John Craven and the Newsround team begin a series of special news reports.
With only minutes to go to the planned moment of link-up between Soyuz and Apollo, space correspondent Reg Turnill in America, and John Craven in the Newsround studio, present a live report on the background to this historic meeting in space.
Why did Russia and America decide to co-operate instead of competing with each other? What is the future for space travel now?