Meet Ed Dwight the first Black astronaut candidate to reach space at 90 as he’s named in Blue Origin flight
THE UPCOMING Blue Origin NS-25 mission will include former US Air Force Captain Ed Dwight.
At the age of 90, Dwight will become the first Black astronaut candidate to fly to space.
He will be a passenger on Blue Origin’s upcoming New Shepard mission NS-25, a suborbital space tourism flight.
Dwight is among a six-person crew which includes Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, and Gopi Thotakura.
WHO IS ED DWIGHT?
Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1933, Dwight has lived an impressive life spanning many careers.
He received a Bachelor of Science from Arizona State University in 1957 and an MFA from the University of Denver in 1977.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Dwight served as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced Dwight’s selection for a groundbreaking astronaut training program dubbed Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS).
Ultimately Dwight was not selected for spaceflight; 20 years later, Guion Bluford Jr. became Nasa’s first Black astronaut.
In 1966, Dwight moved away from military life and towards entrepreneurship and opened several businesses.
He eventually dedicated dedicating his life to sculpturing, which he used as a medium to express Black history.
Dwight’s sculpture has spanned five decades so far and has seen him create iconic sculptures of historic Black figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman.
More than 130 public works are currently available for viewing in museums and public spaces across the U.S. and Canada.
Dwight is being sponsored by the nonprofit Space for Humanity, with support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation.
“Ed is an industry legend, and his ascension above the Karman Line is long overdue,” said Dylan Taylor, founder of Space for Humanity who flew on New Shepard in 2021, on X, formerly Twitter.
Dwight is expected to become the oldest person to fly in space.
NS-25 MISSION
NS-25 will mark Blue Origin’s seventh human spaceflight mission and is due to launch sometime in 2024.
It will be the first human spaceflight since Blue Origin’s September 2022, when an uncrewed mission ended in an emergency abort.
Blue Origin is an American aerospace manufacturer, launch service provider, and space technologies company founded by Jeff Bezos.
Headquartered in Kent, Washington, the company works to bring civilians to space.