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Hungarian Space Travel

© Haragos Pal

In 1980 I was a schoolboy. In that spring the most important news was that a Hungarian astronaut (cosmonaut) visited the Solyut 6 space station and spent there eight days. It happened twenty-five years ago.

Within the framework of Intercosmos co-operation it became possible for member countries (socialist countries) to send a cosmonaut into space. The selection of the Hungarian cosmonauts began in May 1977 from the pilots at the Aviation Medicine Research and Test Institute of Kecskemét. Four of them remained in the shortlist as a result of tests, and later two of them, Bertalan Farkas and Béla Magyari were sent to the Soviet Union to prepare with their Soviet colleagues at the Gagarin Space Training Centre. Bertalan Farkas completed the training with Béla Magyari in the Soviet Union and only hours before the start was it decided who would go into space. In the end, one year later than planned, on 26 May 1980 Bertalan Farkas set off into space on board Soyuz 36, the first and so far only, Hungarian astronaut. Farkas's fellow cosmonaut was Valeri Kubasov.

The Hungarian mission was the fifth in the Intercosmos programme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercosmos. During the eight-day expedition the Soyuz 36 was docked to the Salyut 6 space station (Solyut-6, Soyuz-35, Soyuz-36 space complex http://www.aerospaceguide.net/spacestati... ) and carry out a one-week series of twelve Hungarian prepared scientific researches and experiments, the best known of which was on Interferon. Farkas had special Hungarian prepared foods with Hungarian tastes but of course in special dried and tube form. For the children of Hungary one evening Farkas read the nightly television Bedtime Story from space too. Farkas and Kubasov returned to Earth on 3 June, landing 140 km southeast of Dzheskasgan.

As for Bertalan Farkas, after the space flight he became a hero. In 1986 he graduated from the Faculty of Transport Engineering of the Technical University of Budapest. From 1986 he worked within the research group of the Intercosmos Council of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1995 he was promoted to brigadier as the deputy flight observer of the Hungarian Army. He served as military attaché to the United States between 1996 and 1997. Since 1997 he has been a retired brigadier. He is the co-owner of Atlant-Hungary Airline Company. http://www.friends-partners.org/partners... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertalan_Fa...

Also the Hungarian Post issued a special stamp for the 25th anniversary of the first Hungarian cosmonaut travelling into space. The stamp design shows the space ship with geographical motifs referring to the Carpathian Basin and Hungary in the background.

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