Phạm Tuân ( born 14 February 1947) is a retired Vietnam Air Force aviator and cosmonaut. He became the first Vietnamese citizen and the first person from an Asian country to fly in space when he launched aboard the Soyuz 37 mission as an Interkosmos Research Cosmonaut. He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Early life and military career Phạm Tuân was born in Kiến Xương, Thái Bình province in northern Vietnam. Joining the Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) in 1965 initially as a radar mechanic student in 1965, Tuân was then selected for pilot training as a commissioned officer, graduating at the Krasnodar Flight School in the Soviet Union as a MiG-17 pilot in 1967, then moved-up for training in the MiG-21, and becoming assigned to the VPAF 910th Air Training Regiment from 1968–69 while participating in developing night-time interception techniques against U.S. air raids, and then attached with the 923rd Fighter Regiment from 1969–70, finally with the 921st Fighter Regiment from 1970–73. On the nights of 18-27 December 1972, during Operation Linebacker II (also referred to as the Christmas Bombings), then-Major Phạm engaged USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers at least a dozen times. On the 27th, Phạm was able to get close to a B-52 formation at supersonic-speed in his MiG-21MF (#5121), and fire a pair of missiles in the sub-4km range, visually identifying and reporting that his missile(s) struck the B-52D, causing it to go down in flames over the border of Hoa Binh–Vinh Phuc provinces. This claim, which would be the only B-52 ever downed in air-to-air combat, is disputed by U.S. records, which claims that this B-52 was downed by a surface-to-air missile as with all other B-52s shot down during the war. In a book named "Hà Nội - Điện Biên Phủ trên không" (Hanoi - the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the air) by Nguyễn Minh Tâm, published by Nhà xuất bản Quân đội Nhân dân Việt Nam (Viet Nam People's Army Publishing House), the author affirms that Phạm Tuân shot down the B-52 with two K-13 air-to-air missiles within a range of 4 kilometers. Tuân said that because the B-52 was equipped with a large number of infrared decoys, he had to get close to the target (within 2-3 kilometers) in order to ensure the bomber's destruction, though the minimum safe range for launching