1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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Air Force Lt. Col. Guion Bluford II became the first African American to travel into space when the shuttle Challenger lifted off on its third mission on this day in 1983 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm. On Sept. 5 the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that date. Bluford was born in Philadelphia in 1942 and from an early age was fascinated with flight. Wanting to design and build airplanes, he graduated from Penn State university in 1964 and entered the Air Force to learn how to fly them. He flew 144 combat missions in Vietnam, then became a flight instructor and was accepted into the U.S. astronaut program in 1979. After the 1983 shuttle mission he flew three more, logging a total of 700 hours in orbit. After leaving NASA he became vice president and general manager of an engineering company in Ohio.
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