America’s first black astronaut not selected for NASA’s class of 1963 finally launched into space 63 years later.
Ed Dwight, 90, was one of six space tourists aboard the Blue Origins rocket that soared more than 65 miles above the surface on Sunday.
Dwight was an Air Force pilot when President John F. Kennedy championed him as a candidate for NASA’s first astronaut corps that included Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, two of the three Apollo 11 men who went to the moon.
While NASA does not provide details as to why it overlooks certain candidates, Dwight has said that racism could have been the reason because it was a time of the civil rights movement.
But on Sunday, Dwight stepped out of the Blue Origin capsule after visiting the edges of space, raised his arms and said, “It’s been a long time coming.”
On Sunday, Ed Dwight stepped out of the Blue Origin capsule after visiting the edges of space, raised his arms and said, “It’s been a long time coming.”
The NS-25 mission is the seventh human flight for Blue Origin, which sees short trips on the New Shepard suborbital vehicle as a stepping stone to greater ambitions, including the development of a heavy rocket and a full lunar lander.
The mission was also Blue Origin’s first crewed launch in nearly two years.
The company was grounded after an accident in 2022 in which the booster crashed but the capsule filled with experiments parachuted to the ground safely.
Flights resumed last December but with no one on board.
The company has kept a tight rein on ticket prices, but Dwight’s seat was sponsored by the nonprofit Space for Humanity, and so was he. He became the oldest person to go to space.
Dwight, who rose through the ranks as an Air Force captain, stands in front of the F-104 fighter jet. Despite his performance, he was not chosen in NASA’s 1963 astronaut class.
The crew took off at 9:35 a.m. CT from the Blue Origin launch site near Van Horn, Texas.
“This is a life-changing experience, everyone needs to do this,” he exclaimed after the flight.
“I thought I didn’t really need this in my life,” he added, reflecting on his exclusion from the astronaut corps, which was his first experience of failure as a young man.
“But I lied,” he added with a laugh.
“If we take everything we imagine, multiply it by about 100, we are still quite far from reality,” crewmate and French businessman Sylvain Chiron told AFP.
“I haven’t returned to Earth yet.”
In the 1960s, Dwight quickly rose to national fame as the first black astronaut in training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, gracing the covers of Jet and Ebony magazines.
Leland Melvin, a retired NASA astronaut, told the WSJ: “Ed has been the person who started the legacy of (we call ourselves the ‘Afronauts’) because he would have been the first.”
Dwight was an Air Force pilot when President John F. Kennedy championed him as a candidate for NASA’s first astronaut corps that included Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, two of the first three men on the moon.
While NASA does not provide details as to why it is passing over certain candidates, Dwight has said that racism could have been the reason, as it was a time of the civil rights movement.
“I would have walked on the moon, I would have been an Apollo astronaut,” he added.
Steven Moss, who with Richard Paul wrote “We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program,” said the Kennedy administration was pushing to get minorities into space because it would be good for its image.
After Dwight completed the training program, he applied to NASA, but despite his stardom, he was not given a spot in its fourteen-person class of 1963.
Pilot school director Chuck Yeager, who was the first person to break the sound barrier, attempted to claim that Dwight had struggled to keep up with the other pilots.
And once JFK was assassinated and the push for a minority presence in space disappeared, Dwight said he knew he wouldn’t make it to space.
Dwight at Air Force headquarters in the capital during November 1963. The 31-year-old pilot was in the first class of 16 Air Force, Army and Navy pilots who went through the new ‘Aerospace Research Pilot School’ ‘ in 1963 as possible astronauts.
The wait for the first black person in space continued until 1978, when NASA selected three black men for the Space Shuttle program. Among them was Guion Bluford (pictured), who in 1983 finally accomplished the feat of becoming the first black person to reach space.
“My hope was to just get to space anyway, but they weren’t going to let that happen,” Dwight said in the 2023 documentary “The Space Race.”
‘If all things had been equal, I would have reached the moon. She had the capabilities and I was not given that opportunity.”
Ultimately, Dwight followed a different path and became a renowned sculptor.
His works celebrate black history, particularly a prominent Texas monument depicting slavery and black contributions to the state.
It also features Bernard Harris, the first black astronaut to walk in space.
While Dwight’s dream was put on hold, the path to space for black Americans was not entirely closed.
Although tragically short-lived, Robert Lawrence became the first black man selected for the space program in 1967.
The wait for the first black person in space continued until 1978, when NASA selected three black men for the Space Shuttle program.
One of the parachutes on the three landing capsules failed to inflate on the return trip, but that problem did not affect the landing.
Among them was Guion Bluford, who in 1983 finally accomplished the feat of becoming the first black person to reach space.
Nine years later, Mae Jemison made history as the first black female astronaut.
The other passengers who joined Dwight included Mason Angel, the founder of Industrious Ventures, a venture capital fund; Sylvain Chiron, founder of the Brasserie du Mont-Blanc, a craft brewery in France; Kenneth L. Hess, software engineer and entrepreneur; Gopi Thotakura, pilot; and Carol Schaller, retired CPA.
The crew took off at 9:35 a.m. CT from the Blue Origin launch site near Van Horn, Texas.
The capsule rose to the Kerman Line, the area known as the border of space, where it remained for several minutes so that the passengers felt weightlessness.
However, one of the parachutes on the three landing capsules failed to inflate on the return trip, but that problem did not affect the landing.
The capsule door opened around 10 a.m., allowing each crew member to exit and celebrate their journey.
Dwight came out, raised his arms and performed a celebratory dance as onlookers cheered him on.