Anatoly Arkadevich Blagonravov (russian: Анатолий Аркадьевич Благонравов; – 4 February 1975) was a Soviet engineer and diplomat. He represented the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

on the

United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) is a United Nations committee whose main task is to review and foster international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, as well as to consider legal issues ar ...

(COPUOS). He worked closely with

Hugh Dryden Hugh Latimer Dryden (July 2, 1898 – December 2, 1965) was an American aeronautical scientist and civil servant. He served as NASA Deputy Administrator from August 19, 1958, until his death. Biography Early life and education Dryden was born in ...

, his American counterpart, to promote international cooperation on space projects at the height of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

. Anatoli adopted a dog named Tsygan, one of the first dogs to make a successful sub-orbital flight in 1951. Blagonravov died at the age of 80 in Moscow.

Start of US/Soviet spaceflight cooperation

Blagonravov was instrumental in opening the door to international cooperation in human spaceflight. After

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space, and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling ...

's orbital flight, an exchange of letters between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premiere

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

led to a series of discussions led by Blagonravov and NASA Deputy Director

. Their talks in 1962 led to the Dryden-Blagonravov agreement, which was formalized in October of that year, the same time the two countries were in the midst of the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

. The agreement was formally announced at the United Nations on December 5, 1962. It called for cooperation on the exchange of data from weather satellites, a study of the Earth's magnetic field, and joint tracking of the U.S. Echo II balloon satellite. Unfortunately, as the competition between the two nation's manned space programs heated up, efforts to further cooperation at that point came to an end. In April 1970, he held informal talks in New York City with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

Administrator

Thomas O. Paine Thomas Otten Paine (November 9, 1921 – May 4, 1992) was an American engineer, scientist and advocate of space exploration, and was the third Administrator of NASA, serving from March 21, 1969, to September 15, 1970. During his administration ...

, about the possibility of performing a rendezvous and docking of a US and Soviet spacecraft. This led to an agreement signed on May 24, 1972, by US President Richard M. Nixon and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Premier

Alexei Kosygin Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premi ...

, calling for such a joint manned space mission, and declaring intent for all future international manned spacecraft to be capable of docking with each other. On July 17, 1975, the crews of a US

Apollo spacecraft The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable (single-use) spacecraft ...

and a Soviet

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

performed such a docking, visiting each other's spacecraft, shaking hands, exchanging gifts, and performing joint experiments in space. Blagonravov was inducted as a member of the inaugural class to the

International Space Hall of Fame The New Mexico Museum of Space History is a museum and planetarium complex in Alamogordo, New Mexico dedicated to artifacts and displays related to space flight and the Space Age. It includes the International Space Hall of Fame. The Museum of S ...

References

External links

Blagonravov, Anatoli
Encyclopedia of Science entry, retrieved Sept 15 2007 * __NOTOC__ 1894 births 1975 deaths Soviet physicists Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Heroes of Socialist Labour Soviet space program personnel Soviet diplomats {{Russia-physicist-stub

Start of US/Soviet spaceflight cooperation

References

Further reading

External links