When a nonagenarian says he just had a life-changing experience, what comes to mind?
This is the story of Ed Dwight, who, at 90, had a dream and a world record all achieved in one smooth space travel.
Six decades ago, the year of 1961 precisely, as a young African American astronaut, he nearly became the first black man to embark on a journey to space. It was a period when the United States had several space exploration programs, and President John F. Kennedy had interestingly championed him as a candidate for NASA’s early Astronaut corps.
He had been chosen, trained as an Airforce pilot and was thoroughly equipped for the trip that would have set him in an exclusive class of firsts. But it never happened. He wasn’t listed in the eventual voyagers to embark on the 1963 travel.
On Sunday, May 19, 2024, however, that dream finally became a reality.
Traveling in the Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket, one from Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, the spacecraft blasted off from West Texas. The short flight saw the crew of 5 passengers circle outer space for about 10 minutes, with all the crew members exhilarated, enjoying a brief weightlessness before returning back to earth.
The visibly ecstatic 90-year-old Ed Dwight rewrote the record books by etching his name into the Guinness Book of World Records with this flight as the oldest man to circle space and he tagged it “a life changing experience”.
