Ed Dwight made history and looked darn good doing it. Dwight was almost 30 when he was selected by President John F. Kennedy as the nation's first Black astronaut candidate. Despite being directly championed by a sitting president, two years later, he wasn't picked to join the 1963 class of astronauts. His would-be peers? Oh, only Michael Collins. Buzz Aldrin. Nobody too influential or important, really.
60 years later, Dwight got a long-overdue opportunity to finally head into space. Per the Associated Press, the 90-year-old champion -- alongside five other individuals -- went through a few minutes of weightlessness aboard the Blue Origin capsule as it skimmed space on a roughly 10-minute flight.
You can watch Ed Dwight make history down below!
A life-changing journey. #NS25 pic.twitter.com/QQehbzQXzN
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 20, 2024
"I've had 60 years of people wishing I had gone into space," Dwight says to start the video. "I thought I really didn't need this in my life. But I lied."
I've never shared some people's affinity for space. I find space to be a little creepy, actually. Scary. Might've been all those terrifying Ray Bradbury short stories about space I read growing up. But, man, it's different when you try to comprehend Dwight's journey. Can you imagine what it must be like thinking an opportunity is forever out of your grasp and finally achieving it years down the line? Surreal.
Ed Dwight Is The First Black Astronaut Candidate, And His Dream Has Come Full Circle
Per PEOPLE, Dwight now holds the world record for the oldest individual to travel to space, beating the likes of Star Trek faithful, William Shatner. I know it must've been a life-changing moment for the other five people who accompanied Dwight on that voyage. I'm admittedly struggling, however, to come up with a logical reason why Dwight has been denied such an opportunity for all these years.
I'm glad he got to do it, of course. But the fact that he had to wait so long doesn't sit right with me. It's disappointing and senseless. Then again, Ed Dwight became a rather decorated and prolific sculptor and purveyor of African-American arts. The last thing he's had is an "uneventful and purposeless" life. Still, I'd rather people be given their flowers when they've already proven to have earned and deserved them -- not decades after the fact.
