America’s first black astronaut candidate finally goes to space 60 years later

19 May 2024, 17:34

Ed Dwight, now 90, went through a few minutes of weightlessness aboard the Blue Origin capsule as it skimmed space on a roughly 10-minute flight.

America’s first black astronaut candidate has finally rocketed into space 60 years later, flying with Jeff Bezos’s rocket company.

Ed Dwight was a US Air Force pilot when President John F Kennedy championed him as a candidate for Nasa’s early astronaut corps.

But he was not picked for the 1963 class.

Mr Dwight, now 90, went through a few minutes of weightlessness with five other passengers aboard the Blue Origin capsule as it skimmed space on a roughly 10-minute flight.

He called it “a life-changing experience”.

“I thought I really didn’t need this in my life,” Mr Dwight said shortly after exiting the capsule.

“But, now, I need it in my life …. I am ecstatic.”

The brief flight from West Texas made Mr Dwight the new record-holder for oldest person in space – nearly two months older than Star Trek actor William Shatner was when he went up in 2021.

It was Blue Origin’s first crew launch in nearly two years.

The company was grounded following a 2022 accident in which the booster came crashing down but the capsule full of experiments safely parachuted to the ground.

Flights resumed last December, but with no-one aboard.

Soon, Ed Dwight will complete a mission that began 63 years ago. Watch: https://t.co/TH41xP0MkB pic.twitter.com/aNmFjltM6z

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 19, 2024

This was Blue Origin’s seventh time flying space tourists.

Mr Dwight, a sculptor from Denver, was joined by four business entrepreneurs from the US and France and a retired accountant.

Their ticket prices were not disclosed; Mr Dwight’s seat was sponsored in part by the non-profit Space for Humanity.

Mr Dwight was among the potential astronauts the Air Force recommended to Nasa.

But he was not chosen for the 1963 class, which included eventual Gemini and Apollo astronauts, including Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Nasa did not select black astronauts until 1978, and Guion Bluford became the first African American in space in 1983.

Three years earlier, the Soviets launched the first black astronaut, Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, a Cuban of African descent.

After leaving the military in 1966, Mr Dwight joined IBM and started a construction company, before earning a master’s degree in sculpture in the late 1970s.