Guantánamo-born fighter pilot, Brigadier General Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, the first Cuban cosmonaut, and the first from Latin America and the Third World, turned 84 on January 29th and proudly wears the first-ever medal of Hero of the Republic of Cuba.
Tamayo orbited the Earth 128 times and, during his more than seven days in space, conducted 21 experiments developed by the Cuban Academy of Sciences.He served as a deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba, holds the Order of Lenin, and the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded in Moscow by the Soviet government, along with other decorations for his spaceflight on September 18, 1980.
This hero was born on January 29, 1942, in the city of Guantánamo. From a very young age, he was orphaned, along with his younger siblings Magda Caridad, Gloria Mirurgia, and Rafaelito. He began working at age 13 as a shoeshine boy and carpenter's assistant to support his family.
Living near the Naval Base, he watched American warplanes fly over the area, and it was there that his first aeronautical interests arose. However, he didn't aspire to study aviation because it required financial resources, and those who did were from the upper class.
With the Triumph of the Revolution, opportunities for study opened up for him. He responded to a call from the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces to young people to join the Youth Labor Columns and became part of the Association of Young Rebels in March 1959. He had the opportunity to go with the first brigade to the Sierra Maestra, climbed the Cinco Picos peaks, and at the end of December, they moved to Pinares de Mayarí. There, in December 1960, responding to a call to the Young Rebels, he aspired, in his early teens, to study aviation technology.
While at the school, a new call was issued, as they needed more students to fill the quota for those who were to go to the Soviet Union to study aviation, and he decided to pursue this career immediately after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In 1963, he was promoted in Cuba to the rank of lieutenant and appointed head of combat readiness for an air unit. In 1964, he joined the ranks of the Union of Young Communists, and in 1967, he was appointed squadron leader. That same year, he visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, joined the ranks of the Communist Party of Cuba, and married Mayra Lobaina, a native of Baracoa, in December 1967.
He attained the rank of first lieutenant in 1968 and a year later entered the General Máximo Gómez Higher Basic School of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, where he successfully completed advanced command and staff studies. Between 1971 and 1975, he served as Chief of Staff of a fighter aviation brigade.
In 1972, he was promoted to the rank of sub-captain, in 1973 to major, and two years later to commander. He was then appointed by the high command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces as deputy commander of a large air unit. In 1976, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He is an instructor pilot and has held the rank of first class since 1968.
In 1978, he was selected to join the Intercosmos Program and moved to the Star Village in the Soviet Union, where, alongside Soviet space veterans, he received the necessary training for the joint flight aboard Soyuz 38, commanded by Yuri Romanenko, colonel, cosmonaut, and Hero of the Soviet Union.
On September 18, 1980, the carrier rocket that would place Soyuz 38 into orbit launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The joint Soviet-Cuban crew of Yuri V. Romanenko and Arnaldo Tamayo flew to and from the Salyut 6 orbital complex. There, they met with the resident crew, cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Valery Ryumin, and conducted a week-long program of experiments, after which they returned to Earth on September 26, 1980. Tamayo was the first Cuban to ascend into outer space.
He was elected to the National Assembly of People's Power on April 18, 2018, at the Constituent Session of the IX Legislature, held at the Havana Convention Center. He is president of the Cuba-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Group and the Cuba-Russia Friendship Association. From 1981 to 1982, he was president of the Patriotic-Military Education Society (SEPMI), which was dissolved in early 1990. In addition to his work as a legislator, he held important positions in the Revolutionary Armed Forces and is currently a brigadier general in the reserves.