Who Was the Worlds First Black Astronaut?
When most people think of the first black astronaut they think of Col. Guion “Guy” Bluford Jr. But there was one astronaut who came before Bluford and has been largely forgotten by history. Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr., a distinguished test and fighter pilot, was one of the first to be selected for the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program, which was the precursor to the NASA Space Shuttle Program. On Dec. 8, 1967, only months after being selected to the prestigious MOL unit, the F-104 Starfighter jet, in which he was a co-pilot, crashed during a training flight at Edwards AFB, Calif. During the flight Lawrence was performing maneuvers to gather data for use in future manned space flight programs. At the time, the Air Force had it own objectives for space exploration that differed from NASA’s. The MOL pilots had a rigorous standard of aerospace flight education and proficiency equal to the NASA standards. However Lawrence and the rest of the MOL participants were not officially
