Abdul Ahad Momand
Abdul Ahad Momand (; born 1959) is an Afghan-German and former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first, and currently only, Afghan citizen to journey to outer space. When he spoke to his mother on the phone from space, Pashto became the fourth language to be officially spoken in space. He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard the Mir space station in 1988 as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut. He holds many records as an Afghan Astronaut. During this mission, Abdul Ahad Momand was the first cosmonaut to speak the Pashto language after he made a telephone call to Afghanistan, making it the fourth language to be officially spoken in space. He became the first Afghan citizen and the fourth Muslim to visit outer space, after Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, Muhammed Faris, and Musa Manarov. Biography Momand was born sometime in 1959 in Sardeh Band, Andar District, within the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. He belongs to the Momand tribe of the Pashtun ethnic group. After completing his initial schooling, he entered the Kabul Polytechnic University in 1976 at the age of 17, and graduated a year later before being drafted into the military