Tag: Ed Dwight
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Blue Origin resumes human flights to suborbital space, but it wasn’t perfect
More than 60 years after he was denied an opportunity to become America’s first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight finally traveled into space Sunday with five other passengers on a 10-minute flight inside a Blue Origin capsule. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain and test pilot, had a chance to become the first African American astronaut.…
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Blue Origin flies its first crew in 21 months — and writes another page in space history
Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship lifts off from its West Texas pad. (Credit: Blue Origin) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture today resumed sending people on suborbital space trips after a 21-month gap, and made a Black aerospace pioneer’s 60-year-old dream come true in the process. “Man, it feels good to be flying again,”…
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Rocket Report: Blue Origin to resume human flights; progress for Polaris Dawn
Welcome to Edition 6.38 of the Rocket Report! Ed Dwight was close to joining NASA’s astronaut corps more than 60 years ago. With an aeronautical engineering degree and experience as an Air Force test pilot, Dwight met the qualifications to become an astronaut. He was one of 26 test pilots the Air Force recommended to…
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Blue Origin puts a test pilot who could have been NASA’s first Black astronaut on its next space crew
Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight missed out on space in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Ed Dwight via National Geographic) If the fates decided differently, Air Force test pilot Ed Dwight could have become NASA’s first Black astronaut in the 1960s — but he lost out, amid racial controversy. Now he’s in line to travel to…