Guion Bluford:First Black Man In Space — Part 1
The 100-ton space shuttle Challenger stood over five stories tall on launch pad 39-A at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was August 30, 1983 and five men had just finished checking their equipment. Having climbed into the shuttle two hours earlier, they had been inside the Challenger for more than an hour. After going through a series of checks of the various shuttle systems, they powered up auxiliary power units and were ready to go.
This was a mission of many firsts. They were the first shuttle astronauts to launch the craft at night and they were the first American astronauts to attempt the nighttime launch since Apollo 17 had blasted off to the moon back in 1972. But there was another “first” on this mission. Forty-year-old Lt. Colonel Guion S. Bluford, Jr., was one of the five astronauts who would be the first black American astronaut in space. Before lift-off, President Ronald Reagan sent a message to the crew, “With this effort, we acknowledge proudly the first ascent of a black American into space. Born in 1942 in Pennsylvania, his mother taught school while his father was a mechanical engineer.”
As a youngster, Guy (a name he preferred) built model airplanes and collected pictures of airplanes. As he grew up, Bluford knew that there were few black pilots. “I never felt limited as a black person” says Guy. It wasn’t until entering college did he feel different as a black person. Going into the aviation business and being an aerospace engineer were early dreams of the future astronaut. He was dreaming of outer space travel long before the Russians launched Sputnik I. Even though his high school counselors discouraged him from attending college, his parents encouraged him to further his education.
In the fall of 1960, Guy was accepted into the aerospace engineering program at Penn State University. However, in his junior year he failed a flight physical and could not qualify as a pilot. Instead, he joined the Air Force ROTC and became a pilot. Graduating from college in 1964, he joined the Air Force and joined the F-4 fighter squadron and served in South Vietnam. He flew a jet on 144 combat missions with 65 of them over enemy territory, logging a total of 3,000 hours of flying time and receiving 10 Air Force medals. But his dream of designing aircraft was still there. In 1972, after facing stiff competition, Guy was accepted into the Air Force Institute of Technology. Two years of school and graduating with distinction, the pilot received a master’s degree in aerospace engineering. A Ph.D. came in 1978 and the 35-year-old Bluford applied for the astronaut program.
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