The 44 Non-Soviet Heroes Of The Soviet Union.

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Lieutenant General Pham Tuan, North Vietnam, Cosmonaut, 31/7/1980, #11444
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North Vietnams HSU

Born on February 14, 1947, in Quoc Tuan, Vietnam.
Before he became a cosmonaut, Tuan served in the Vietnamese army.
On 23 July, 1980 one-time water buffalo herder Lieutenant General Pham Tuan was blasted into space on board a Soviet Soyuz 37 spacecraft.
Hailed as the Third World's first cosmonaut and the first non-Warsaw
Pact cosmonaut, Lieutenant Tuan was instantly elevated to the status of national hero.
During his time in orbit, cosmonaut Tuan performed experiments on melting of mineral samples in microgravity and plant experiments on azolla. Tuan also photographed Vietnam from orbit for the purpose of mapping.
Back on Earth Lieutenant Tuan was lauded with party and state honours, including one of the highest accolades of the Eastern Bloc, Hero of the Soviet Union.
Ret. 31.07.1980
During the United States' Chistmas 1972 bombing campaign over North Vietnam, Lieutenant Tuan was the first Vietnamese fighter pilot to shoot down a giant B-52 bomber.

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Lt. Colonel Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, Cuba, Cosmonaut, 26/9/1980, #11445
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Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez was born on January 29, 1942, in Guantanamo, Cuba. Before he became an cosmonaut, Tamayo-Mendez Worked as a shoe-shine boy and vegetable seller, then as an apprentice carpenter; became an anti-Batista activist and rebel.
Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, he joined the army and enrolled in the Rebeldo Technical Institute; trained as an aviation technician, then pilot; (04.61-05.62) completed 12-month training at Yeisk Higher AF School, Soviet Union for the Mig-15.At the age of 19.
During the "October Crisis" of (1962), he made twenty patrol missions.
In 1963 he is promoted to lieutenant, and in 1967 as Squadron commander he visits Vietnam.
From 1969 he studied in the Academy "Maximum Go'mez". During 4 years (1971-75) he is Chief of staff of the Brigade of Aviation of Santa Clara. In 1975 he is Commander and Instructional Pilot. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1976. In March of 1978 he travels to the USSR to train as a cosmonaut, and selected for the "Intercosmos". Soviet space program.
Tamayo-Mendez became an cosmonaut in 1978. He became the first Hispanic in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 38 in 1980. He spent 8 days aboard the Salyut 6 space station.
Tamayo-Mendez returned to Air Force duties following the completion of his only spaceflight. More recently, he has served as director of Cuba's civil defence organisation.
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A FOOTNOTE FROM HAVANA

In September of 1980 a Cuban "guest cosmonaut", Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez, was launched aboard the "Soyuz 38" capsule. After his successful flight, he received a hero’s welcome back in Havana.He was Awarded with the first Title "Hero of the Republic of Cuba".
Fidel Castro gave a moving speech, in which he described his visit to the Cosmonaut Training Center in Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City). He had been greatly impressed by the faithful reproduction of Yuri Gagarin’s office, where, on the eve of their space missions, cosmonauts go to meditate. In a continuing tradition, they leave on Gagarin's desk a letter in which they pledge to honor and uphold the great tradition of valor of the soviet cosmonauts who have preceded them. The office is exactly how it was at the time of Gagarin’s death on March 27, 1968: his notes are still on the desk, his appointment book lies open on the table, his uniform hangs from the clothes-stand, all the clocks are stopped at the exact hour of his accident.
Castro went on to describe another room, that he called the "room of martyrs". Access to this room is strictly controlled. On the walls of the room are the photographs of all the cosmonauts who have given their lives in the course of the soviet space program. Castro was deeply moved by the display of heroism presented in this very special shrine; he added: "Many are the heroes who sacrificed their lives at the beginning of the space age!"

