- “The Space Race” is a new documentary about some of the first Black astronauts.
- NASA trained Ed Dwight and Robert Lawrence to become astronauts in the 1960s.
- But NASA didn’t send an African-American astronaut to space until 1983.
On August 30, 1983, NASA sent Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, to space.
Two decades before Bluford’s flight, Ed Dwight was an Air Force pilot who trained to be the first Black astronaut. A new documentary explores why he never made it into orbit.
When Bluford went to space, a few reporters sought out Dwight for his reaction. “I’m happy for him, but it’s overdue. Way overdue,” Dwight told The Atlanta Constitution at the time.
“Space and astronauts are part of our popular mythology,” Lisa Cortés, who co-directed the documentary “The Space Race,” told Business Insider. “These are people who do the impossible. They are our pioneers, but the story of the African-American astronauts was one that hadn’t been told.”
“They will make hamburger out of you, Dwight.”
In 1961, Dwight received a letter inviting him to become an astronaut trainee.
“I don’t think America — or anybody — knows how complex the situation was,” Dwight said in the film.
John F. Kennedy met with leaders in the African-American community, trying to win their support for his presidential run. Whitney Young of the National Urban League urged Kennedy to push the Air Force to find and train the first Black astronaut.
“Whitney Young implicitly understood the necessity that, as we are struggling for civil rights, we have to change stereotypes associated with African Americans,” Cortés said. “And how do we do that? We have astronauts.”
Despite meeting the near-impossible standards the military leaders set down for a candidate, Dwight wasn’t sure he wanted to take on the role.
He asked his superior officers for advice on whether he should join the program. “They told me, ‘They will make hamburger out of you, Dwight,'” he said. In the end, his mother encouraged him, telling him how inspirational it would be.
Chuck Yeager was head of the test pilot school where Dwight would learn what he needed to know to go into space. Dwight said the famed pilot felt slighted and not being included in the decision to train a Black astronaut.
As a result, Yeager actively worked to get Dwight to quit. “It was like walking into a deep freeze,” Dwight said. None of his classmates would speak to him, and he routinely sparred with Yeager.
“You’re 20 years too soon, buddy.”
In 1963, NASA announced 14 new astronauts. Dwight wasn’t among them. They were all white men. That same year, Kennedy was assassinated.
“Within a few years, that entire support system that Ed Dwight had disappeared,” Frederick Gregory, a retired astronaut, said in the film.
That same year, Dwight resigned from the military. “All through my training, I was told by friends and enemies alike, ‘You’re 20 years too soon, buddy,'” he said.
Soon, Dwight found another career as a sculptor, creating bronze works of Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.
Decades later, it seemed Dwight’s story had been completely forgotten.
“When Ed came to my retirement party, he had to give his own prelude to why he was even there because no one in the room knew who he was, except for me and maybe one or two other people,” retired astronaut Leland Melvin told Business Insider.
The classic NASA astronaut
Six years after Dwight resigned, NASA sent three men to the moon. Two of the astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, were part of the group of 14 NASA selected in 1963.
Nearly 650 million people watched the moon landing. “To see a Black man in space during that period of time, it would have changed things,” former astronaut Bernard Harris, Jr. said in the film.
Many of the former astronauts featured in the documentary were surprised to learn about Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, the first person of African descent in space. The Soviet Union sent the Cuban cosmonaut on a space flight in 1980.
“We started exploring the juxtaposition between both sides, what was happening in Cuba, and what was happening in the US,” said Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, who co-directed the film with Cortés.
“The Soviets were very conscious of the racial disparity we have here in the United States,” Charles Bolden, Jr., former NASA administrator, said. He noted that while officials selected both Tamayo Méndez and Dwight for propaganda purposes, it was the Soviet Union that made history — even if that history was little-known outside of Cuba for decades.
In 1978, NASA chose 35 people as part of its new crop of astronauts who would head to space in the 1980s. The group included Gregory, Bluford, and Ron McNair, three African-American men.
Bolden credited the invention of the space shuttle for helping transform NASA. The vehicle could typically carry seven, only two of whom needed to be pilots. The other five could be engineers and other scientists.
“All of a sudden we were able to hire astronauts who didn’t look like the classic NASA astronaut,” Bolden said.
“Firsts are not important if there are no seconds and thirds and fourths.”
Bluford wanted to make sure he wasn’t the only African American NASA sent to space.
“He still cares,” Cortés said. He pushed for Gregory, McNair, and Bolden to fly, she said, but he continues to ask about the current class of Black astronauts and when they’ll get their chance to go to space.
“He is so cognizant that it can’t just be this one group of people, but it has to be a living legacy that continues,” Cortés said.
The importance of legacy was shared by many of the astronauts, including Bolden, who said, “Firsts are not important if there are no seconds and thirds and fourths.”
Several people in the documentary discussed how others told them to apply to become astronauts, including McNair who pushed Bolden, who in turn encouraged Melvin. McNair was aboard The Challenger when it broke apart in 1986.
Cortés and de Mendoza found a similar sentiment when they interviewed the film’s subjects. “Every astronaut sort of led us to the next, and we started discovering that the thread was really this connection, this community,” said de Mendoza.
Gregory, for example, wanted the filmmakers to talk about Robert Lawrence, who tragically died in a jet crash in 1967 but who may have otherwise gone to space.
But before anyone else, there was Dwight. “This community so reveres Ed and sees their success so intertwined with standing upon his shoulders,” Cortés said.
Melvin noted the parallels with the NASA mathematician profiled in “Hidden Figures.” “What Katherine Johnson had done for NASA, for humanity,” Melvin said, “Ed’s done the same thing, in his way, to help kickstart getting me to be part of this journey.”
“It could’ve been any of us.”
“In astronaut lingo, they say when they go in space, it’s mission first,” de Mendoza said. “So whatever personal issues you have, you got to put them aside.”
When Victor Glover spent six months on the International Space Station in 2021, he had a painting of George Floyd with him.
Melvin, who’s discussed in the past how he was nearly arrested on false charges, talked about Floyd’s death in the documentary. “It could have been any of us,” he said.
“Victor, as an incredible humanitarian, brilliant person, could not separate and forget about this incredibly tumultuous time of political action in response to great tragedy that was going on,” Cortés said.
During his flight, Glover had a group call with Dwight, Bluford, Bolden, and other Black astronauts. Melvin, who was on the call, described watching Dwight see Glover live on the ISS as a priceless moment.
“I think that’s something that’s going to help us continue to carry on these kinds of conversations with future astronauts,” he said. “To let them know that we got you back, we’re there for you, we’re there with you.”
“The Space Race” is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
