Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez: 38 yrs ago 1st Hispanic,1st African descendant,1st LatinAmerican in Orbit

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: The angel of light

Cuba is after Vietnam, so i am wondering where did you learn mathematics or were alphabetized ?

ROTFLOL.....

Do the danged list in Russian, you dope.

I do not mean any offence to yourself Jim (you bring great credibiltiy IMHO)

but when I saw you write ROTFLOL, I just thought



I only wish I had witnessed half of the achievements you have first hand, I doff my cap to your 6 languages also

a reply to: InhaleExhale

Ridicule Claims? Now I see that it was not a honest error after all, but lack of seriousness followed by incredible cynicism when the lie was exposed.

Afghanistan or Афганистан must appear in the very first place of the list of Soyuz flights if it might be written in alphabetical order in any of the two languages, either in English or in Russian.

March 2, 1978 Vladimír Remek Oldřich Pelčák Czechoslovakia Soyuz 28 Soyuz 28 Salyut 6
June 27, 1978 Mirosław Hermaszewski Zenon Jankowski Poland Soyuz 30 Salyut 6
August 26, 1978 Sigmund Sigmund Jähn Eberhard Köllner GDR Soyuz 31 Salyut 6
April 10, 1979 Georgi Ivanov Aleksandr Aleksandrov Bulgaria Soyuz 33 Salyut 6 (Docking failed)
May 26, 1980 Bertalan Farkas Béla Magyari Hungary Soyuz 36 Salyut 6
July 23, 1980 Phạm Tuân Bùi Thanh Liêm Vietnam Soyuz 37 Salyut 6
September 18, 1980 Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez José López Falcón Cuba Soyuz 38 Salyut 6
March 23, 1981 Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa Maidarjavyn Ganzorig Mongolia Soyuz 39 Salyut 6
May 14, 1981 Dumitru Prunariu Dumitru Dediu Romania Soyuz 40 Salyut 6
June 24, 1982 Jean-Loup Chrétien Patrick Baudry France Soyuz T-6 Soyuz T-6 Salyut 7
April 2, 1984 Rakesh Sharma Ravish Malhotra India Soyuz T-11 Salyut 7
July 22, 1987 Muhammed Ahmed Faris Munir Habib Habib Syria Soyuz TM-3 Mir
July 6, 1988 Aleksandr Aleksandrov Krasimir Stoyanov Bulgaria Soyuz TM-5 Mir
August 29, 1988 Abdul Ahad Mohmand Mohammad Dauran Ghulam Masum Afghanistan Soyuz TM-6 Mir
November 26, 1988 Jean-Loup Chrétien Michel Tognini France Soyuz TM-7 Mir

The fact is that it became the country before the last one in the Inter-cosmos chronologic list of flights, what shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the claim they were sending foreign cosmonauts in alphabetical ordering of countries is Absolutely False.

What predictions are you referring to ?

This thread has nothing to do with any prediction what so ever!!, it is about Historic facts of the Space race.

That also expose that your aggressive post is actually a personal attack against me and all the others a boycott maneuver against the threads just because I was who initiated it.

The Angel of Lightness

The claim was that the second group of six 'guest cosmonauts' was launched in lexicographical order. Now that you realize that 'Hungary' was spelled in cyrillic with a 'V-', you have conceded that. The follow-on guests, over a period of many years, were launched in the sequence of the political decisions to allow one-each on the Soyuz missions in the spare seats, with one repeat [Bulgaria] because the first mission failed.

The theme of this dispute lies with a claim that the presence of the guest-cosmonauts reflected some particularly generous sharing of spaceflight duties with qualified team members as an indicator of Soviet openness and social conscience, and not [my view] that they were cynical politically-inspired one-off stunts to impress a selected target audience, just as the first woman's flight had been.

The validity of the second theory [the one I favor] is that, as with any successful theory, it allowed a successful prediction which I made in print ['Spaceflight' magazine, London], that the Cuban pilot could well be selected from the Cuban mestizo population to exploit that particular minority status on the world stage. And that's just what happened.

I offered the lexicographical ordering of the second group of foreign guests as evidence for the 'public relations' nature of the program.

These were very effective stunts if the enthusiasm of your still falling for the original trick after so many years is any indication.

The depth of your research and the breadth of your enthusiasms do you credit, and I hope you participate in discussions here for many years to come. Many themes in this subject remain ambiguous or hazy, and passion is the first tool of any successful investigator. You have it, don't lose it, and please continue to share its fruits with the rest of us.

a reply to: The angel of light

Honestly your reply is extremely disrespectful to the feminine gender in general, it is not just against Valentina Tereshkova whose only sin was really to be a Soviet Citizen, she was even not really Russian but Bielorussian, at least in part.

How dare you be such a sexist pig. I mention tetas and all you can think about is Valentina Tereshkova .

If you haven't heard men and women can have tetas and both can be large and small, but no you had to automatically think about a women at the mere mention of tetas. Thats a very machismo testosterone sexist view you have there that is very demeaning to women.

