They were heroes of a special kind. They came from the steppes, the sons of farmers, of factory floor women. Salt-of-the-earth, strapping young men, model husbands, who believed in communism with all their hearts. Bright futures lay ahead of them. In the name of the Inter-cosmos Program they were about to conquer space. The second they touched down, they were treated like pop stars and worshiped as heroes. And today? What do the heroes of socialism do without socialism?
Abdul Ahad Momand (born 1959) is a Afghan-German and former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first, and currently only, Afghan citizen to journey to outer space. He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard the Mir space station in 1988 as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut. He holds many records as an Afghan Astronaut. During this mission, Abdul Ahad Momand was the first cosmonaut to speak the Pashto language after he made a telephone call to Afghanistan, making it the fifth language to be officially spoken in space. He became the first Afghan citizen and the fourth Muslim to visit outer space, after Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, Muhammed Faris, and Musa Manarov.
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