Sixteen times the dawn
Forty five years ago the Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez traveled through space: the first Latin American to see our planet at a height of more than 100 kilometers.
Yélidis Remón Vega | internet@granma.cu
Nieves Molina Fleites | internet@granma.cu
September, 2025
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Of course: there was always room and time to play, even though I had to work from age ten or eleven. The truth is that “mom Mariana” needed to be helped somehow because she had to deal with three orphan grandkids with just a small pension. Arnaldo worked on anything from shining shoes to delivering pamphlets showing which pharmacies were open. Then, when a little bit older, he became an apprentice carpenter -an expert maker of “luxury furniture” and with the pieces of leftover wood he was allowed to make mops and hangers to sell. «And, in that way, whatever else that came as needed».
«In those days there was a huge school delay». When the Revolution triumphed, he was in grade eight, but he was 16 years old. After, «Fidel created the Rebel Youth Association (Asociación de Jóvenes Rebeldes (AJR)» and many of those who had no future prior to 1959 got in there (into AJR)».
A few months later, thanks to AJR, the «Youth Brigades for Revolutionary Work» were formed and he had to climb Turkino Peak five times and «help the campesinos in the building and maintenance of schools, roads and more…».
But, «as Fidel visión for AJR was always that AJR would provide the future cadres for the armed forces and other Security organizations», AJR started to offer courses. Arnaldo, who had lived all his life flying over, raised his hand when they talked about piloting jets.
He had not idea that he carried congenital mild astigmatism, reason why he would not approve the required medical standard for the course, but desirous of remaining in the field he took a course of aviation technician, he would not be able to fly the beasts, but, at least he would tithe them. After two months in the Soviet Union, some of the students who were to be pilots ended up, because of falls, sickness and other reasons he cannot remember, out of the game. They reviewed his application and medical again, and Arnaldo was admitted in the pilot course. The genetic astigmatism was not that serious and he could at least fly for «ten to fifteen years».
Making mistakes and «I was not ashamed of my vocabulary», he learned Russian. Nevertheless he became «familiar with the terms of defense of our skies» in Cuba.
When the call for a Cosmonaut arrived, he was chief of the air brigade in a base in Santa Clara and lieutenant colonel. Exams and preparations completed, he was selected for training together with José Armando López Falcón: «he was my reserve and I was his».
A year later they completed character analysis and selected a similar partner for him: Yuri Romanenko. José Armando had a similar partner. Both teams were to receive the same training, polish the same skills, nobody knew clearly which of the two teams will fly.
The training was hard. Thankfully his wife and two children were there with him, «to make life a bit easier».
Forty eight hours before the flight, the news came: «Tamayo and Romanenko» will be going. Nothing was said about the reasons for this.
There were few certainties. At 11:13 p.m. of September 18th, 1980, from the Baikonur, Kazakhstan cosmodrome, then part of the Soviet Union, they departed into space aboard the Soyuz-38.
Maybe, Arnaldo was afraid, he did not say this. He prefers to share that he thought about Guantánamo, of his first years flying, of Cuba the homeland: that homeland that became small at more than a hundred kilometers of height, but there is no distance that in the soul make it less or disappear. That, no, never.
The cosmos received pieces of Cuba: a small sphere with sand from Girón Beach, the book "History will absolve me," of Fidel, and the "Montecristi Manifesto," signed by José Martí and Máximo Gómez– in two small books, also many commemorative medals, a seed of Royal Palm (Palma Real) that today is a more than 40 year old tree in La Demajagua, in Cuba, also «the flag from Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the one from Narciso López», together with a Polimite from Baracoa that ended at the Museum of Decorative Art (Museo de Arte Decorativo) and a poem by Nicolás Guillén and the one from Martí that says:
I want to give myself to the spaces/Where one lives in peace, and with a mantle/Of light, in intoxicating joy swollen,/On the white clouds he walks,/And where Dante and the stars live.
(A los espacios entregarme quiero / Donde se vive en paz, y con un manto / De luz, en gozo embriagador henchido, / Sobre las nubes blancas se pasea, / Y donde Dante y las estrellas viven.)
Also, a caricature of René de la Nuez, a cigar, ten post stamps and ten envelopes posted at «the orbital station as proof of its going to the Cosmos».
They also had 21 experiments on board ,mainly «Medical-Biological and Technical-Scientifical», to be completed at the orbital station Saliut-6–Soyuz-37, together with cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Valeri Riumin. Because «going to the Cosmos is not flying for flying sake; it is expensive and it has to provide some economic value».
Until the coupling, Soyuz-38 was at a height of about «170 kilometers and going at 29 000 km per hour», like a satellite orbiting Earth. Thus, connecting with another space body was very much like "finding a needle in the Ocean". But it happened.
Arnaldo was smiling then, like he always smiles, this has never changed. In coupling they had completed at least «80 percent of their mission, because if coupling fails you have to return immediately».
His body needed three days to adapt to the change. There was nausea, dizziness, insomnia, lack of appetite…«Here on Earth the heart pumps blood to the end of our feet. When there is no gravity, the body tries to continue pumping blood as if it would be on Earth but there is no need for it». For this reason the veins of his fase were swollen: «the head is closer to the heart».
To sleep he found a piece in the ceiling and there, «with a sleeping bag», was «relaxed». The little time left he used taking pictures of space. He knew he would probably never see it like this again.
He remembers that water makes a ball when outside any recipient; and, that any solid they ate came as puree, inside tubes similar to the ones that carry dental paste. It was during this trip that his vice for tea became consolidated «any herbal tea except marihuana», and generally taken «middle morning and middle afternoon».
He was in space for a bit less than eight days. In that spaceship he made 128 trips around our planet and saw day and night 16 times every 24 Earth hours.
When he returned, his life had changed: he was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, the first Latin American travelling to space. They completed 72 hours of quarantine and many medical analyses, met their families and their Russian neighbours filled their home, the return to Cuba and official Greetings, the trip through Havana with Fidel and Romanenko in a convertible car, «the people in the streets, the shouting, the music, the party»...
There were six months of trips all over the country, visits to schools, ministries, work centers, stories and craziness, «I had to be careful of everything I did, many eyes were on me».
He never again piloted a plane, «we are not going to allow something like what happened to Yuri Gagarin to happen to you. Those jet planes are dangerous and we have to protect you. You can fly, as a passenger». Today he is an adviser for the Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry. I should have been retired but, «what am I going to do at home?».
He wrote the book a Cuban in Cosmos because of the insistence of Commander Almeida, who often said: «What are you waiting for to write Tamayo? Would you do it when you are very old and can no longer remember anything? Are others going to come and write what you felt, write kid!».
That kid who threw stones at the American planes had no idea that he would pilot fighter jets, and much less that he would see our planet from space. If there is anything they could say about him is that «he is a first class joker», who believes that «having a sense of humor helps in life» and that every time he sees a plane: «listen, I drool»…
Translation NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)
