In 2016, Charles Barkley marked Black History Month with a daily spotlight on local African-American heroes. Many of them didn’t make it into the history books or even the newspapers of their time. But their stories are inspiring and worth knowing. Here’s another look.
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Guion Bluford
Astronaut/Scientist
Guion Bluford
Astronaut/Scientist
(born November 22, 1942)
The first African American to go into space is Philadelphia’s own Bluford, 79, who grew up here before earning an aerospace engineering degree from Penn State through the Air Force ROTC program.
After flying 144 combat missions in Vietnam, Bluford became the first African American NASA astronaut in 1979, eventually going into space on the Challenger and Discovery.
Bluford logged over 28 days in space and 5,100 hours on different fighter pilots.
“I’ve come to appreciate the planet we live on,” Bluford said. “It’s a small ball in a large universe. It’s a very fragile ball but also very beautiful. You don’t recognize that until you see it from a little farther off.”
After his retirement, Bluford joined the private industry, eventually becoming president of Aerospace Technology, an engineering consulting firm.
EDUCATION:
- Penn State, B.S. 1964
- Air Force Institute of Technology, M.S. 1974, Ph.D. 1978
- University of Houston-Clear Lake, MBA 1987
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Earned honorary degrees from 14 universities, including Drexel University and University of the Sciences
- Inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1997 and U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2010
- Over two-dozen awards and accolades for his years of service as a pilot and astronaut
- A part of the Tuskegee Airmen
- Ranked colonel in U.S. Air Force
FINAL WORD:
In Guion’s International Space Hall of Fame biography, he says, “I felt an awesome responsibility, and I took the responsibility very seriously, of being a role model and opening another door to black Americans, but the important thing is not that I am black, but that I did a good job as a scientist and an astronaut. There will be black astronauts flying in later missions … and they, too, will be people who excel, not simply who are black . . . who can ably represent their people, their communities, their country.”
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/NASA
