Ed Dwight Finally Goes To Space On Blue Origin As 1st U.S. Black Astronaut

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In The News:

Ed Dwight told himself the same story for decades: It didn't matter that he never made it into space.

Dwight was the first Black man selected for an American astronaut-training program in 1962. He had spent years at Edwards Air Force Base in California doing zero-gravity training, running test planes and manning experiments that help set the foundation for U.S. space travel. Despite the rigorous training, Dwight was never selected for a NASA mission.

Then, last week, Dwight broke another barrier when, at 90, he became the oldest person to travel into space. When he finally saw the view from 62 miles above Earth from a Blue Origin vessel, the atmosphere ended and his achievement began. Back on solid ground, friends said he spoke about how much it mattered to finally enter the cosmos.

When Dwight was first offered a seat on the May 19 flight, he thought about declining the offer. (Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.)

"I'm a really busy guy," said Dwight, who became an accomplished sculptor after his astronaut training. "It didn't make a lot of difference to me at the time."

A group of current and former Black astronauts — including Bolden , NASA's Victor J. Glover Jr . and Leland D. Melvin — helped change his mind. Dwight had trained for years to go to space — he should finish what he started, he recalled his friends saying.

Bolden remembers Dwight telling them how he had lied to himself for all these years about how it didn't matter. Having lunch with one of the astronauts the day before the launch, Bolden said Dwight admitted it: "There's this hole in me. I didn't realize it was there because I had convinced myself it was okay."

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