Vance DeVoe Brand is an American naval officer, aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint spaceflight in 1975, and as commander of three Space Shuttle missions.
Brand in 1971
Brand (left) with Don Lind as a Skylab rescue crew
Brand (seated center) poses with the rest of the American and Soviet crew of Apollo–Soyuz
Brand (second from left) with his STS-5 crewmates
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as an American Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The project, and its handshake in space, was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers during the Cold War.
A 1973 artist's conception of the docking of the two spacecraft
Back Row: Stafford, Leonov Front Row: Slayton, Brand, KubasovApollo program← Apollo 17 Soyuz programme← Soyuz 18Soyuz 20 →
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin (seated) sign an agreement in Moscow paving the way for the Apollo–Soyuz mission, May 1972.
Left to right: Slayton, Brand, Stafford
