SINE

Per Kent Bress, Russian Relations, NASA, 1999:

I'm not Russian, but when somebody is in any space program, you pay attention to everybody’s space programs. So I'm telling you, even though the US is not using the Shuttle now, when it was using it, Americans rode in Mir (the Russian space station), and Russians orbited in Shuttle. Before the Russians rode in the Shuttle, they were required to train in Houston on American equipment, and when in the U.S., they toured the US for one month.

First project together was July 17-19, 1975 when American Apollo and Russian Soyuz spacecraft connected in orbit. Twentieth anniversary was 1995 in Washington, where Russian captain Alexi Leonov met together again with the American captain Tom Stafford, but on spaceship Earth. Very emotional, with Planetary Society, American Astronautical Society, National Space Club. Reaching out together.