INTERCOSMOS T-Shirt

Interkosmos (Russian: Интеркосмос) was a Soviet space program, designed to give nations on friendly terms with the Soviet Union access to manned and unmanned space missions. The program included the allied east-European nations of the Warsaw Pact / CoMEcon, and other socialist/communist nations like Afghanistan, Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam. In addition non-aligned nations such as India and Syria did participate, and even part-time NATO-member France contributed to Interkosmos, which is a reflection of the politics during the Cold War.[1][2] Following the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, there were even talks between NASA and Intercosmos in the 1970s about a "Shuttle-Salyut" program to fly Space Shuttle missions to a Salyut space station, with later talks in the 1980s even considering flights of the future Soviet shuttles from the Buran programme to a future US space station.[3] While the Shuttle-Salyut program never materialized during the existence of the Soviet Intercosmos program, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Shuttle–Mir Program would follow in these footsteps and pave the way to the International Space Station. Begun in April 1967 with unmanned research satellite missions, the first manned mission occurred in February 1978.[2] Interkosmos missions enabled 14 non-Soviet cosmonauts to participate in Soyuz space flights between 1978 and 1988. The program was responsible for sending into space the first citizen of a country other than the USA or USSR; Vladimír Remek of Czechoslovakia.[1] Interkosmos also resulted in the first black and Hispanic person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez of Cuba, and the first Asian person in space, Phạm Tuân of Vietnam. Of the countries involved, only Bulgaria sent two cosmonauts in space.