Thomas Stafford awarded 'Order of Friendship'

On April 9, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his nation had awarded the "Order of Friendship" medal to former U.S. test pilot and astronaut, Lt. General Thomas P. Stafford (USAF, ret.), a native of Weatherford, Oklahoma. The medal was bestowed for Stafford's "great contribution to developing cooperation in the field of space exploration between the Russian Federation and the United States of America."

Stafford is a veteran of four space flights between 1965 and 1975, spending a total of more than 21 days in space. As the pilot of Gemini 6, Stafford conducted the first successful rendezvous in space with another orbiting vehicle that is considered one of the great milestones in space exploration. Just six months later, he would command the Gemini 9 mission and in May of 1969, he would command the Apollo 10 flight to the moon, on the last full-scale dress rehearsal for a lunar landing.

It was on Stafford's final mission that brought him close to the Soviet space program, and earned him lasting respect within the Soviet, and today, the Russian scientific, space exploration, and governmental communities. In July, 1975, Stafford commanded the American side of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) that would rendezvous and dock with a Soviet Soyuz-19 spacecraft that culminated in the historic "handshake in space" between U.S. and Soviet astronauts. Many historians today feel that this joint mission led to the beginning of the end of the Cold War. For his efforts, General Stafford was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

As long-time NASA flight director and administrator, Chris Kraft stated about Stafford: "What made Tom so effective during the ASTP program is that the Soviets trusted him, and so did the Americans." That mutual trust remains to this day.

At the age of 87, Stafford still remains active in his work in international aerospace policy and consulting. He still chairs NASA's oversight committee on safety and operational readiness for the International Space Station (ISS), and often travels to Moscow to work with his Russian counterparts that together oversee the operation of the ISS. Over the past 17 years, the ISS has been continually crewed by U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts working together, with assistance from 16 other nations. This unprecedented long-term cooperation between the two former Cold War adversaries would never have been possible without the success of Stafford's Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. This mission proved the two nations could bring down what were once insurmountable cultural and political barriers to work together on a common goal.

Stafford has been previously honored for his long-time work as an envoy of cooperation and oversight between the space programs of both nations. In 2011, General Stafford was awarded the medal "For contribution to space exploration by foreign citizens" by order of then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Stafford still remains close to Aleksei Leonov, his Soviet counterpart from the ASTP mission, who both describe each other as the brother they never had. In early 2000, Leonov assisted Stafford and his wife Linda in adopting two Russian boys Mikhail and Stanislav. One of Stafford's grandsons even carries the middle name of Alexey in honor of his old friend, Leonov.

General Stafford is still active in the development and expansion of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in his hometown of Weatherford. He also continues consulting with a variety of U.S. aerospace corporations and serves on several board of directors for international corporations.