Astronauts

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Astronauts

During the 1960s, the civil rights movement began to change the United States. Much of the country was engulfed in the sometimes violent struggle to either create equal rights or to ensure that minority groups remained as second-class citizens. In the South, segregation often furthered the social disparity between African Americans and whites, placing African Americans in schools that lacked the funding provided to their white counterparts. However, this is also the period that introduced the nation's first African-American space travelers.

The politics of change were apparent in the 1960 election campaign of John F. Kennedy, who was the first presidential candidate to strongly contend for the minority vote. In a post-election conversation with National Urban League President Whitney Young, Kennedy was told that an African-American astronaut could encourage black youngsters to enter the science and technology fields. At the same time, news commentator Edward R. Murrow began suggesting to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator James E. Webb that

the nation should consider sending a black man into space "to retell our space effort to the whole nonwhite world, which is most of it" (Phelps, p. xviii). In 1962 President Kennedy asked the department of defense to find a black pilot who met the requirements to become an astronaut.

Edward J. Dwight (b. 1933) became the first African American selected to attend astronaut training in 1962. An accomplished pilot with an aeronautical degree from Arizona State University, Dwight received a letter from the president informing him of his selection. However, White House favoritism and racial prejudice—as described by Dwight in a fifteen page memorandum to the department of defense—eventually undermined his career. Although he was recommended by the astronaut selection board, Dwight and five of his eight recommended classmates were not selected to head into space. After suffering what he considered further discriminatory behavior by the U.S. Air Force, Dwight described significant social discrimination and resigned his commission in 1966.

Just one year later, however, Dr. Robert H. Lawrence (1935–1967), an air force major, qualified for the air force's Manned Orbital Laboratory program, becoming the first African-American astronaut designee and the only designee until that time who had earned a doctorate. Unfortunately, this new hope for an African-American astronaut passed at the end of that year with Lawrence's accidental death aboard an F-104 aircraft. No other African American would join the astronaut program until 1978, leading the Soviet Union to accuse the U.S. space program of racism. In 1963 the Soviets placed the first woman in space (Colonel Valentina Tereshkova, born in 1937) and allowed Cuba's Colonel Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez, born in 1942, to become the first black man in space in 1980. As a participant in the Soviet Union's Intercosmos guest cosmonaut program, Tamayo-Mendez spent eight days aboard the Salyut 6 space station.

1978 to 1987

Whereas the 1963 entry of a Soviet woman into space embarrassed some senators who believed that the United States should have made a greater effort to create an inclusive astronaut corps, the 1964 Civil Rights Act encoded the need for NASA to integrate. In 1978, the astronaut training program welcomed its first female candidates—including Sally K. Ride, the first American woman in space—and three African Americans: Guion (Guy) Bluford, Ronald McNair, and Frederick Gregory.

Guy Bluford Jr. (born in 1942) became the first African American in space on August 30, 1983. His launch aboard the Challenger was attended by black political leaders, educators, and entertainment figures. Bluford's contribution to aviation, however, had begun years before. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University as the only black student in the engineering school, he served with distinction in the skies over Vietnam. Upon his return from duty, he obtained a master's degree in aerospace engineering, followed by a doctorate in the same field and a minor in laser physics. His doctoral dissertation contributed to the study of thin wings traveling at velocities well above the speed of sound. From 1974 to 1978, as the chief of Air Dynamics and Airframe Branch at the Air Force Flight Dynamics Library, he supervised the research of over forty engineers using two wind tunnels. Finally, in 1979 he applied to and was accepted by the astronaut corps as a mission specialist. He performed work on various satellites and conducted experiments in physics, biology, and the processing of materials. In 1993 Bluford retired from both NASA and the air force with the rank of colonel.

His classmate, Frederick Gregory (born in 1941), was from a successful middle class family (his uncle was Dr. Charles Drew, a pioneer in blood storage and collection techniques). He pursued his education at the Air Force Academy, having been nominated by the civil rights leader and U.S. Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. After serving as a combat rescue pilot in Vietnam, he worked as a research test pilot at Langley Air Force Base from 1974 until 1978, when he joined the astronaut corps. Seven years later, in 1985, Gregory became the first African American to pilot an American spacecraft, maneuvering the Challenger into space. He served in mission control for subsequent spacecraft launches, and in 1993 he became administrator for the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.

