On this day in 1983: Guion Bluford becomes 1st African-American astronaut in space

Start:	Aug 30, '09
Location:	Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Guion “Guy” Bluford, Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an engineer, retired Colonel from the United States Air Force and a former NASA Astronaut. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-8, Bluford became the first African American in space, and the second person of African ancestry, after the Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Bluford on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.