February is Black History Month, so I decided to make a space article devoted to African Americans that helped us better understand space.
1: Guion Bluford
Guion Bluford was born on November 22, 1942. In 1964 he graduated from Penn State with a degree in aerospace engineering. Shortly after he joined the American Air Force, he was selected by NASA in 1978 to be the first African American to go into space. After waiting for 5 years he finally did on the mission STS-8 aboard the space shuttle Challenger (Please note that the shuttle Challenger flew 9 times before exploding.)
Bluford went on to fly three more space shuttle flights before retiring from NASA in the summer of 1993.
2: Ronald McNair
For the next few astronauts, I will mention the ones that we lost in tragedy but they gave excellent services to our country and should be remembered as heroes. Ronald McNair was born on October 21, 1950. He studied Physics in college and in 1978 was selected as an astronaut for NASA. He flew on STS-41B in 1984 and was supposed to fly again on the mission STS-51-L or as many people know it today the Challenger disaster. On January 28, 1986, he was killed when Challenger blew up nine miles above the Atlantic Ocean, 73 seconds after liftoff.
3: Michael P. Anderson
Michael Anderson was born in 1959 Anderson studied physics and astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1990 he was awarded a Master of Science degree in physics. A few years later he joined the Air Force and in 1995 joined NASA as an astronaut. He flew on mission STS-89 in 1998 and later STS-107 on the space shuttle Columbia in January 2003. But when the crew was coming home they burned up in Earth's atmosphere and Anderson with the rest of his crew was killed.
4: Robert Lawrence Jr.
The last astronaut I will talk about who sadly died was Robert H. Lawrence Jr. he never got to fly into space but I think that he is worth mentioning.
Born in 1935, he started a military career after getting a chemistry degree. In the summer of 1967, he was picked by the US army for a space secret mission, which would spy on the Soviet Union from low Earth orbit. But sadly just 6 months later he died in a plane crash. A few years after his death the army scrapped the idea of the spy mission because it went over-budget.
5: Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison was the first female African American to go into space. Born in 1956 she started in a medical career but then switched to a NASA career and flew on the mission STS-47 in 1992. In 1993 she left NASA and founded her own technology company.
6: Leland D. Melvin
Leland Melvin had a harsh start to his astronaut career after a training accident that left him temporarily deaf, a condition that grounded him from traveling into space. But he overcame this problem and he flew twice into space on STS-122 and STS-129.
7: Joan Higginbotham
Went into space on STS-116 after many long years of waiting, before she went into space she oversaw 53 space launches.
8: Bernard A. Harris Jr.
Bernard Harris Jr. made history in 1995 when he became the first African American to walk in space on the mission STS-63. He spent 4 hours and 39 minutes outside the space shuttle.
9: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. With an IQ of 123, he has become one of the many geniuses in the world. He has aired on many different shows, narrated space documentaries, and even hosted some shows.
10: Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin Banneker was a naturalist, mathematician, and astronomer. Born in 1731, he made observations in the night sky and recorded several pieces of important information. Sadly he died in 1806 when his house was burnt down, the only thing that survived was his astronomer book with his recorded observations.