In August 1988, as Soviet troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war, Abdul Ahad Momand became the first Afghan to travel into space. An air-force pilot chosen for the Soviet Union’s Interkosmos programme, Momand spent nine days aboard the Mir space station, conducting experiments, photographing Afghanistan and broadcasting a message of peace to the country below.

His mission was an extraordinary personal achievement—but it was also an act of Cold War theatre. Moscow presented the flight as proof of friendship and scientific cooperation between the Soviet and Afghan peoples, even as its military occupation was ending and the Soviet-backed government in Kabul faced an uncertain future.

In this episode, we tell the remarkable story of the Afghan cosmonaut: from his childhood to his journey beyond Earth, his tr ...