Get your head out of the gutter and again why is race,color,height, etc is an accomplishment? Cuban Cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez certainly has many accomplishments being Cuban is not one of them.

a reply to: JimOberg
The theme of this dispute lies with a claim that the presence of the guest-cosmonauts reflected some particularly generous sharing of spaceflight duties with qualified team members as an indicator of Soviet openness and social conscience, and not (my view) that they were cynical politically-inspired one-off stunts to impress a selected target audience, just as the first woman's flight had been.



Mr Oberg,

First at all, to have a dispute it is needed at least two and I must be clear that for me this is not such a thing, it is just a civilized discussion on a topic that is certainly History of the Space exploration, I certainly welcome the fact that you have softened the exchange of ideas talking about just theories.

I am perfectly aware that the space race was used as a propaganda machine, but it was by both sides, not only the Russians did it , and it comes to my attention that with all the effort to defend civil rights in America they went ahead of us in to give opportunity to all people to enter in the exploration of space, that is a point I have not seen debunked here at all.

It took too much years for us to see that there were women, aborigines,Hebrews, Mulims, Asian, Hispanic or black people highly qualified to travel to the outer space too to do some meaningful research.

I want to remark that I left the door open various posts ago that you could have committed a kind of Honest Mistake by arriving so quickly to wrong conclusions, but It seems to me that you are still trying to make up instead to retire respectfully what it was said mistakenly.

The block of five foreign countries missions ( from April 10, 1979 to May 14, 1981) you happily commented to show a supposed 'Arbitrary Stunt' is even not correctly taken from the list of the program, there is a gap that correspond to Vietnam and it is between Bulgaria and Cuba by the way.

Proof the 'foreign guest cosmonaut' program was an arbitrary stunt is that the countries involved -- Hungary, Bulgaria, Cuba, Mongolia, and Romania -- were launched in perfect alphabetic order. JimOberg

Besides that the supposed alphabetical ordering is broken by the fact that in the time of the Intercosmos original mission Hungary didn't have that name at all, it was called in Hungarian Magyar Népköztársaság, That is Russian is Венгерская Народная Республика what transliterated in English is Vengerskaya Narodnaya Respublika.

Hungary therefore is Not in the correct place of the list according with a lexicographical order, must be located after Mongolia if we trust your claim.

Again with all respect, the fact that you decided to take a sample from the list of foreign countries invited to take part in the Intercosmos program extracting from it just the portion that seems to be arranged in Lexicographical ordering does Not mean that the criteria for selection of the cosmonauts in general was that, As your Claim clearly suggests, since your 'sample' is not representative at all of the population you are trying to characterize.

Before the sample that you took from the data you were trying to exhibit as a 'proof' of what you wanted to show there are the following countries( 2 of them never would have been launched before Cuba Куба) if we trust your claim :

- Czechoslovakia (Чехи-Словакия) March 2, 1978
- Polonia (Польша) June 27, 1978
- Germany , ( Германия) August 26, 1978 - the Only one that preceeds Cuba in Lexicographical ordering.

After that 'sample' used as a supposed 'proof' of your claim the countries that took part in strictly chronological ordering are:

- France (Франция, June 24, 1982)
- India (Индия)
- Syria (Сирия)- In lexicographical order must be before Cuba written in Cyrillic.
- Bulgaria (Болгария)
- Afghanistan (Афганистан) August 29, 1988 that must be in the first launched one according with your claim)
- France (Франция, November 26, 1988)

I am Not an author of books of Space exploration, but I am certainly a Statistician and I know when something is being used wrongly to arrive to biased conclusions.

I am concerned of this kind of lets say Honest mistake from your side, the reason I reject that theory is since it compromises objectivity into bring actual reliable information on the subject of discussion by the way, and well we are all aware that you have expertise in the topic so I think you also must be concerned on to be objective on claims.

Have a nice weekend

The Angel of Lightness

Whatever ....First Native American doesnt mean much either.

As a tribal member and employee, even we jockey for firsts amongst other tribes. We have John Bennett Herrington from ours, and 2 others from Cherokee and Osage. Then some of us say these people arent even majority blood quantum, then others say they arent full bloods, then it doesnt count.. on and on and on....

Whats the point?

As I wrote,

"A second group of six nations -- Bulgaria, Vietnam, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia, Romania -- were flown in lexicographal order"

that was not the order they were flown in, which was
Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia, Romania
which is lexicographal order in Russian cyrillic.

There were 6x5x4x3x2x1 different ways to arrange those countries, or 720 possible sequences.

The odds of hitting the actual lexicographical sequence by chance are 719 to 1.

There were no more groups of guest cosmonauts, all later
guest flights were selected and trained one at a time.

a reply to: JimOberg

Even assuming that there was a particular lot of country names arranged in lexicographical ordering, a sample of 5 names out of 16 as you are providing, it is clear that they were not using any preference based on racial or ethnic screening of the candidates to select them to fly to space as a criteria, they took good care of to do not open the possibility of to be accused later of any discriminatory treatment.

