Official color 10 x 8 NASA lithograph of the American crew of the Apollo-Soyuz mission posing in their white space suits, signed in black felt tip by Deke Slayton, Vance Brand, and Tom Stafford. The lower portion bears two affixed stamps and a Baikonur Cosmodrome postmark dating to the week of April 28, 1975, when NASA's American astronauts were granted exclusive visitation rights to the top-secret Soviet Union spaceport. In fine condition.
According to the consignor, Anatole Forostenko, the Chief Russian Language Instructor for the NASA astronauts selected for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, so off-limits and under-wraps was the Baikonur Cosmodrome, that the only other non-Russian civilian permitted special access was French President Charles de Gaulle, who had made his own special trip nearly a decade earlier on June 25, 1966. Such a rare exception was not lost on Forostenko or the NASA astronauts: "I was among this select group from NASA who were granted clearance not only to enter the base but to climb in and inspect the Soyuz craft as it was being prepared for the upcoming launch."
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