In 1986, while serving in mission control, Gregory witnessed the death of his classmate Ronald E. McNair (1950–1986) in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. At the age of nine, McNair defied the law and began to use the whites-only library in Lake City, South Carolina. As a physics student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, he participated in an exchange program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He later pursued his doctoral degree—with the aid of a fellowship from the Ford Foundation—at MIT, where he continued to study physics because of its combination of math and science. There he helped develop some of the first chemical and high-pressure carbon dioxide lasers. As staff physicist at Hughes Research Labs in Malibu, California (1976–1978), McNair researched the use of lasers for satellite-to-satellite communication. He joined NASA's astronaut program as a mission specialist in 1978 and became the second African American in space in 1984. His research efforts in space included the testing of a remote manipulator arm, used to repair damage to satellites and to the shuttle itself, and the study of solar cells. Among the several memorials to McNair are the MIT McNair building, a center for space research, and the MIT McNair Scholarship, which honors African-American students for academic achievement and community development.

African Americans in Non-Astronautical Aviation

Successful African-American aviators include General Lester L. Lyles of the U.S. Air Force (ret. 2003), Professor Wesley L. Harris of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Joseph R. Cleveland, Chief Information Officer for Lockheed Martin. Four-star General Lester Lyles, a graduate of Howard University, served in several capacities in the military. After leaving his position as Vice Chief of Staff, he assumed the leadership of the Air Force Materiel Command in April 2000, where he worked to invigorate his organization's role in science and technology. He emphasized the growth of Air Force participation in space and in developing government/industry partnerships. Wesley L. Harris, similarly, has sought such parterships during his career. In the time since receiving his doctorate from Princeton University, Harris has served as the NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, co-director of the Lean Aerospace Initiative, and currently heads the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Like many noted astronauts, he has demonstrated sincere dedication to the advancement of minorities through education, having founded the MIT Office of Minority Affairs in 1975. Finally, community leader Joseph R. Cleveland exemplifies a leading African American within commercial aviation. As a member of the 2003 Board of Governors for the Orlando, Florida, Chamber of Commerce, he has devoted significant efforts to developing the local community. A graduate of Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, he now oversees the information technology operations at Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation's largest military aerospace contractor. In 1996 Cleveland was named Black Engineer of the Year for Career Achievement in Industry by the Engineering Deans of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and one of the Premier 100 Information Technology Leaders by Computerworld magazine in 2004.

1987 to 2005

With the resurrection of the shuttle program in 1988 came another achievement for African Americans in aviation and space technology. In 1987, Dr. Mae Jemison (born in 1956) became the first African-American woman to gain entry to the Astronaut Candidate Program. Having graduated from Stanford University with a degree in chemical engineering, Jemison obtained a doctorate in medicine from Cornell University Medical College in 1981. Before joining NASA, she supervised the medical staff of the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and practiced medicine with CIGNA Health Plans in California. On September 13, 1992, Dr. Jemison entered space on board the shuttle Endeavour. There she conducted experiments regarding the creation of drugs and the effects of low gravity on the human body. She also participated in a biofeedback experiment meant to help future space travelers deal with the effects of living outside the earth's atmosphere. In 1993 Jemison resigned her position at NASA to become a professor at Dartmouth University. At the same time, as director of the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technologies in Developing Nations, she led research to improve the living conditions in the developing world.

After Jemison's departure, her colleague Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. (born in 1956) continued to focus on maintaining human health in space, an ongoing NASA initiative. After becoming an astronaut candidate in 1990, he worked as project manager on the NASA Exercise Countermeasures Project, designing exercises to offset the loss of physical conditioning in space. In March 1993 Harris flew on Columbia and conducted the first medical conference from space with doctors at his alma mater, the Mayo Clinic.

Other Notables

As of 2005, NASA reported that fifteen African Americans have become astronauts or astronaut trainees. Other noted black astronauts include Charles F. Bolden (born in 1946), who served onboard Discovery in 1990 during the launch of the Hubble telescope and commanded the shuttle Atlantis in 1992, and Robert L. Curbeam (born in 1962), who was a member of the six-person crew that installed the laboratory on the International Space Station. In a tragic way, African-American astronaut Michael Anderson gained national attention following his death in the 2003 Columbia explosion.

A Common Thread

Despite the diverse backgrounds of the several African-American astronauts, one important similarity may be noted: a dedication to education. Of Bluford, McNair, Jemison, Bolden, and Gregory, all had at least one parent who worked as a teacher and imbued in his or her child the importance of education and a determination to learn and advance. After Edward Dwight left NASA, videos of his training were used to inspire young African Americans to enter science and technology. Ronald McNair encouraged young blacks to succeed as he traveled the country speaking to youth and advocating the recruitment of first-rate teachers for inner city schools. Both Guy Bluford and Frederick Gregory devoted time to similar causes. Mae Jemison's company, Jemison Group Inc., facilitates health care for the developing world by advocating the embrace of science and education. She also encourages young people to pursue careers in science and technology.

See also Drew, Charles Richard; Science