Staff Favorites
from Collections at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum
Scale model of 1975 Apollo Soyuz (1992.3) This scale model of Apollo-Soyuz was presented to President Gerald R. Ford by cosmonauts Aleskei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov in the Oval Office on September 7, 1974 – the day before Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon. The 1/50 scale model measures 6.5” H x 17” W x 9” D. One of Ford’s staff affixed the Soviet pins commemorating Apollo-Soyuz to the base of the model. |
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In July of 1975 capsules from the world’s two largest competitors in the decades long space race met in what became known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). The historic docking of the two spacecraft brought a symbolic end to the 20-year space race. President Ford radioed to space, “It has taken us many years to open this door to useful cooperation in space between our two countries and I am confident that the day is not far off when space missions made possible by this first joint effort will be more or less commonplace.” |
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Gerald Ford played an active role in America’s space program. During his third congressional term he was appointed to the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Spending, which provided the funding for much of the early rocket programs. Ford also sat on the “Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration,” chaired by Senator Lyndon Johnson, which recommended the change from the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1958 Congressman Ford helped draft the Space Act that gave NASA its charter. The artifact collections at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum also include a Presidential flag carried aboard the mission, several presentation plaques, and the telephone President Ford used to talk with the orbiting crew in 1975. By James W. Draper, Museum Registrar |