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In space, Victor Glover orbited the Earth every 90 minutes, witnessing 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single day. In America, Victor Glover got behind the wheel of his car and knew that, as a Black man, he might be pulled over by police.

“You still have to drive home from work and be worried about a busted tail-light stop,” he recalls of his early years training to be astronaut. “I am the son of a police officer, so I knew all those tactics. I’ve been pulled over. I had police officers harass and I would give them my ID, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, this is Victor Glover’s kid,’ and then I got treated differently.

“But that’s super frustrating, because how many young people out there that look like me don’t have that to fall back on and are eaten by the system? ”

Glover, 47, is among many African American astronauts featured in The Space Race, a National Geographic documentary that explores the uneasy convergence between the space race and civil rights movement, and chronicles the first Black pilots, engineers, and scientists who served their country in space even as it fell short of equality for them back on Earth.

Running through the film like a golden thread is the story of Ed Dwight who, but for systemic racism, might now be immortalized in textbooks in every school in the country as the first African American in space.

Dwight grew up on a farm in 1930s Kansas, within walking distance of an airfield. As a boy, he would go there every day to gaze in awe at the planes and pilots. Most were flying back from hunting trips that left their cabins messy with blood and empty beer cans. Dwight cleaned them up but told the pilots he did not want money; he wanted to fly.

Now 90 and based in Denver, he recalls via Zoom: “I got my first flight when I was about eight years old. I did get the plane bug early, but I never thought of myself as being one of those because all those guys were white guys. So I thought that was probably restricted to white guys, rather than me being involved. ” Tangie

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Lisa Cortés, Leland Melvin, Ed Dwight, Victor Glover, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza attend “The Space Race” Special Screening at The Space Center Houston. (Bob Levey/Getty Images)

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