Two Sides of the Moon

Growing up on either side of the Iron Curtain, Alexei Leonov and David Scott shared the same dream -- to become a pilot. Excelling at flying, they became elite fighter pilots, and were chosen by their countries' burgeoning space programmes to be part of the greatest technological race ever -- to land a man on the moon. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. It was a feat that won him a place in history, but almost cost him his life. A year later, in 1966, astronauts David Scott and Neil Armstrong were seconds away from dying as their spacecraft, Gemini 8, spun violently out of control across space. Both men survived against dramatic odds and went on to fly their own lunar missions: Armstrong to command Apollo 11 and Scott to command the most complex expedition in the history of exploration, Apollo 15. Spending three days on the moon, Scott became the seventh man to walk on its breathtaking surface. Marking a new age of US/USSR co-operation, the Apollo Soyuz Test Project brought Scott and Leonov together, finally ending the Cold War silence and building a friendship that would last for decades.

About the Author :
DAVID SCOTT is one of the twelve men to have walked on the moon. He was born at Randolph Air Force base, Texas, educated at West Point and received his pilot winds in 1955. He studied at MIT and graduated from the experimental test pilot school, before being selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1963. He flew three space missions: as Pilot of Gemini 8 in 1966, then as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 9 in 1969 and finally as Commander of Apollo 15 in 1971. He subsequently became closely involved in the joint USA/USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and from 1973-1977 worked as Director of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Centre. He went on to found two private companies, applying his technological expertise in the arena of commercial space, and has also acted as technical adviser on the film Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks' award winning televisions series, 'From The Earth To The Moon'. ALEXEI LEONOV was born in Siberia in 1934 and graduated from the Chuguyev Higher Air Force School in the Ukraine in 1957, before serving as fighter pilot in East Germany in 1959. He was amongst the first group of cosmonauts selected in 1960 and flew two space missions: as Pilot of Voskhod 2 in 1965 and in 1975 as Commander of Soyuz 19 during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. In 1966 he was appointed Commander of the lunar training group and would have been the first Soviet cosmonaut on the moon. He became Deputy Director of the Gargarin Cosmonaut Centre and was promoted to the rank of major general. He is currently vice-president of Russia's Alpha Bank.