Astronaut whose space handshake with a Soviet helped thaw Cold War

In 1962, he was selected for NASA’s second group of aspiring astronauts and flew the first two of his four space flights during the series of 10 Gemini missions – a two-man spacecraft in which he played a pioneering role in learning orbit rendezvous techniques to enable vehicles to dock in space.

Unlike those on the preceding one-man Mercury flights, the Gemini astronauts had computers enabling them to control and manoeuvre independently of ground control. As backup commander, Stafford had to take over the second of these flights, Gemini 9, when the prime crew were killed in an air crash.

Stafford’s fellow crew member, Gene Cernan, made history with a two-hour spacewalk, and the new controls enabled the pair to splash down less than a kilometre from the recovery ship. Stafford then headed mission planning and software development for Project Apollo, playing a leading role in organising the series of missions that made the final moon landings possible.

Commanding Apollo 10 during the final rehearsal, Stafford undocked from Apollo and, with Cernan, flew the lunar module almost to the moon’s surface, returning eight hours later to make the first docking in lunar orbit with the parent spacecraft. There was no temptation for them to land, as they had insufficient fuel to take off again. During their return, with John Young piloting Apollo, the spacecraft reached 24,791 miles per hour (39,897 km/h), the highest speed attained by humans.

Following the moon landings Stafford was appointed head of the astronauts, responsible for flight crew training and selection. In this capacity, he played a major role in plans for a joint Soviet-US flight.

This was part of an agreement on the peaceful exploration of outer space made by president Nixon and Soviet prime minister Alexei Kosygin in May 1972. It suited both superpowers, filling the gap between the end of the moon race and the next developments in space exploration.

The two crews were selected and announced two years ahead of the 1975 flight date, the first time Russia had named cosmonauts before they had actually flown. Both countries picked veterans since diplomacy, as well as experience, was required: Tom Stafford for the US with Deke Slayton, the only one of the original seven astronauts who had never flown, and Vance Brand, with years of backup experience. General Leonov, who had made the world’s first spacewalk and had established his own power base in Russia, was named to command Soyuz, supported by Valeri Kubasov.

For the Americans, the first shock was that they would not dock as expected with a Salyut space station, but directly with the Soyuz spacecraft, with much less opportunity to penetrate Soviet space secrets. Many thought the docking would never take place, especially when Tom Stafford told the Russians that the mission would have to be cancelled after they blocked his requests to go to Baikonur in Kazakhstan to inspect the Soyuz.

This alarmed his NASA bosses since 4,000 jobs depended on the mission. But the Soviets also needed it to go ahead, and the next day, Leonov threw an arm around Stafford and said: “What is the problem? Of course you can go to Baikonur.”

The Soviets then produced their first-ever press kit – at 204 pages long, it was twice the size of NASA’s – and a simultaneous countdown of spacecraft 16,000km apart began. Despite consternation when Deke Slayton told a news conference that the Soviets had “a lousy political system” and he wanted no part of it, the two-day docking finally took place.

It was not without some confusion, however, with Leonov rebuking Soviet Mission Control for their impatience, telling them: “We are preparing to receive our guests.” President Ford talked to all five spacemen, but congratulations from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had to be read by a Russian television newscaster.

Leonov, a talented artist, lightened up the political bickerings by drawing and showing to the cameras his caricatures of the American astronauts – including one of the bald Stafford as if he had a full head of hair – and the friendships they established played a major part in the subsequent gradual thaw in East-West relationships.

For Nasa, however, the celebrations at the end of a successful mission were marred by a mishap during re-entry when the exhausted American astronauts failed to operate some switches correctly, with the result that poisonous gases were sucked into the spacecraft. All three suffered blistered lungs and were in hospital in Honolulu for a fortnight.

When he left Nasa in 1975, Stafford began a new and varied career. He assumed command of the USAF Flight Test Centre at Edwards, California, with the rank of major general. Three years later, he was promoted to lieutenant general and sent to USAF headquarters, Washington, DC, as deputy chief of staff, research and development.

There, he initiated work on the F117A stealth fighter and on the technology that led to the revolutionary B2 stealth bomber and was a defence adviser to President Reagan. By 1990, he was chairing a committee advising on how to achieve president George H W Bush’s vision of returning to the moon, followed by the exploration of Mars – a so-called “road map” for the ensuing 30 years of the US’s manned space-flight programme.

Thomas Stafford was awarded many honours, and the airport in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma, was named after him.

With his first wife, the former Faye L Shoemaker, Stafford had two daughters. He later married the former Linda Ann Dishman of Oklahoma, with whom he had two sons.

The Telegraph, London