The 90-year-old would-be astronaut who finally gets his chance at space

An astronaut candidate in the early 1960s, he became a celebrity in the Black community, landing on the covers of Jet and Ebony magazines as a trailblazing pilot. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ultimately never selected him. He gave up the dream and later became a renowned sculptor focusing on Black history.

On Sunday, at the age of 90, Dwight will finally get his chance to go to space.

He will be the oldest person to fly to space, slightly edging out “Star Trek" star William Shatner, who flew in 2021 on a flight with Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos.

Dwight will be one of six people scheduled to board the latest Blue Origin flight, the first with humans aboard in nearly two years. The roughly 11-minute flight will zoom just past the Karman Line, considered by many to be the boundary of space. Crew members will experience weightlessness and view the curvature of the Earth before descending back to the ground.

“This is an absolutely fantastic bookend to the space era of his life," said his son, Chris Dwight. “It’s about time."

Blue Origin said Dwight was unavailable for an interview and undergoing flight training. Dwight didn’t respond to interview requests.

A spokeswoman for Blue Origin said the organization is thrilled to fly Dwight to space. The nonprofit Space for Humanity sponsored Dwight’s Blue Origin flight.

“We feel like we are helping correct something that should have been done decades ago," said Antonio Peronace, executive director of Space for Humanity.

Blue Origin in recent years has conducted six human space flights on its New Shepard vehicle, including trips featuring Shatner and former National Football League star-turned-television personality Michael Strahan.

New Shepard had an engine nozzle failure during an uncrewed research launch in 2022. Blue Origin investigated the incident for months, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration. The regulator approved the company’s analysis of the episode, which called for redesigning nozzle components.

Space dreams

After Dwight’s burst of fame in the 1960s, his experience as the first Black astronaut candidate was for decades largely forgotten. His contributions as a pioneering pilot have recently gained recognition.

Charles Bolden Jr., the first Black NASA administrator, invited Dwight to his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing in 2009. During his testimony, Bolden acknowledged Dwight, who was sitting in the audience.

“I wanted to thank him publicly," Bolden told The Wall Street Journal. “I wanted the world to know about him."

Dwight’s story also was featured in “The Space Race," a 2023 documentary about the first Black astronauts and the obstacles they faced.

“Ed has been the person who started the legacy of—we call ourselves the ‘afronauts’—because he would have been the first," said Leland Melvin, a retired NASA astronaut. “He would have walked on the moon, he would have been an Apollo astronaut."

During the early 1960s, as the space race with Russia was under way, the Kennedy administration pushed for minorities to become part of the space program, said Steven Moss, who with Richard Paul wrote “We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program." Bringing a Black person into the space program was seen as good public relations for the Kennedy administration at the time, Moss said.

Dwight, who was born and raised in Kansas City, Kan., joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953 and rose to the rank of captain. He entered the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1962 to prepare to be an astronaut. He has said he encountered resistance and racism in the program.

Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier, was the head of the Aerospace Research Pilot School. Yeager, who died in 2020, had denied subjecting Dwight to racial abuse and said Dwight struggled to keep up with the other pilots.

The Air Force didn’t comment Friday on Dwight’s statements about racial discrimination.

During training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, Dwight rose to fame, with national press attention and public appearances.

He was “the definition of a modern rock-star type," Moss said.

Bolden, the first Black NASA administrator, was in high school in Columbia, S.C., when he saw Dwight on the covers of Jet and Ebony.

“I was overjoyed to see it," Bolden said of a Black man training for a prominent role like an astronaut.

From the training program, Dwight applied to NASA to be an astronaut. But when NASA announced its 1963 class of 14, Dwight wasn’t on the list.

Then came the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Dwight has said he believed that without Kennedy in the White House, his career as an astronaut was finished. He retired from the Air Force in 1966.

“My hope was just getting into space in any kind of way, but they weren’t going to let that happen," Dwight said in “The Space Race." “Had all the things been equal, I would have made it to the moon. I had the capabilities, and I was not given that opportunity."

It would take two more decades after Dwight’s experience as an astronaut candidate before a Black man went to space.

Robert Lawrence was the first Black man selected for the space program, in 1967. But he died in an aircraft accident later that year. NASA chose three Black men for the Space Shuttle program in 1978. One of them, Guion Bluford, became the first Black person to go to space in 1983. Mae Jemison was the first Black woman in space in 1992.

Life as a sculptor

Bolden and Melvin, who are friends with Dwight, said he put the astronaut program behind him, turning his attention to becoming a sculptor.

His first serious work was a sculpture of George Brown, Colorado’s first Black lieutenant governor, in 1974. He would go on to create many sculptures and public memorials focused on the history of Black people in the U.S.

One of his most prominent works is a public memorial commissioned by the state of Texas that is on display on the grounds of the state capitol. It depicts the history of slavery and the role Black people played in Texas’ history. It also features Bernard Harris, the first Black astronaut to walk in space.

Dwight’s family will be watching him Sunday, said his son Chris. He is taking his 22- and 20-year-old sons to see their grandfather’s flight take off in Texas.

“It’s really going to hit home for them what their grandfather has accomplished," Chris Dwight said. “I think it’s going to be one of those things like, ‘Wow, that is my family, my forebears, that is going into space,’ something not many people have done."

The flight will be his vindication, said Lisa Cortés, a co-director of “The Space Race" documentary.

“Sometimes we have to wait for the arcs of time, justice and progress to intersect," Cortés said. “I think this is that moment for Ed."

Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com