A Veteran to Remember: Astronaut Ed Dwight, USAF

[Kid Berwyn]

Ed Dwight Was Going to Be the First African American in Space. Until He Wasn’t

The Kennedy administration sought a diverse face to the space program, but for reasons unknown, the pilot was kept from reaching the stars

Shareef Jackson
Smithsonian Magazine, February 18, 2020

In the early 1960s, U.S. Air Force pilot Ed Dwight was drowning in mail. “I received about 1,500 pieces of mail a week, which were stored in large containers at Edwards Air Force Base. Some of it came to my mother in Kansas City,” Dwight, now 86, recalls. Fans from around the world were writing to congratulate Dwight on becoming the first African American astronaut candidate. “Most of my mail was just addressed to Astronaut Dwight, Kansas City, Kansas.”

The letters, however, were premature. Dwight would never get the opportunity to go to space—despite the publicity and hype—for reasons that remain unclear even to this day.

Dwight was working at the time as a test pilot at Edwards in the Mojave Desert of California, the U.S. Air Force’s premier experimental flight base and a pathway to entering the astronaut corps of NASA. He trained in the Aerospace Research Pilot School, run by aviation icon Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. Edwards holds a legendary status, then and now, as the premier flight test facility of the Air Force, where the likes of Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper, two of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and Neil Armstrong, selected in the second group of astronauts, trained as test pilots in experimental jets over the vast high desert that often served as an impromptu runway. During his time at Edwards, Dwight flew jets such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic aircraft capable of soaring into the high atmosphere where the pilot could observe the curvature of the Earth.

“The first time you do this it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what the hell? Look at this,’” Dwight recently told the New York Times. “You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. It’s absolutely stunning.”

Snip…

Around this time, Kennedy encouraged leaders in all the military branches to work to improve diversity among their officers. When the first group of NASA astronauts were selected in 1959, the nation’s military officer pilots, initially the only people who could apply to be astronauts, included no people of color. But as Murrow advocated for a black astronaut, Dwight was rising to the rank of captain in the Air Force, armed with an aeronautics degree from Arizona State University and enough flying hours to qualify for the flight test school at Edwards.

Continues…

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ed-dwight-first-african-american-space-until-wasnt-180974215/



After the assassination of President Kennedy, Capt. Dwight fell off the track. He would become a sculptor, like all he worked to accomplish, one of excellence.



The International Memorial to the Underground Railroad

[chowder66]

1. This is so cool! Thank you for posting. I'm originally from KCMO so this is an education for me.

I also sent this to my brother who is retired Air Force. He should get a kick out of this too.

Neat and inspirational guy... and it's a shame that he was passed over to go to space.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Astronaut Robert H. Lawrence, USAF, another vet to remember.

Air Force Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr.



The unsung astronaut

Robert Lawrence, America’s first black astronaut, died in a tragic accident in 1967, but it took decades longer for his accomplishments and hard-won status to be recognized.

By James Oberg
NBC News, Feb. 23, 2005

Maj. Robert H. Lawrence, America’s first black astronaut, had already traveled far by the time he was selected as a military astronaut in 1967. His death later that year in a tragic accident not only cut short a promising career, it led full recognition of his accomplishments and hard-won status to be obscured for decades. Only after his supporters traveled their own difficult journey was Lawrence accorded his proper place in space history.

Lawrence was a 31-year-old Air Force officer when he was selected in 1967 to join a small team of military officers training for a planned small space station. The Pentagon's "Manned Orbiting Laboratory," or MOL, was intended to explore the value of military space missions for astronauts. Two-man crews would be launched aboard advanced Gemini capsules and spend a month or more in orbit, practicing visual reconnaissance and communications intercepts and other national security tasks.

SNIP…

In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts left a memorial plaque on the moon that named fourteen American and Russian names. Lawrence was not included. When, in the wake of the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1986, a private foundation built a memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Lawrence’s name was again omitted.

If in the end the difficulties turned out to have been more connected with the color of his uniform -- Air Force blue -– than of his skin, the fact remains that Lawrence's legacy was allowed to go unheralded for decades.

SNIP…

Fred Abramson attended graduate school with Lawrence and remembered him as extraordinary. When Ohio State dedicated a lecture hall in 2000 to Lawrence, Abramson sent in this remembrance:

"I still have that Reader's Digest 'The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met' attitude toward Bob," Abramson wrote. “He was gifted in every area. He was smarter and more efficient than the rest of us. He could dust me off on the basketball court. ... And, oh yes, he could fly a jet fighter!”

CONTINUES…

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7018497





PS: You are most welcome, chiwder66! I’ve been to both, KCMO and KCKS. Great towns and great people. My nephew is a proud K State grad.