He held that distinction for nearly half a century.
Hermaszewski flew aboard the Soviet Soyuz 30 spacecraft in 1978, taking part in the USSR’s Interkosmos programme, which sent allied nationals into orbit. His crewmate was Belarusian pilot Pyotr Klimuk.
The mission launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on June 27, 1978, at 5:27 p.m. Polish time.
Hermaszewski lifted off to music by popular Polish singers Maryla Rodowicz and Anna German, carrying with him a Polish flag, soil from Warsaw and Lenino—the site in present-day Belarus of a 1943 battle where Polish troops fought alongside the Soviet Army against Nazi Germany.
He also brought aboard miniature editions of Poland's national epic Pan Tadeusz and The Communist Manifesto, in addition to a facsimile of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.
Hermaszewski's eight-day mission included scientific experiments on human physiology in weightlessness, aurora observation and remote sensing.
One experiment, called “Czajka,” tested blood circulation in the legs under pressure changes.
"At the scientists' request I increase the pressure and faint several times. I feel sick, and they’re delighted—like children," he later recalled.
Soyuz 30 docked with the Soviet space station Salyut 6. The spacecraft orbited Earth 126 times, with ach orbit lasting 91 minutes.
On his first pass over Poland, Hermaszewski described seeing city lights, the phosphorescent line of the Vistula River, and the cloud-covered south of the country.
He returned to Earth on July 5, 1978, landing in Kazakhstan near the city of Arkalyk.
His flight made Poland the fourth nation on Earth, after the USSR, the United States and Czechoslovakia, to have had a citizen in space.
Hermaszewski was born on September 15, 1941, in Lipniki, in what is now Ukraine. As a child, he survived a 1943 raid by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which killed 19 members of his family.
The surviving Hermaszewskis were resettled in the Lower Silesia region of southwestern Poland after the war.
Mirosław became a pilot, graduating from the Polish Air Force Officer School in Dęblin and later rising through the ranks of the military.
He was selected for Interkosmos training in 1976, alongside backup candidate Zenon Jankowski.
Hermaszewski trained at the Soviet Star City outside Moscow. When the news of his spaceflight was announced on Polish TV, interrupting a farming programme, and leading some viewers, on seeing the national emblem flash on the screen, to fear that a war had broken out.
After the mission, Hermaszewski was showered with honours, including the Soviet Union’s Hero of the USSR medal, the Order of Lenin, and Poland’s Order of the Grunwald Cross, 1st Class.
He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on July 22, 1978. His image appeared on postage stamps and a commemorative 20-zloty coin.
During Poland’s martial law period, Hermaszewski was named, as he later claimed without his knowledge, to the Military Council of National Salvation (WRON), the ruling military junta.
He was then studying at the Soviet General Staff Academy. In 2018, a law allowing the demotion of WRON members was vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, citing Hermaszewski as an unjust target.
He later held senior positions in the Polish Air Force and retired after 40 years of service.
In 2005, he made a farewell flight in a MiG-29 fighter jet. Over his career, he logged more than 2,000 flight hours – a typical career total for a fighter pilot, particularly in nations with moderate flight budgets and mixed operational duties.
Hermaszewski died on December 12, 2022, due to complications following surgery. He was buried with state honours at Warsaw’s Powązki Military Cemetery, where four F-16 jets flew overhead.
Among the floral tributes were wreaths from the Russian embassy and his former crewmate Klimuk.
His legacy remains foundational in Poland’s space story, a legacy now shared by Uznański-Wiśniewski, who became the second Pole in space on June 25, 2025.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, dzieje.pl