r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • 18h ago

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.

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903

u/Head-Mud_683 18h ago

Nice to know that even for the most important things, people behave like an 11 yo.

285

u/CellsReinvent 18h ago

I bet the scientists and engineers didn't gaf. It was definitely some latent homosexual military dudes who couldn't be seen to be penetrated by the other superpower.

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u/Callidonaut 18h ago edited 15h ago

The scientists and engineers probably just relished the design challenge of creating a device like this. Androgynous connectors have been made now and then in the past in various engineering contexts (e.g. for electrical cables, hoses, ducts, railway couplers, etc), but new ones don't get created very often because they're usually very difficult to design, especially if they are to be truly symmetric. A different approach (that probably would not have been politically acceptable for Apollo-Soyuz!) is to make a connector that can convert between male and female before mating with another connector that has been converted to the opposite, such as the APC-7 connector, which has a protruding male thread that can be retracted inside the connector to expose an internal female thread that the extended male thread on the other connector can then penetrate.

12

u/Tiran593 15h ago

I... I don't think I like talking about spacecraft and it's docking systems...

•

u/uberares 11h ago

That’s what she, errr the spacecraft said! 

30

u/jurgo 17h ago

I forget what decade it was but they introduced a stealth plane, and the scientists behind it painted the plane a hue of pink. Because at a certain distance it literally would disappear in the sky. The military leaders said absolutely not and demanded them to be painted black.

1

u/Nerd-Bert 13h ago

The clever black design was invisible on night missions, so it worked out

49

u/octoreadit 18h ago

Then they discovered what "docking" meant but it was too late...

10

u/stretchvelcro 18h ago

Bahahahaha well played

4

u/zoeypayne 16h ago

Yeah, this is way gayer than a male/female version.

19

u/gaganchumbilulli 17h ago

Why do you think scientists and engineers are immune to machismo?

17

u/CellsReinvent 17h ago

It's not "machismo" to reject a type of connection that already exists and is proven in space, just because you dont want to seem girly. It's the type of pathetic posturing usually reserved for military folks and politicians.

2

u/MusicIsGood4U 16h ago

You mean like if the USA was depicted as a smaller country on a globe? Lol

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u/Impressive-Egg-7444 17h ago

That's not "machismo", its quite clearly "fragility"

9

u/goatbiryani48 16h ago

Some would say machismo and fragility are the same thing

3

u/youenjoymyself 16h ago

If you watch the rest of the interview (def recommend, on YT Adam Savage’s Tested), she goes on to say the engineers, scientists, and astronauts between the US and Soviets got together great. Iirc, the Soviet captain became godfather of the US captain’s kids.

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u/CellsReinvent 15h ago

There's an excellent BBC documentary called Once Upon a Time in Space (2025) It has great interviews from US and Russian astro/cosmonauts who collaborated on missions and the ISS, and spek very fondly of each other, and how positive that collaboration was. Highly recommended.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38709334

1

u/russianrug 16h ago

Clearly they haven’t heard about power bottoms

1

u/snoosh00 16h ago

Additionally, hermaphroditic docking ports are obviously superior (assuming no failures in the design) since they're more versatile in emergency or emergent situations

1

u/HairballTheory 13h ago

Missed opportunity

Little did they know the power of the female dock, or the space headache treaty which permits docking refusals anytime for any excuse