Abstract
In a somewhat obscure way, the history of Bulgarian cosmonautics actually dates back to 15 August 1964, and a reception held that day at the residence of the Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Rodion Malinovskiy, then the Military Attaché at the Embassy of Bulgaria. During the reception Lt. Gen. Zahari Zahariev, commander-in-chief of the Air Force wing of the Bulgarian Army, raised with Malinovskiy his concept of a possible flight by a Bulgarian citizen aboard a Soviet spacecraft. He even suggested that possible candidates for the flight could be four brothers, all pilots, named Stamenkov, who happened to be at the event. The brothers were introduced to Malinovskiy and also to Soviet Gen. Nikolay Kamanin, head of cosmonaut training.
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REFERENCES
Borislav Evlogiev, article “1979: A space odyssey,” Bulgarian Air magazine, Spring 2009. Website: https://www.air.bg/content/magazine/pdf/63.pdf
Eliana Mitova interview with Georgi Ivanov for klassa.bg.news article, “Georgi Ivan: the first Bulgarian astronaut,” Sofia, Bulgaria, 31 March 2011. Website at: http://www.klassa.bg/News/Read/article/164058
Ibid
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Bert Vis interview with Nikolay Rukavishnikov, Congress of the Association of Space Explorers, Washington, DC, 24–29 August 1992
Velian Pandeliev, article, “Bulgaria’s First Cosmonaut and the Near-Disaster of Soyuz 33, Blazing Bulgaria blog, 14 June 2012. Website: http://blazingbulgaria.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/soyuz-33
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Burgess, C., Vis, B. (2016). Bulgaria in space. In: Interkosmos. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24163-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24163-0_5
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