First Black astronaut candidate, now 90, reaches space in Blue Origin flight (USA/Space)19/May/2024

Sixty-one years since he was selected but ultimately passed over to become the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight finally reached space in a Blue Origin rocket - and set a different record.
At 10.37am on Sunday, Jeff Bezos’s space company launched its NS-25 mission from west Texas, marking Blue Origin’s first crewed spaceflight since 2022 when its New Shepard rocket was grounded due to a mid-flight failure.
On board were six crew members, including Dwight, a retired US air force captain who at 90 years old now becomes the oldest person to reach the edge of space.
In 1961, Dwight was chosen by President John F Kennedy to train as an astronaut at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, but was ultimately not selected for the Nasa Astronaut Corps.
Since entering private life in 1966, Dwight spent a decade as an entrepreneur, before turning to sculpture to honor Black history, Blue Origin said on its website. Dwight has created large-scale monuments of various major Black figures including Martin Luther King Jr, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and has more than 130 of his public works installed in museums and public spaces across the US and Canada.
#astronaut
#blueorigin
#space
#spaceflight
There is a Space and Science playlist on this channel:
• Space and Science