This post was originally published on Defender Network

(WIB) – Where does the history of Blacks in space begin? It depends on who you ask and where you go to get your information. If you Google “the first Black in space,” you’ll see the name Guion Bluford, a Philadelphia-born brother who flew among the stars on Aug. 30, 1983. But three years prior (Sept. 18, 1980), the Soviet Union sent an Afro-Latinx Black man from Cuba into space. His name? Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez.

Others, however, argue that the Black presence in space accompanied those first, all-white, all-male NASA astronauts, who would not have been able to make the trip without those “Hidden Figures,” the hundreds of Black female math and science geniuses whose calculations created the roadmap to not only go to space, but get back

See Full Page