{"id":17218,"date":"2024-04-05T00:04:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T16:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-origin-puts-a-test-pilot-who-could-have-been-nasas-first-black-astronaut-on-its-next-space-crew\/"},"modified":"2024-04-05T00:04:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T16:04:54","slug":"blue-origin-puts-a-test-pilot-who-could-have-been-nasas-first-black-astronaut-on-its-next-space-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-origin-puts-a-test-pilot-who-could-have-been-nasas-first-black-astronaut-on-its-next-space-crew\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin puts a test pilot who could have been NASA\u2019s first Black astronaut on its next space crew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-dwight-630x484.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-817414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-dwight-630x484.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-dwight-1260x968.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-dwight-768x590.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-dwight.jpg 1409w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight missed out on space in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Ed Dwight via National Geographic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If the fates decided differently, Air Force test pilot Ed Dwight could have become NASA\u2019s first Black astronaut in the 1960s \u2014 but he lost out, amid racial controversy. Now he\u2019s in line to travel to space with Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin listed the 90-year-old Dwight among six people who\u2019ll be on its New Shepard suborbital rocket ship when it resumes crewed flights, on a date yet to be announced. Crewed flights were suspended after an uncrewed research mission went awry in 2022, but a repeat of that uncrewed mission went off without a hitch last December.<\/p>\n<p>Dwight, who became a sculptor after resigning from the Air Force as a captain in 1966, will have his flight sponsored by Space for Humanity and by the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation, which was created by the founders of Seattle-based Dream Variation Ventures.<\/p>\n<p>Dwight\u2019s life story is featured in a National Geographic documentary titled \u201cThe Space Race.\u201d In 1961, he was chosen to enter an Air Force flight training program that was regarded as a pathway to NASA\u2019s astronaut corps, and went on to win an Air Force recommendation to join NASA. But Dwight was passed over \u2014 and he later said that racism was to blame.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy hope was just getting into space in any kind of way,\u201d Dwight said in the documentary, \u201cbut they were not going to let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It would be another two decades before Guion Bluford Jr. became the first Black American in space in 1983.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Space Race | Meet Ed Dwight | National Geographic Documentary Films\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jpruT1-Baxo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time Blue Origin has put a would-be pioneer astronaut on its crew list. The quartet for the company\u2019s first crewed flight in 2021 included Wally Funk, a member of the \u201cMercury 13\u201d group of women fliers who missed out on joining NASA\u2019s early astronaut corps.<\/p>\n<p>Dwight could be in line to attain a different kind of distinction in space history: As of now, the oldest person to reach space, albeit on a suborbital trip, is William Shatner, the star of the first set of \u201cStar Trek\u201d TV shows and movies. His age was 90 years and 205 days at the time of his flight in October 2021. Dwight is currently 90 years and 208 days old. He could thus wrest away Shatner\u2019s space title. (Blue Origin said \u201cthe flight date will be announced soon.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>The other five people on the list for New Shepard\u2019s next crewed flight are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Mason Angel<\/strong>, the founder of Industrious Ventures, a Denver-based venture capital fund supporting early-stage companies that enable or progress new industrial revolutions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sylvain Chiron<\/strong>, the founder of Brasserie du Mont Blanc, one of the largest craft breweries in France. <\/li>\n<li><strong>Kenneth L. Hess<\/strong>, a software engineer and entrepreneur who developed the Family Tree Maker product line in the 1990s. The genealogy tech company was acquired by Ancestry.com in 2003. In 2001, Hess founded Science Buddies, a K-12 nonprofit that\u2019s based in California and focuses on STEM literacy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Carol Schaller<\/strong>, a retired CPA and adventure traveler who lives on a farm in Lumberville, Pa., with her husband of 40 years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gopi Thotakura<\/strong>, co-founder of Preserve Life Corp., a global center for holistic wellness and applied health located near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In addition to flying jets commercially, Thotakura pilots bush planes, aerobatic planes and seaplanes, as well as gliders and hot air balloons, and has served as an international medical jet pilot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"331\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-ns25crew-630x331.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-817485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-ns25crew-630x331.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-ns25crew-768x403.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/240404-ns25crew.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Six people are in line to take Blue Origin\u2019s next crewed spaceflight, known as NS-25. (Photos via Blue Origin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Blue Origin said each spaceflier will carry a postcard to space on behalf of the company\u2019s Club for the Future. The nonprofit effort aims to get students involved in Blue Origin\u2019s space program through educational activities, including an all-digital method to create and send postcards that are loaded onto a hard drive for New Shepard missions. After each mission, students are emailed instructions for accessing their cards. (The Club for the Future also accepts on-paper postcards.)<\/p>\n<p>The next mission will mark the 25th New Shepard flight \u2014 a tally that takes in six previous crewed missions and 18 uncrewed missions since 2015. Thirty-one spacefliers have taken rides in New Shepard\u2019s space capsule to heights beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) Karman Line that currently serves as the internationally accepted boundary for spaceflight. (U.S. agencies use a 50-mile standard instead.)<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin\u2019s flight arrangements are made privately, and it hasn\u2019t disclosed how much its spaceflight customers are paying. Just after the first crewed flight in 2021, Jeff Bezos said the Kent, Wash.-based company was \u201capproaching $100 million in private sales already, and demand is very, very high.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos\u2019 fianc\u00e9e, Lauren Sanchez, has said that she intends to lead an all-female New Shepard crew on a suborbital flight that she hopes will take place this year. In an interview published by Vogue last December, Sanchez said the fliers would be remarkable people who are \u201cpaving the way for women,\u201d but few other details about her plans have come to light.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Clarification for 4 p.m. PT April 4: <\/strong>In an earlier version of this report, I referred to Guion Bluford Jr. as NASA\u2019s first Black astronaut. NASA considers Robert Lawrence (1935-1967) to be the first African-American astronaut, although he was never able to join the space agency\u2019s astronaut corps. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Lawrence was selected by the Air Force to join the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program in 1967, but died in a plane crash later that year. NASA said \u201cit is virtually certain\u201d that Lawrence would have been transferred to NASA had he lived, and today he\u2019s typically included in lists of U.S. astronauts. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019ve also added a few days to Ed Dwight\u2019s age, based on his Wikipedia entry.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s first Black astronaut in the 1960s \u2014 but he lost out, amid racial controversy. Now he\u2019s in line to travel to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,4511,4496,1250,4029],"class_list":["post-17218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-dream-variation-ventures","tag-ed-dwight","tag-new-shepard","tag-space-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}