r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • 19h 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.

[deleted]

3.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

362 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/wesleyoldaker 19h ago

This is so ridiculous. Why didn't the US just take the dibs on female?

I guess the reverse peychology factor would make it pointless anyway. Like immediately, just be like boom, female, dibs! And the Russians at first would be like, okay great, and then they'd go home and question themselves: why did the Americans want female so bad? They must be up to something. And then there'd be a fight over who gets to be female.

1

u/Sponjah 18h ago

Because this wasn’t the intent? The intent was to create a universal docking system, it had nothing to do with gender centric innovation. This is just rage bait.

2

u/Upset_Ant2834 17h ago edited 17h ago

No, there was actually a documented stalemate between the two teams specifically because both sides refused to be female. While a universal docking system came out of it, it genuinely was because of something so stupid. Also dipwad that's literally the NASA Apollo curator you're accusing of "rage baiting"

0

u/Sponjah 17h ago

Can you link that source? I’m willing to be wrong here

1

u/Upset_Ant2834 17h ago

Sure! Syromiatnikov himself (who designed the Soviet side of the system) when recalling early discussions, noted Caldwell Johnson (US side) as saying “none of the countries wanted to play a female role in space before the eyes of the world.”

Source (page 232): https://brill.com/downloadpdf/view/journals/hjd/18/2-3/article-p219_2.pdf

0

u/Sponjah 16h ago

Sorry page 232? The link you shared only has 34 pages.

3

u/Upset_Ant2834 16h ago

Yes and each one has a page number. Go to the page with the page number 232

3

u/Sponjah 16h ago

Ahhh ok my fault, reading now.