A famous handshake in space took place in July 1975.
The Apollo-Soyuz project had to overcome many technical and cultural challenges, and the five astronauts also had difficulties speaking each other's language.
Docking seemed like an impossible task due to the many differences between the two space programmes and compromises had to be made: the United States ended up using the metric system, for example.
Despite the trials, there was camaraderie and even prankery in the 20 hours spent together, as Soyuz commander Alexei Leonov drew sketches of the crew and mislabelled tubes with Russian borscht soup to say they contain vodka.
'We are proud that at the height of the Cold War, the space industries of the two countries could reach good compromise solutions,' said Viktor Blagov, who was the flight director in charge of the docking.
