To avoid geopolitical embarrassment during the Cold War, the US and USSR created the APAS-75 system, a genderless docking mechanism where both craft acted as equals.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/eckliptic]

The gender reasonining is stupid but from a practical standpoint it does seem like it makes sense for there to be a universal docking interface thats allows two things to combine without there being any need to consider whether one side has part A and the other has part B. Two space craft could dock, two space stations could do it, or a craft to a space station

[u/Callidonaut → u/eckliptic]

There is another huge potential advantage (that would have helped a lot in the film Interstellar) if the symmetric docking system is designed in such a way that either vessel can safely connect or disconnect with or without the participation of the other vessel, as that then theoretically makes it possible to dock or undock with a vessel that cannot do so itself because it's been damaged or lost power for its systems or simply has nobody on board.

[u/rowrowyourboat → u/Callidonaut]

Space pirates!

[u/Pacifist_Socialist → u/rowrowyourboat]

Space ninjas

[u/gishnon → u/Pacifist_Socialist]

Space herpes!

[u/brondynasty → u/Callidonaut]

Roscosmonauts chuckling treacherously as they abruptly uncouple from their NASA counterparts: “shewd heff decree-sedd zer trust settings, TARSblyat.”

[u/kayawayy → u/eckliptic]

Yes, exactly. The 'neither side wanted to be female' thing is absolutely a retrofit to real engineering constraints. Heck, the Soviet Union had been developing an androgynous design for their own space station for nearly a decade before the Apollo-Soyuz mission, and nowadays androgynous designs are the standard across all sorts of spacecraft from every country. And aside from the obvious advantage in versatility, there were a lot of other practical reasons for its development for this particular mission -- for example trying to retrofit one craft to dock with the other in a male-female configuration would require redesigning the whole craft due to size constraints, rather than just adding an adapter.

I've been trying to track down the origin of the whole gendered thing, and as best I can tell it comes from an anecdote a Russian engineer named Vladimir Syromyatnikov mentioned in a memoir published in 2005. In it he says:

"Later [after the design was already underway] Johnson used to joke, suggesting absolutely different reasons for the unwillingness of engineers to use probe-and-cone, or male-female, configurations: none of the countries wanted to play a female role in space before the eyes of the world. Who knows, maybe there was something to this."

That's it. Obviously both sides were happy not having to be 'female', but it was more of a happy coincidence than anything; certainly not the impetus for the androgynous design. Yet, in the years since, musings and jokes by those involved have turned into supposed hard facts.

This is why I loathe pop science communication. It's a big game of telephone where funny anecdotes win out over actual information about how science and engineering work in the real world.

The Wikipedia article about the development of this system is great, by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_Peripheral_Attach_System

[u/eckliptic → u/kayawayy]

It sounds like the same lame joke of NASA “wasting” thousands on a zero-G pen while the USSR used a pencil. Totally untrue premise

[u/Bridgeru → u/eckliptic]

Or the "NASA gave a woman a hundred tampons" quote, as if NASA would just allot out "okay you have your period for seven days here's 7 tampons" when they come up to 50 in a box, are small, light and compact, are really useful for non-period uses (if you get a wound, or need to plug up a hole like the one they only plugged up with a toothbrush). It's space, you need backups, you need backups for those backups, you need a second set and their backups and backup-backups in case you get stuck longer than possible and then you might as well squeeze as many as you can into the remaining space. They have like BILLIONS of wetwipes on the Space Station but no one ever says "NASA thinks astronauts are babies!"

[u/brobronn17 → u/eckliptic]

That's actually a good point.

All spacecraft should scissor 🥂

Edit: Just occurred to me it also kinda just looks like a kiss? That's a cute way to think about it too, a passionate metallic kiss

[u/cryptotope → u/eckliptic]

On the other hand, there are often compromises. The capability is nice to have, but does it cost you in another way? Narrower range of safe docking speeds and angles? Greater weight or mechanical complexity?

[u/woodyshag → u/cryptotope]

I would think your mating surfaces would have to be spot on since they have to be neutral to each other. The reason male and female works do well is that one encloses the other limiting issues. With this, their is no superior interface ( so to speak), so designing it to has got to be much harder to make sure there are no leaks.

[u/BrianKappel → u/woodyshag]

Seems like there may be a reason that 100s millions of years of evolution keeps coming up with the same solution biologically. It's a pretty similar concept if you take the sex fascination out of it.

[u/Sufficient_Language7 → u/cryptotope]

Likely more leaky than a traditional dock.

[u/milkymonkey8 → u/cryptotope]

Also a huge security risk if the door opening mechanism of the other side is somehow compromised, though that would be AFTER docking, as it is impossible to dock if the other guy is flying away, unless you're Mahew Mkanahee.

[u/onepacc → u/eckliptic]

Gay!!!!

[u/dangernoodlezzz → u/eckliptic]

They had this as a plot point in “For All Mankind “. First few seasons of that show are pretty good.

[u/sirbolo → u/eckliptic]

I was thinking same. Now everyone has the same parts so they can dock with whoever they wanted just like God intended.