SOVIET INTERKOSMOS SPACE EXPLORATION FROM THE 80s Key Ring

A Retro style Premium Round Keychain with the iconic 1980's illustration of the space age Soviet program Interkosmos. It has the flags of the Soviet Union and Cuba. Available in all sizes. Visit our Store for more Space Age Gifts and other articles. "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. 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. (...) 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. 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." (text from Wikipedia).