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Major General Gurragcha Zhugderdemidiyn, Mongolia, Cosmonaut, 30/3/1981, #11454?
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Zhugderdemidiyn Gurragcha was born on 5th December, 1947, in the Gurvan-Bulak settlement of Bulgan Province, in the family of a cattle-breeder. He graduated from a military school of aircraft technicians in the Soviet Union. In 1972 he was enrolled at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. After graduating from the Academy, he worked as an aircraft equipment engineer in an air squadron of the Mongolian People's Army. In 1978, Jugderdemidiyn Gurragchaa started training at Gagarin cosmonauts' training centre and completed a course of training under the Intercosmos programme.
He is married with one child.
Selected for the Intercosmos programm on 01.03.1978.
Ret. 30.03.1981

Space flights:
Soyuz 39 (Research Cosmonaut)

Space flight experience:
7 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes, 3 seconds

Aeronautic engineer and later Deputy Chief of central board of defense. Chief of a scientific institute in Ulan Bator; currently Mongolian Sectretary of Defence.

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Air Fleet Gen Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, Rumania, Cosmonaut, 22/5/1981, #11455?

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Dumitru Dorin Prunariu, born on September 27, 1952 in Brasov, Romania, graduated from the Physics and Mathematics high school in Brasov in 1971 and in 1976 from the Polytechnica University in Bucharest obtaining a degree in Aerospace Engineering.

D. Prunariu begun his career being employed as a MSc. Eng. at "IAR - Brasov", an aircraft industry facility, prior to enrolling in the Romanian Air Force Officers Training School in 1977. He was selected for spaceflight training in 1978 as a part of the Intercosmos Program. Obtaining the maximum marks during three years of preparation he was selected for a joint space flight with Cosmonaut Leonid Popov. Starting on May 14, 1981 they completed an eight- day space mission on board Soyuz-40 and the Salyut-6 space laboratory where they completed scientific experiments in the fields of astrophysics, space radiation, space technologies, space medicine and biology.
He became the first Romanian to fly in space.
Since 1990 he has been the Director of the civil aviation program of Romania and since 1998 President of ROSA (Romanian Space Agency). He is the author of several books regarding space technology and space flight.
now a career diplomat. he is a Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering.

Awards:
1981 - Awarded the Title of "Hero of S.R.Romania"
1981 - Order "Golden Star as a Hero of the Soviet Union for the brave accomplishment of the first Soviet-Romanian space flight"
1984 - awarded the "Hermann Oberth Gold Medal" by the German Rocket Society "Hermann Oberth - Wernher von Braun"
2000 - Grand Officer of the Order "Steaua României" (Star of Romania)

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Brig. Gen Jean-loup Chrétien, France, Cosmonaut, 2/7/1982, #?
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Born August 20, 1938, in the town of La Rochelle, France. Married to Amy Kristine Jensen of New Canaan, Connecticut. Five children (one deceased). Hobbies include skiing in Winter and sailing in Summer. He also enjoys golf, wind-surfing, car-rallying and woodworking. In addition, he plays the church organ, and took an electric one with him during his first stay in Star City, Russia. His father, Jacques, was a Navy sailor, and his mother, the former Marie-Blanche Coudurier, was a housewife. Her parents, Nels and Betty Jensen, reside in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Chrétien was educated at L'Ecole communale a Ploujean, the College Saint-Charles a Saint-Brieuc, and the Lycee de Morlaix. He entered L'Ecole de l' Air (the French Air Force Academy) at Salon deProvence in 1959, and graduated in 1961, receiving a master's degree in aeronautical engineering.

He is a member of the board of the Accademie de l' Air et de l' Espace, and the French Air and Space Museum. Counselor for Space Activities (Manned) to the President of Dassault Aviation. Counselor to the President of Air France. Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the Association of Space Explorers.

