Penn State to honor first Black astronaut to fly into space

2nd March 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Frederick Lowe
Contributing Writer

(BlackmansStreet.To-day) — Penn State University is expected to name a building in honor of alumnus Dr. Guion “Guy” Bluford Jr., the first African-American astronaut to soar into space.

Bluford, who graduated from Penn State in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering, flew into space as a mission specialist aboard the STS-8 Challenger on August 30, 1983.

It was a rainy day, and 30 years later Buford joked he was surprised that anyone showed up to the see the launch because of the foul weather. The Challenger took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, circling the Earth 98 times in 145 hours.

“People came from all over to watch this launch because I was flying,” Bluford said in 2013 interview with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “I imagined them all standing out there at 1:00 in the morning, holding their umbrellas, all asking the same question, ‘Why am I standing here?’”

The mission ended when the Shuttle made a night landing on September 5, 1983, at Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, California.

The shuttle was the first spaceship to carry a Black man into space and the first spaceship to land like a passenger plane on the Earth. Previous landings occurred in the ocean.

Penn State’s board of trustees has recommended naming the CIMP-3d lab after Bluford. The lab uses powered metals and 3D printing to develop less expensive metal parts for various business applications. The building is located at 230 Innovation Boulevard in University Park on Penn State’s campus.

Bluford was born on November 22, 1942, in Philadelphia. He is 77. His father was a mechanical engineer and his mother was a special education teacher.

He enrolled in Penn State as a member of the Air Force ROTC program, graduating in 1964 with a degree in aerospace engineering.

He trained as a pilot at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, later flying 144 combat missions in Vietnam.

After Vietnam, he enrolled at the Air Force Institute of Technology where he earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in aerospace technology. He was one of 35 candidates out of 10,000 applicants selected for NASA’s new space shuttle program.

He officially became a NASA astronaut in August 1979. He was 37.

Two years after his first space mission, Bluford flew into space as a mission specialist on October 30, 1985 aboard the Challenger. The challenger completed 111 Earth orbits in 169 hours before landing at Edwards Air Force Base.

The Challenger experienced a devastating setback on January 28, 1986, when it exploded killing all seven of the people aboard, including Black astronaut Ronald McNair, one of three mission specialists aboard.

The worldwide television audience watched in horror and disbelief as the Challenger exploded.

Bluford made his final two space flights aboard the Discovery in 1991 and 1992. He had spent 688 hours in space by the time he retired in 1993.

He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1997 and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2010.

He now works in the private sector. Bluford is married and he and his wife have two children.

This article originally published in the March 2, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.