: https://www.si.edu/museums/air-and-space-museum-udvar-hazy-center
Visit the National Air and Space Museum's downtown museum: https://airandspace.si.edu/
Smithsonian Institution: https://www.si.edu/
More on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: https://www.nasa.gov/apollo-soyuz-test-project/
Preserving WWII’s Most Battle-Damaged Bomber: https://youtu.be/9BNKu8WBO8M
Adam Savage Visits National Air and Space Museum's Restoration Hangar: https://youtu.be/WFSnf0MSAFc
More videos from Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c0BsBCx4Sw&list=PLJtitKU0CAeiJ7tjkIqcrRPfIYZHPW643
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Chapters:
00:00 - Androgynous Solution
00:41 - Apollo-Soyuz Docking Module (APAS-75)
01:13 - Space Race Diplomacy
02:20 - Two Engineering Philosophies in One Artifact
03:13 - Androgynous Docking
04:25 - Self-Aligning Guide Fins
05:51 - Atmosphere vs Pressure Mismatch
06:48 - History of the Flight-Spare Artifact
07:31 - Preparing the Spacecraft for a National Museum Loan
09:20 - Space Diplomacy
14:32 - Assessing Condition
16:38 - Insulation and UV Degradation
18:57 - Bilingual Cyrillic and English Cockpit Controls
20:33 - Airlock Module and Storage Lockers
22:10 - Materials Analysis
23:55 - Aluminum Pressure Vessel
24:55 - Modern Spacecraft Conservation
Intro bumper by Abe Dieckman
Thanks for watching!