Chrétien received his fighter pilot/pilot-engineer wings in 1962, after one year of training on Mystere-4's. He was promoted to Lieutenant, and joined the 5th Fighter Squadron in Orange, in the Southeast of France, where he served for seven years as a fighter pilot in an operational squadron flying Super-Mystere B2's and then Mirage III interceptors. In 1970, he was assigned to the French test pilots school, EPNER (Ecole du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception), then served as a test pilot at the Istres Flight Test Center for seven years. During that time he was responsible for supervising the flight test program for the Mirage F-1 fighter. In 1977-78, he was appointed Deputy Commander of the South Air Defense Division in Aix en Provence, and he served in this position until his selection as a cosmonaut in June 1980. Chrétien remained a French Air Force officer but was placed on detachment to CNES for his space flight activities ensuring his availability for future flights with the Shuttle (NASA), Mir (Soviet Union) or Spacelab (ESA). He has accumulated over 6000 hours of flying time in various aircraft, including Russia's Tupolev 154, MIG 25, and Sukoi 26 and 27. A veteran of three space flights, Chrétien was the 10th Intercosmos cosmonaut, and has spent a total of 43 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes, 42 seconds in space, including an EVA of 5 hours, 57 minutes.

In April 1979, the Soviet Union offered France the opportunity to fly a cosmonaut on board a joint Soviet-French space flight, along the same lines as the agreement to fly non-Soviet cosmonauts from member countries of the Intercosmos program. The offer was accepted, and France began a cosmonaut selection program in September 1979. Chrétien was one of two finalists named on June 12, 1980. He started training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in September 1980. The following year he was named as the research-cosmonaut for the prime crew of the Soyuz T-6 mission.

During 1990-93, Chrétien participated in Buran spacecraft pilot training at the Moscow Joukovski Institute. He has also flown the Tupolev 154 and MIG 25 aircraft, flying simulators equivalent to the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA).

Awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Recipient of the Order of Lenin; the Order of the Red Banner of Labor; Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur (Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honor); Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Knight of the National Order of Merit); Titulaire de la Médaille de l'Aéronautique (Holder of the Aeronautics Medal), and honorary citizenship of Arkal

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Chancellor Erich Honecker, Germany (GDR), 25/8/1982, #11480?
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Born in the Western German Saar region on August 25, 1912, Honecker was a communist his entire life. The son of a politically militant coal miner, he joined the youth organization of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) at age 10. He was trained as a roofer, but at age 17 joined the KPD and a year later went to Moscow to study at the International Lenin School. Upon his return in 1931 he became an official in the KPD's youth branch. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Honecker joined the underground resistance but was arrested in 1935. In 1937 the Nazis sentenced him to 10 years of hard labor, and he spent the rest of the Nazi era in captivity, often in solitary confinement.

At the end of the war he went to Berlin and joined up with German Communist activists brought in from Moscow under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht. Their task was to prepare for KPD political dominance in postwar Germany and to assist the Soviet occupation authorities in running their zone of occupation. Honecker was in charge of various KPD youth organizations, and in 1946 he also became a founding member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), composed of the KPD and the Social Democrats of the Soviet zone. He was a member of the SED leadership from the start, rising to candidate member of the Politburo in 1950 and full member in 1958. In 1961 he was in charge of the building of the Berlin Wall.

In 1971, when East-West relations relaxed somewhat and West Germany under Willy Brandt pursued its new Eastern policy, Honecker led a group of SED leaders in an attempt to depose Walter Ulbricht as party leader. With Moscow's support Honecker became the new leader of East Germany. During his near-two decades in office, he made the most of West Germany's eagerness to improve relations between the two German states by way of economic cooperation, loans, and buying the right of East German citizens to move to the West. But where West German politicians hoped ultimately to overcome the effects of the division of their country, Honecker used the situation to prop up his own regime. Thanks in part to large sums of West German money, the East German economy for a long time appeared rather robust, and the standard of living of the population reasonable.

During the 1980s, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began his reforms, Honecker resisted the call for change in East Germany. In the fall of 1989 this led to his replacement by his Politburo colleagues. None of this managed to prevent the collapse of the East German state a few months later. From 1989 until 1993, an ailing Honecker was constantly on the run from German prosecutors to avoid accounting for his responsibility in the killings along the East-West German border during the Cold War. He was eventually released and allowed to join his daughter in Chile. A staunch believer in communism until the very end, Honecker died of liver cancer at age 81 on May 29, 1994.