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: JimOberg

Even assuming that there was a particular lot of country names arranged in lexicographical ordering, a sample of 5 names out of 16 as you are providing, it is clear that they were not using any preference based on racial or ethnic screening of the candidates to select them to fly to space as a criteria, they took good care of to do not open the possibility of to be accused later of any discriminatory treatment.

The Angel of Lightness

It's 6 names, not randomly picked by me -- it was THE ENTIRE SECOND 'GUEST' CANDIDATES GROUP.

719 to 1.
...and where is the evidence for your earlier allegations that anybody else used ethnic or racial screening in astronaut selection?

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: JimOberg

Even assuming that there was a particular lot of country names arranged in lexicographical ordering, a sample of 5 names out of 16 as you are providing, it is clear that they were not using any preference based on racial or ethnic screening of the candidates to select them to fly to space as a criteria, they took good care of to do not open the possibility of to be accused later of any discriminatory treatment.

The Angel of Lightness

It's 6 names, not randomly picked by me -- it was THE ENTIRE SECOND 'GUEST' CANDIDATES GROUP.

719 to 1.
...and where is the evidence for your earlier allegations that anybody else used ethnic or racial screening in astronaut selection?

a reply to: JimOberg

Look, with all respect to you, I really have to do a little more productive stuff than to be discussing something that is pretty evident with somebody that it is clear do not want to recognize to have made a bold generalization in a comment that is not possible to support based on actual reason.

That unfortunate claim although was based on a non representative sample was expressed a a general statement to disqualify others policies, I felt great relief when you clarified it was a mere theory after all.

The entire Intercosmos program had 16 missions and what ever can be concluded using 5 or 6, ignoring 2/3 of the space flights, of them is not conclusive at all, anybody using statistics scientificaly or professionaly can see that.

By the way that argument is not only useless to really prove something but it is deviating attention of the crucial point in discussion:

There were No American Astronauts coming from any minority group mentioned ( Hebrews, African descendants, Hispanics, women, Muslims, Asians, Native Americans) along the entire 3 first manned space programs( Mercury, Gemini, Apollo), No body at all along 1960s, 1970s space flights.

Only Caucasian men Pilots were chosen to be pioneers in the Space exploration by NASA. That is Not just a solid proof, it is an undeniable Historic fact under any criteria. There were slots available to be sent to orbit even for apes but Not just a single one for those human groups for decades. It was Not other country fault such an omission but ours.

It is better task to assure this never happen again, than to try to hide or make up it and we must be in some way grateful that other nations make us to see it clearly.

I see that here information is not a ruling criteria to open a thread but probably propaganda considerations, or who has more impressive rhetoric, a kind of wrong understood nationalism.

In my opinion America is great moreover because is an intelligent nation, with mental plasticity, able to learn profound lessons from its own past, correcting errors with open mind, seeing it as tries in search for improvement, Not because is a narcissist one stuck in ignorance that thinks that all what she has done was always perfect or virtuous.

Since I am a scientist and not a journalist or publicist, I am moving on, I have something better to do than deal with sectarian politics and people supporting it.

I'm so impressed to see that, after years posting in this forum, bringing what it was intended to be scientific thread to motivate aperture and access of technology to more people of any kind of background on the occasion of a Historic Anniversary became so much negatively attacked.

I was even insulted, called a pig, in to try to defend it with dignity, patience, comprehension and decorum.

The Angel of Lightness

Dear Readers,

I want to thanks to the Forum moderators to have me here along all these years sharing my insights and opinions on advances on Space exploration and technology, also for their support to try to enforce the application of rules of decorum in the communication.

i have opened here in this forum 9 threads along three years, I actually began long time ago to talk about space technology in the ATS forum of Science since 2015 and more recently I also did it on the forum of History.

It has been very interesting to discuss with people of high level of information on this subject here as Mr James Oberg, I might not agree with him in all what he has to say or share or comment but I think it is important to have experts coming here and taking part on intelligent discussions to help to push high the level of them.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

Why must we always be so divisive? I couldn't care less what a person's ethnic or cultural background is, and I don't see where it makes any difference at all when it comes to their crazy desire to ride a controlled explosion into deadly space. I think it's nuts, but I can appreciate the person's drive to beat the odds and have that happen, but that's on an individual basis.

Too bad we can't work toward inclusiveness, rather than tribalism.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Well, I almost everything can be analyzed from different perspectives, but if nations with huge human diversity are pushing projects to make them emblematic of their national science they must consider people to work on them from all that population composition and not show a preference for candidates coming from only certain groups of it.

America of the XXI century has more scientists and engineers that are women and not Caucasian than the one of 1960s, that reflects access to better education and professional opportunities.

No body is born pilot, that is a profile that is developed through years of training.

The Angel of Lightness