More than 60 years after he was selected as the first black astronaut, but his place in the history of space exploration eclipsed and delayed by the specter of racism and politics, Edward Dwight launched into space Sunday morning .
After landing, at the end of a flight that lasted 9 minutes and 53 seconds, Mr. Dwight stood on the steps outside the crew door, raised his arms and said, “Long time no see.”
Minutes later, standing outside the capsule, he called the flight “life-changing.” He admitted that earlier in the day he had been saying that he didn’t need to fly in his life. “But I lied,” he said.
Dwight, 90, was one of six people aboard the Blue Origin rocket’s New Shepard space shuttle, which blasted off Sunday morning from a private launch site near Van Horn, Texas. This flight made him the oldest person ever to fly in space. He surpassed actor William Shatner.
After Mr. Dwight, now a sculptor, was selected for the Blue Origin flight, he told the New York Times that eventually going into space was not justice but something that was supposed to happen at some point.
“My whole life has been about getting things done,” Mr. Dwight said. “This is the climax.”
The idea of sending Mr. Dwight into space gained traction in 1961 amid a White House campaign to diversify the nation’s space program. Mr. Dwight is a charming and handsome pilot who is subsequently selected for the astronaut training program. He had the support of President John F. Kennedy and was championed by the black media, but many obstacles prevented him from reaching space.
Chuck Yeager, director of the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, believes Mr. Dwight was a rank-and-file pilot who was chosen to be part of the program for political reasons. Mr. Dwight suggested that racism may have been the reason General Yeager discriminated against him and wanted him to step down. General Yeager had Mr. Dwight graduate from the program, but he was not selected as an astronaut.
After Mr. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, support for Mr. Dwight’s role in the space program seemed to fade, and he left the Air Force in 1966.
Mr. Dwight went on to become a successful restaurateur, real estate developer and noted artist whose specialty was carving famous black historical figures.
It wasn’t until 1983 that the United States sent a black astronaut into space, Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford Jr.
After all these years, Mr. Dwight finally launched into space on Sunday aboard the New Shepard rocket.
This is the seventh crewed flight for Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. Other passengers included Mason Angel, founder of the venture capital fund Industrial Ventures; Sylvain Chiron, founder of the French craft brewery Brasserie du Mont-Blanc; Kenneth L. Hess, a software engineer and entrepreneur; Gopi Thotakura, a pilot; Carol Schaller, a retired CPA, was told she would go blind in 2017 and began traveling extensively, to places like Antarctica and Everest Base Camp.
The rocket took off at 9:35 a.m. Central Time and returned to Earth within 10 minutes. The capsules carrying passengers landed separately shortly after, and at 9:45 a.m. only two of its three parachutes opened, but this did not cause any serious problems for the landing.
Around 10 a.m., the capsule door opened.
“Everyone needs to do this,” Mr Dwight said.
