Victor Glover has just became NASA’s first Black astronaut to live on the International Space Station, according to Spectrum News.
On November 15 at 7:27 pm EST, Glover soared into space, piloting The SpaceX Crew-1 mission.
However, Glover will be knocking out several firsts with this flight becoming the first Black astronaut to fly for SpaceX, the first to move into the International Space Station for an extended stay, and the first Black person in space since Alvin Drew in 2007.
“The opportunity to fly to space at all is just truly amazing, but then to be able to do it on a spacecraft that is made by this great company SpaceX, it’s an honor, it’s just icing on the cake,” said Glover. “I’m really excited to be able to fly on Crew Dragon.”
Glover and his crew members, Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, boarded the first operational flight on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center, according to NASA.
A former Navy test pilot and Legislative Fellow for the late Sen. John McCain upon becoming an astronaut, Glover is the only rookie spaceman on his crew. The 44-year-old Southern California native shared his excitement to visit space leading up to his departure.
“Listening to Shannon and Soichi and Mike talk about their Souyz experience, their space shuttle experience, and their lives on the International Space Station, and how they managed their families and communication and keeping their things together, all of that has been so valuable to me and to top it all off, we have a great time,” Glover told Spectrum News.
Leaving behind his wife and children at home in Berkeley, California for the next six months while he’s away in space, Glover tells reporters that his children might enjoy the time apart after having been together throughout the entire pandemic.
“I think now with the pandemic, and with us having to be a little more isolated than normal, I think (my daughters are) also ready for dad to go ahead, get out to low-Earth-orbit so maybe they can go back to school and have a little bit more of a social life,” Glover said.
Meanwhile, it has been gathered that Astronaut Jeanette Epps is not too far behind to become the first Black woman to join the International Space Crew of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.
