{"id":14778,"date":"2026-04-12T18:45:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=14778"},"modified":"2026-04-12T18:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:45:36","slug":"from-a-small-city-to-deep-space-history-victor-glover-is-preparing-to-become-the-first-black-person-to-fly-around-the-moon-and-his-journey-is-being-watched-by-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=14778","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFROM A SMALL CITY\u2026 TO DEEP SPACE HISTORY.\u201d \u2014 Victor Glover is preparing to become the first Black person to fly around the Moon, and his journey is being watched by the world. From a boy growing up in Pomona \u2014 a place where not many dared to dream big \u2014 to a pilot with over 3,000 flight hours and now a member of the Artemis II mission, Glover is stepping into space where no Black person has ever set foot. But this is not just a personal story. This is a moment that marks the change of an entire era \u2014 from the days of Apollo, which was dominated by white men\u2026 to a more diverse, bolder future. What brought him from the battlefields of Iraq to the lunar rover? The story behind it is even more inspiring than you might imagine. Watch more below \ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is Victor Glover? The man set to become NASA\u2019s first black astronaut to orbit the moon<\/h2>\n
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Victor Glover (pictured) was selected as an astronaut in 2013 and became the first African American ISS expedition crewmember to live on the ISS seven years later<\/p>\n

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NASA<\/span>\u00a0is set to send the first-ever black astronaut to the moon.<\/p>\n

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Victor Glover, 46, was selected to take part in\u00a0the space agency\u2019s Artemis II\u00a0<\/span>mission \u2014 the US\u2019 first lunar mission in a half-century.<\/p>\n

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The Pomona,\u00a0California<\/span>, native will be the first person of color to travel into deep space, hundreds\u00a0of thousands of miles beyond the low-Earth orbiting\u00a0International Space Station<\/span>\u00a0(ISS).<\/p>\n

\"Victor<\/p>\n

NASA officials say the diverse crew assignments signify the cultural\u00a0shifts that have taken place since the original Apollo missions, which ended in 1972, at a time\u00a0when white men dominated space exploration.<\/p>\n

Glover was also the first black man to ever live on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 and is among 15 African Americans to be selected as an astronaut.<\/p>\n

In his esteemed career since being selected as an astronaut in 2013, Mr Glover has logged over 3,000 flight hours in 40 different aircraft.<\/p>\n

Artemis II \u2013 which will launch in November 2024 \u2013 will see the four-man crew orbit the moon in the\u00a0Orion spacecraft but\u00a0not land.<\/p>\n

Their goal is to test new technology, including heat shields that\u00a0protects Orion as it travels 24,500 mph in 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its way back.<\/p>\n

If successful, NASA plans to launch an expedition to land on the moon titled Artemis III. Another success would spell out a trip to Mars for NASA.<\/p>\n

\"Victor<\/p>\n

\u2018I wanna thank God for this Amazing opportunity,\u2019 Mr Glover said during a new conference Monday.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate. It\u2019s so much more than the four names that have been announced. We need to celebrate this moment\u00a0in human history.<\/p>\n

\u2018Artermis II is more than a mission to the Moon and back. It\u2019s more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the moon. It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars.<\/p>\n

\u2018This crew will never forget that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mr Glover was born in 1976 in Pomona, around 30 miles east of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The city is far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, known for its high poverty rate and relatively high crime.<\/p>\n

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Mr Glover grew up in Ponoma, CA, 30 miles east of Los Angele<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He said his parents and teachers served as mentors as him\u00a0growing up.<\/p>\n

\u2018Early on in life it had to be my parents; they encouraged me and challenged me and held me to high standards. Outside of home, I had teachers that did the same,\u2019 he\u00a0told USA Today in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u2018They all challenged me, and they encouraged me.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mr Glover continued that his teachers and parents urged him to go the engineering school and eventually become a test pilot \u2014 leading to him becoming an astronaut.<\/p>\n

He graduated from Southern California\u2019s Ontario High School in 1994, and went on to attend\u00a0California Polytechnic State University, before completing his graduate\u00a0education at Air University and the US Naval Academy.<\/p>\n

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\u2018I\u2019m the first person in my family to graduate from college, and being at graduation with my mom and my dad and my stepdad and my little brothers and my grandparents,\u2019 he said to USA Today.<\/p>\n

\u2018That was unreal, that was cool and it was special for me.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 1999 he was commissioned as part of the US Navy. After completing flight training in Corpus Christy, Texas, he was \u2018given his wings\u2019 and awarded the title of pilot in 2001.<\/p>\n

He then moved to San Diego to learn to fly the\u00a0McDonnell Douglas F\/A-18 Hornet, known as one of the Navy\u2019s more versatile aircraft.<\/p>\n

After spending the next two years training in Florida and Virginia, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004 for six months.<\/p>\n

Mr Glover was working in the office of the late Sen John McCain as a legislative fellow when he was selected by NASA to become an astronaut in 2013.<\/p>\n

NASA only selects a handful of the thousands of people that apply to be a member of the nation\u2019s astronaut corps each year. Only 15 black astronauts have ever been selected out of 348.<\/p>\n

A vast majority\u00a0of the 41 current astronauts have a military background, like Mr Glover.<\/p>\n

He completed his astronaut training in 2015. Three years later, he was selected to be a part of the first ever operational flight of SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon, a reusable aircraft designed by the firm Elon Musk found in 2002.<\/p>\n

As part of that mission, he would live on the ISS from November 17, 2020 to May 2, 2021.<\/p>\n

The nearly six-month-long stay on the station makes him the first black astronaut to inhabit it.<\/p>\n

Jeanette Epps, 52, who was selected to be an astronaut in 2009 is set\u00a0to become the second African American, and first black woman, to live on the ISS after the launch of\u00a0Boeing Starliner-1 in 2024 or later.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Mr Glover said it was an honor to be the first black person selected to the ISS.<\/p>\n

\u2018It is something to be celebrated once we accomplish it, and I am honored to be in this position and to be a part of this great and experienced crew,\u2019 he said during a news conference.<\/p>\n

\u2018I look forward to getting up there and doing my best to make sure, you know, we are worthy of\u00a0all the work that\u2019s been put into setting us up for this mission.\u2019<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0interview with The Christian Chronicle\u00a0later that year, he said there were qualified black astronauts that should have earned the honor before him.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve had some amazing colleagues before me that really could have done it, and there are some amazing folks that will go behind me,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018I wish it would have already been done, but I try not to draw too much attention to it.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who is Victor Glover? The man set to become NASA\u2019s first black astronaut to orbit the moon Victor Glover (pictured) was selected as an astronaut in 2013… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14780,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14778\/revisions\/14780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}