Born in Guantánamo province in 1942, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez went on to become the first Latin American and the first Cuban to fly in space in 1980. His spacesuit is preserved at a national museum in Havana. Tamayo Méndez was orphaned as an infant and adopted by Rafael Tamaya and Esperanza Méndez.
After the Cuban revolution, Tamayo completed an aviation technician course and went on to train in aerial combat in the former Soviet Union. In 1978 he was selected to join the Intercosmos program and moved to Star City in Russia for training as a cosmonaut. The Soviet Union’s Intercosmos program allowed cosmonauts from other countries to participate in Soviet space missions.
On September 18, 1980, Tamayo, along with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, launched into space aboard Soyuz 38. After docking, Tamayo and Romanenko conducted experiments to find what caused space adaptation syndrome (SAS), and perhaps even find a cure, and on the crystallization of sucrose in microgravity, for the benefit of Cuba’s sugar industry. After 124 orbits of the Earth (lasting 7 days, 20 hours and 43 minutes), Tamayo and Romanenko returned home.
After his spaceflight, Tamayo went back to the Cuban air force. In 1982 he was appointed chairman of a military instruction program for Cuban youth. Tamayo eventually rose to the rank of brigadier general and served as the director of the Department of International Affairs for the Cuban armed forces and as the director of Cuba’s civil defense organization. In 1980 he became a member of the Cuban legislature, representing his home region of Guantánamo Province.
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