Black History Month 2019 - #6: NASA's Black Astronauts in Space
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. While NASA would conduct all non-military space activity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application. In reviewing the various space flights I have seen areas where the lines are fuzzy…
The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in space scienceSince its establishment, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle.
There have been 833 total number of crewmembers of all 135 space shuttle missions, with some individuals riding multiple times and 14 astronauts killed during the Challenger and Columbia accidents. Of those astronauts, 15 have been African-American, and all have flown on the Space Shuttle missions, begun in 1972, after the Gemini and Apollo programs were completed. Space Shuttle projects involved launching satellites, conducting experiments in zero-gravity, and enabling other countries in Europe, Japan and Russia to participate in the Space program, launching satellites of their own.
Here are the first five black astronauts who went into space.
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