Biography

Bluford worked aboard four Space Shuttle missions serving scientific research and logged over 688 hours in space.

Bluford was the first African American in space, and the second person of African ancestry (after the Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez).

After serving as an instructor pilot in the late 1960s, he served as an assistant flight commander, then attended Squadron Officers School and returned as an executive support officer to the Deputy Commander of Operations.

He attended pilot training at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, and received his pilot wings in January 1966. He then went to F-4C combat crew training in Arizona and Florida and was assigned to the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. He flew 144 combat missions, 65 of which were over North Vietnam.

A NASA astronaut, Bluford had extensive education: Graduated from Overbrook Senior High School in Philadelphia in 1960; received a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1964 when he was honored as a distinguished Air Force ROTC graduate; a master of science degree with distinction in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1974; a doctor of philosophy in aerospace engineering with a minor in laser physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1978, and a master in business administration from the University of Houston in 1987. He also attended the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.