Silver Ounce 2023 The Milky Way - Vladimír Remek, Coin from Niue - detailed information

Niue, a sovereign state in free association with New Zealand, uses two official legal tender currencies. The New Zealand Dollar is the circulation currency for daily transactions, while the government also authorises legal tender coins in the Niue Dollar currency for collector's purposes.

A number of mints issue a large variety of commemorative, bullion and collector coins under the authority of Niue. These coins are dedicated to historical or general popular culture themes not related to Niue itself. Many of them are in standard bullion sizes - typically, one ounce of silver (abbreviated as 1 oz Ag, where "Ag" comes from the Latin word for silver, Argentum).

The mint says about this coin:
The fifth silver coin from the Milky Way series is dedicated to the first Czechoslovakian in space - Vladimír Remek.

Military pilot Vladimír Remek, aboard Soyuz 28, made his way to the orbital station Salyut 6 on 2 March 1978. He became not only the first Czechoslovak and the first European cosmonaut, but also the first space traveller from a country other than the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Together with Russian Alexei Gubarev, he formed the first international crew in the history of spaceflight. He was the 87th person to go into space - his predecessors included 43 Soviet cosmonauts and 43 American astronauts. The crew of the space station welcomed him according to an old Slavic custom - with bread and salt. In addition to helping with the day-to-day running of the habitat, a number of scientific tasks prepared by Czechoslovak scientists awaited him, as well as a live broadcast on Czechoslovak television.

Vladimír Remek returned from space after 7 days, 22 hours and 18 minutes. He remains our only compatriot who left his home planet...