{"id":8921,"date":"2024-05-21T08:05:23","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T08:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8921"},"modified":"2024-05-21T08:05:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T08:05:23","slug":"first-black-astronaut-candidate-now-90-finally-fulfils-dream-of-reaching-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8921","title":{"rendered":"First black astronaut candidate, now 90, finally fulfils dream of reaching space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>6 Minute, 49 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Ed Dwight, a 90-year-old artist and former Air Force test pilot who was denied a chance to become the first African American astronaut six decades ago, finally rocketed into space on Sunday, fulfilling a cherished dream in a brief up-and-down flight out of the lower atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely fantastic!\u201d he exclaimed after touchdown. \u201cA life-changing experience. Everybody needs to do this!\u201d<\/p>\n

Strapped into a Blue Origin New Shepard capsule, Dwight and five crewmates \u2014 a retired accountant, an Indian pilot and adventurer, a software engineer, a French entrepreneur, and a venture capitalist \u2014 blasted off from company owner Jeff Bezos\u2019 West Texas launch site just after 10:35 a.m. EDT, climbing away into a cloudless sky.<\/p>\n

An elated Ed Dwight, at 90 the oldest person to fly in space, shows his emotion after finally reaching space more than 60 years after he was denied the opportunity to become the first African American astronaut. BLUE ORIGIN WEBCAST<\/p>\n

It was the company\u2019s first New Shepard flight with passengers aboard since a\u00a0booster failure\u00a0two years ago derailed an unpiloted research flight.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0successful repeat mission\u00a0late last year, also without a crew on board, cleared the way for the resumption of passenger flights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a part of my career that wasn\u2019t quite fulfilled, and here\u2019s a grand opportunity at this late date to fulfill that for self-satisfaction, yes,\u201d Dwight said in a pre-launch interview with CBS News.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut more importantly, to satisfy all the wonderful people who have showered me with love for all these years. Because it is those people who wanted me to go into space in the worst kind of way. To them (this) is justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 10-minute sub-orbital flight on Sunday, the New Shepard\u2019s single-stage hydrogen-fueled rocket accelerated the crew capsule to more than 2,100 mph at an altitude of 185,000 feet before releasing it to continue coasting upward.<\/p>\n

Weightless at that point, the crew reached an altitude of about 65 miles, a few miles above the internationally recognized \u201cboundary\u201d between the discernible atmosphere and space.<\/p>\n

An elated Ed Dwight, at 90 the oldest person to fly in space, shows his emotion after finally reaching space more than 60 years after he was denied the opportunity to become the first African American astronaut. BLUE ORIGIN WEBCAST<\/p>\n

Between booster cutoff and the capsule\u2019s re-entry, the six crew members were able to unstrap and enjoy about three minutes of weightlessness, taking in spectacular views of the Earth below as the spacecraft arced over the top of its trajectory for descent to a parachute-assisted touchdown a few thousand yards from the launch pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think I needed this in my life,\u201d Dwight said after climbing out of the capsule. \u201cI lied!\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the spacecraft\u2019s three main parachutes failed to inflate fully, but the spacecraft is designed to land with just two chutes safely, and the crew, all smiles after touchdown, obviously had no problems.<\/p>\n

At 90 years and eight months old, Dwight is the oldest person ever to fly in space, edging out actor William Shatner,\u00a0who launched aboard a New Shepard at age 90 in 2021, by a few months.<\/p>\n

Aviatrix Wally Funk, who joined Bezos for the company\u2019s first piloted flight, ranks third on the list of \u201cmost senior\u201d astronauts, flying at age 82.<\/p>\n

A ticket to ride on a New Shepard is believed to cost around $500,000. Dwight\u2019s seat was sponsored by the non-profit Space for Humanity with support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation. Jaison Robinson flew aboard a New Shepard in 2022.<\/p>\n

Dwight\u2019s crewmates \u2014 venture capitalist Mason Angel, French entrepreneur Sylvain Chiron, software engineer Kenneth Hess, retired accountant and adventurer Carol Schaller, and Gopi Thotakura, a commercial airline pilot and the second Indian national to fly in space \u2014 are believed to have paid for their seats, but the actual costs are not known.<\/p>\n

The crew of New Shepard mission 25 (left to right): French entrepreneur Sylvain Chiron, software engineer Ken Hess, former astronaut candidate Ed Dwight, Indian pilot and adventurer Gopi Thotakura, investor Mason Angel and retired accountant and world traveller Carol Schaller.dBLUE ORIGIN<\/p>\n

Before launch, Dwight told CBS News he looked forward to seeing \u201cthe beautiful little round ball we call the Earth that we\u2019re not doing a very good job of taking care of, by the way. But it allows you to have a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have this theory that I think every politician that runs for public office in the United States of America needs to do at least three orbits around the Earth so they can see what this place is all about,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they would stop destroying it. That\u2019s my wish. That would be a requirement for everybody that ran for political office on a national level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

As NASA\u2019s Mercury program was ramping up in the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy let it be known that he wanted an African American in the space agency\u2019s astronaut corps. Dwight got the nod and trained at the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, passing through the initial round of training.<\/p>\n

But NASA did not select him as an astronaut, and he resigned from the Air Force in 1966 with the rank of captain. After stints in the private sector, Dwight earned a master of fine arts degree in sculpture, focusing on black history pioneers. He owns and operates Ed Dwight Studios in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had, you know, 60 years to sit on and think about all the parts and pieces of this,\u201d he told CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan. \u201cBut the reason I have even the slightest bit of interest in going into space right now is that I\u2019ve had a group of fans that have followed me from 1964, several generations, the fan mail has never stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I thought about it, what better way to fulfil my fans for the things that they\u2019ve been asking me about for the last 60 years? And the opportunity came to fly into space.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the New Shepard capsule\u2019s three main parachutes failed to fully inflate during the descent to touchdown, but the spacecraft is designed to safely land with just two chutes and the crew had no problems. BLUE ORIGIN WEBCAST<\/p>\n

He said African American astronaut Leland Melvin first broached the idea while the two were working on \u201cThe Space Race,\u201d a documentary about the history of Black astronauts and engineers in NASA\u2019s space program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis all happened in a relatively short period of time,\u201d Dwight said. \u201cWe had been working on \u2018Space Race,\u2019 and we had been travelling around the country doing film festivals. We were involved in Q & A\u2019s (and) how would you like to go up?\u201d Melvin had contacts at Blue Origin, he added, \u201cso it just evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Origin was on a launch-per-month pace in September 2022 when an uncrewed New Shepard carrying 36 experiments suffered a booster failure one minute after liftoff, triggering an automatic abort. The capsule was propelled away from the booster and landed normally a few minutes later.<\/p>\n

The abort was blamed on the failure of the nozzle of the BE-3 engine powering the New Shepard rocket.<\/p>\n

After an extensive investigation, Blue Origin modified the rocket to prevent any similar malfunctions and successfully launched another unpiloted research flight in December 2023, clearing the way for the resumption of passenger flights.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard is competing against Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic to carry space tourists, professional astronauts and others on sub-orbital space flights.<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic has launched 55 passengers on 11 flights of the company\u2019s Unity spaceplane so far while Blue Origin has now launched 38 men and women on seven flights.<\/p>\n

While Virgin is focused solely on sub-orbital flights, Blue Origin also is building a moon lander and a partially reusable orbital-class rocket \u2014 the New Glenn \u2014 to compete against SpaceX\u2019s workhorse Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters.<\/p>

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Ed Dwight, a 90-year-old artist and former Air Force test pilot who was denied a chance to become the first African American astronaut six decades ago, finally rocketed into space… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}