Following a 63-year-long span, the wait is over. - At age 90, Ed Dwight becomes oldest person to visit space.
A 90-year-old man became the oldest person to fly into space, surpassing William Shatner's record. Shatner, a 'Star Trek' actor, was two months younger than the man when he journeyed into weightlessness in 2021.
This elderly gentleman flew aboard a space capsule from Jeff Bezos' private company, Blue Origin, owned by the Amazon founder. The journey lasted for nine minutes and 53 seconds, with the capsule detaching from the rocket, reaching 100 kilometers above the earth, and then safely landing in western Texas with the help of parachutes.
Dwight's reaction after exiting the capsule was a raised fist and the statement, "I thought I didn't need this in my life, but now I need this in my life. I'm ecstatic." This was a life-changing experience he had waited 63 years for.
In 1961, the talented, U.S. Air Force jet pilot was chosen as the first black astronaut to fly into space. However, the assassination of Kennedy in 1963 stopped Dwight's dream. He was disregarded and discriminated against by his superiors at the new astronaut training center in California's Mojave Desert, and he left the Air Force in 1966.
Dwight chose a different path and pursued sculpting, becoming famous for his creations of influential black figures in history, such as Martin Luther King, Louis Armstrong, and the Obamas. He probably never imagined that his life would take this unexpected turn at the age of 90, but that he would travel into space eventually.
Bezos' private space company offers suborbital flights for paying customers. The first flight in 2021 had one passenger pay a staggering $28 million for the experience of weightlessness and the view of the Earth's curvature.
Dwight's space journey was funded by Space for Humanity, a non-governmental organization advocating for the democratization of access to space.
Dwight expressed to the New York Times that getting into space at last wasn't justice but rather something that should have occurred at some point, noting, "My entire life has been about achieving things. This is the pinnacle."
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Source: symclub.org
