performed later than usual, allowing the ingestion of the propellant fumes through the ventilation system. The ASTP was the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft. Immediately after the launch of the Apollo spacecraft, preparations began to convert LC-39B and the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center for use by the Space Shuttle, the United States' next crewed spacecraft program. LC-39A had already been closed after the launch of Skylab. Legacy Technical A derivative (but mechanically incompatible) docking collar, APAS-89, was launched as part of the Kristall module of the Soviet Mir space station. Originally intended as the docking port for the (defunct) Buran Soviet space shuttle, the APAS-89 unit was used for the next Russian-American docking mission, STS-71, twenty years later as part of the Shuttle–Mir program (though not before the docking port was tested by the last APAS-equipped Soyuz, Soyuz TM-16, in 1993). The American Space Shuttle continued to use the same APAS-89 docking hardware through the end of the Space Shuttle program to dock to Mir and then the International Space Station, the latter through the Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMAs). The PMAs are equipped with the later APAS-95 adapters, which differ from the APAS-89 adapters in that they are no longer androgynous; while compatible with the APAS-89 docking collars, they are not capable of acting as the "active" partner in docking. The first PMA, PMA-1, remains in use as the interface connecting the Russian-built, NASA-owned Zarya module to the US segment of the ISS (USOS), and so the APAS continues in use to this day (2021). Political Apollo–Soyuz was the first joint US–Soviet space mission. At the time it was thought that space would become either more international or competitive as a result, but it became both. The mission became symbolic of each country's goals of scientific cooperation, while their news reports downplayed the technical prowess of the other. Soviet press implied that it was leading the United States in space flight, tying it to the Marxist–Leninist ideology, while the United States reported that the Soyuz was technically primitive. High-profile space cooperation declined after the successful mission and became entangled in linkage politics, but it set a precedent of cooperation that continued in the Shuttle–Mir Program. Cultural The American and Soviet commanders, Stafford and Leonov, became lasting friends. Leonov was the godfather of Stafford's younger children. Stafford gave a eulogy at Leonov's funeral in October 2019. An