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Head of State Gustav Husák, Czechoslovakia, 9/1/1983, #11490
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Gustav Husak was born in Bratislava in 1913. He trained as a lawyer and in 1933 joined the Communist Party in Slovakia. During the Second World War he was a member of the Czech Resistance movement and in 1944 was elected onto the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
After the war Husak worked for the Slovak Communist Party but in 1951 was imprisoned for having dissent political views. Convicted as an opponent of Joseph Stalin Husak was imprisoned from 1954 to 1960.
Husak eventually proved his political loyalty and in 1963 was allowed to work for the Academy of Sciences. Five years later he became First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party.
In January 1968 the Czechoslovak Party Central Committee passed a vote of no confidence in Antonin Novotny and he was replaced by Alexander Dubcek as party secretary. Husak, a Dubcek supporter, became his deputy.
During what became known as the Prague Spring, Dubcek announced a series of reforms. This included the abolition of censorship and the right of citizens to criticize the government. Newspapers began publishing revelations about corruption in high places. This included stories about Novotny and his son. On 22nd March 1968, Novotny resigned as president of Czechoslovakia. He was now replaced by a Dubcek supporter, Ludvik Svoboda.
In April 1968 the Communist Party Central Committee published a detailed attack on Novotny's government. This included its poor record concerning housing, living standards and transport. It also announced a complete change in the role of the party member. It criticized the traditional view of members being forced to provide unconditional obedience to party policy. Instead it declared that each member "has not only the right, but the duty to act according to his conscience."
The new reform programme included the creation of works councils in industry, increased rights for trade unions to bargain on behalf of its members and the right of farmers to form independent co-operatives.
Aware of what happened during the Hungarian Uprising Dubcek announced that Czechoslovakia had no intention of changing its foreign policy. On several occasions he made speeches where he stated that Czechoslovakia would not leave the Warsaw Pact or end its alliance with the Soviet Union.
In July 1968 the Soviet leadership announced that it had evidence that the Federal Republic of Germany was planning an invasion of the Sudetenland and asked permission to send in the Red Army to protect Czechoslovakia. Alexander Dubcek, aware that the Soviet forces could be used to bring an end to Prague Spring, declined the offer.
On 21st August, 1968, Czechoslovakia was invaded by members of the Warsaw Pact countries. In order to avoid bloodshed, the Czech government ordered its armed forces not to resist the invasion. Alexander Dubcek and Ludvik Svoboda were taken to Moscow and soon afterwards they announced that after "free comradely discussion" that Czechoslovakia would be abandoning its reform programme.
In April 1969 Husak was chosen to replace Dubcek as party secretary. Over the next few years he purged the government of Dubcek supporters and re-established Communist Party discipline. He also introduced moderate reforms and a new federalist constitution.
In 1987 Husak opposed the Perestroika policy of Mikhail Gorbachev. When it became clear that the overwhelming majority of people in Czechoslovakia supported Gorbachev, he resigned as general secretary.
After the collapse of communism government in November 1989, Husak was expelled from the Communist Party.
Gustav Husak died in 1991.

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Sqn.Ldr Rakesh Sharma, India, Cosmonaut, 11/4/1984, #11510 or #11557?

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Born on 13th January 1949 in Patiala, Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma was a test pilot in the IAF. He was selected on 20th September 1982 to become a cosmonaut. In 1984 he became the first citizen of India to go into space when he flew aboard the Russian rocket Soyuz T-11. The take-off from Baikonur in Moscow on April 2, 1984 was a high point in Indo-Soviet relations.
The Soyuz T-11 docked and transfered the three member Soviet-Indian international crew which also included the Ship's Commander Y.V. Malyshev and Flight Engineer G.M. Strekalov (USSR) to the SALYUT-7 Orbital Station. The crew spent seven days aboard the Salyut space station during which they conducted scientific and technical studies which included 43 experimental sessions. Sharma used Yoga techniques to combat the debilitating effects of weightlessness. His work was mainly in the fields of bio-medicine and remote sensing

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Muhammed Ahmed Faris, Syria, Cosmonaut, 30/7/1987, #?
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Syrian Pilot Cosmonaut. Born 26 May 1951 in Aleppo, Syria.
First Syrian to fly in space on the Soyuz TM-3 on July 22 1987.

