More than 60 years after he was denied an opportunity to become America's first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight finally traveled into space Sunday with five other passengers on a 10-minute flight inside a Blue Origin capsule.
Dwight, a retired Air Force captain and test pilot, had a chance to become the first African American astronaut. He was one of 26 pilots the Air Force recommended to NASA for the third class of astronauts in 1963, but the agency didn't select him. It took another 20 years for America's first Black astronaut, Guion Bluford, to fly in space in 1983.
“Everything they did, I did, and I did it well," Dwight said in a video released by Blue Origin. "If politics had changed, I would have gone to space in some kind of capacity.”
At the age of 90, Dwight finally entered the record books Sunday, becoming the oldest person to reach space, displacing the previous record-holder, actor William Shatner, who flew on a similar Blue Origin launch to the edge of space in 2021.
“I thought I didn’t need it in my life," Dwight said after Sunday's fight. "But I lied!"
Since retiring from the Air Force, Dwight became an accomplished sculptor. His works, which focus on Black history, are installed at memorials and monuments across the country.
“The transitions, the separations and stuff were a little bit more dynamic than I thought," Dwight said in remarks after Sunday's flight. "But that’s how it’s supposed to be. It makes your mind wonder, 'Is something wrong?' But no, it was absolutely terrific and the view ... absolutely fantastic. This was a life-changing experience. Everybody needs to do this.”
Dwight and his five co-passengers lifted off from Blue Origin's remote launch site in West Texas at 9:35 am CDT (14:35 UTC). Strapped into reclining seats inside a pressurized capsule, the passengers rode Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. After burning its main engine more than two minutes, the rocket released the crew capsule and continued coasting upward to an apogee, or high point, of nearly 66 miles (107 kilometers), just above the internationally recognized boundary of space.