Abdul Ahad Mohmand

In 1988, Abdul Ahad Momand became Afghanistan's first and only astronaut. From orbit, he called his mother, making Pashto the fourth language spoken in space. Below him, his nation was collapsing.

In 1988 the first and only Afghan astronaut, Ahad Momand, went into space. He spent a week on the Russian space station Mir and was welcomed back a hero. But civil war tore his country apart and Ahad fled with his family to Germany. A quarter of a century later, with his country still suffering violence, Ahad now wants to revisit his historic space mission. He travels first to Moscow, where he relives the joys and dangers of his flight, before returning to Afghanistan hoping to inspire a new generation of Afghans by telling his story once more.

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?