Faris Spaceflight Log.

22 July 1987 - Soyuz TM-3 Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-3, Mir EP-1, Mir EO-2, Mir LD-1.

Manned three crew. Transported to the Mir orbital space station a Soviet-Syrian crew comprising cosmonauts A S Viktorenko, A P Aleksandrov and M A Faris to conduct joint research and experiments with cosmonauts Y Romanenko and A Laveykin. Maneuvered from initial 231 X 217 km orbit to Mir's 311 X 359 km orbit. Docked with rear Mir port at 3:30 GMT 24 July. Undocked with rear port 30 July and docked to forward port.

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30 July 1987 - Landing of Soyuz TM-2 Assignment: Return Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-3, Mir EP-1, Mir EO-2, Mir LD-1.
Undocked from Mir at 8:34 GMT on 29 July. The Orbital Module was jettisoned before retrofire and left in a 308 X 356 orbit. Soyuz TM-2 landed at 01:05 GMT with the crew of Faris, Laveykin and Viktorenko aboard.

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Stasi- General Erich Mielke, Germany (DDR), 25/12/1987, #11565
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A lifelong communist who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, Mielke was jailed shortly after the collapse of East Germany and reunification in 1990.
He was sentenced in Berlin to six years in prison in 1993 for the murder of two policemen in 1931. However he was freed after two years when he was diagnosed as senile.
But Mielke escaped prosecution for his leadership of the Stasi, including charges related to shooting deaths at the Berlin Wall, because of poor health and senility.
In 1997, another Berlin court refused to give him back DM380,000 ($180,000) blocked in a bank account since 1990.
The court ruled that he had misused his privilege and power to amass the money while running the Stasi.
At its height, the Stasi employed 85,000 agents and over 100,000 informers to oversee almost every aspect of life in communist East Germany.
Born in Berlin in 1907, Mielke became a full member of the Communist Party in 1925 and worked as a reporter for the party's newspaper, Red Flag.
He became a member of the party's paramilitary force, leading to his participation in the August 1931 demonstration in Berlin during which the two policemen were shot and killed.
Wanted for the killings, Mielke escaped to Belgium. He went on to the Soviet Union where he attended the elite International Lenin School in Moscow in the mid-1930s.
Mielke served in 1936 in the International Brigade that fought in the Spanish Civil War against General Franco, whose forces triumphed and set up a fascist dictatorship.
In 1940, Mielke returned to the Soviet Union and then to Soviet-occupied eastern Germany in 1945. He helped organise police in the Soviet-occupied zone and became deputy chief of state security when East Germany was founded in 1950.
He took over as minister in 1957, a post he held until the Stalinist regime collapsed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
He went on trial for shootings at the Wall along with East Germany's last Communist leader, Erich Honecker, in 1992. But the case against Mielke was dropped because he was also on trial for the 1931 police killings, and was later declared too senile to follow the proceedings.
The case against Honecker was also dropped for health reasons, and he died in exile in Chile in 1994.
Mielke lived with his wife in eastern Berlin until March, when he was admitted to a home for the elderly.


On May 26th 2000, Erich Mielke, who for years had headed the East German secret police, or Stasi, died aged 92 years in an East Berlin old people's home. Mielke was probably the most hated man in the German Democratic Republic (GDR—East Germany). History will record him as one of the greatest Stalinist criminals, whose name will be mentioned in the same breath as Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor at the Moscow trials, or Stalin's secret service bosses Yezhov , Yagoda and Beria.