The documentary "The Syrian Cosmonaut" (2022) opens with an animated scene showing Muhammed Faris hopping across the screen as if he was on the moon instead of in Istanbul being chased by assassins. Faris, the real-life spaceman, donned in black, is then seen looking into the camera, saying, “This is Syria’s story, not just mine.”

Faris became a Syrian national hero when he participated in the Interkosmos program in July 1987, becoming the first Syrian in space. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad had crushed a major insurrection by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama a few years prior and wanted to reassert Syria onto the world stage through the Soviet-Syrian space expedition. 

The 13-minute documentary directed by Charles Emir Richards traces Faris’ personal history to when he was a child in Aleppo, where on summer nights he would sleep on his roof staring up at the stars and wondering how he could reach them. He then became a fighter pilot in the Syrian army and became interested in space travel after hearing of Yuri Gagarin’s trailblazing journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Faris spoke to Al-Monitor about the selection process for him to participate in the space program. Fifty Syrian air force pilots were selected and screened by a Soviet committee, with four of them being flown out to Moscow and on to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan for training. After rigorous preparation, Faris was chosen to fly in the Soyuz TM-3 in 1987, the third crewed spaceflight to the Soviet space station Mir.