South African Mandla Maseko Was Never Going To Be An Astronaut
Yesterday, Mandla Maseko died in a tragic motorcycle accident . We've seen countless obituaries that describe him as the future first black South African in space, and we're not trying to disrespect his memory but to clear up misconceptions. Maseko was a DJ and a visionary and an inspiration, but he had not gone into space, and was (as far as we know) never going into space. The story of Maseko as the first black South African* astronaut (or "afronaut" as he called himself) began in 2013 when he entered the Lynx Apollo Space Academy competition . The worldwide competition was a promotional campaign with Axe body spray that selected 23 people to become astronauts. The final winners were going to be flown 62 miles up on sub-orbital space missions aboard the XCOR Lynx spaceplane, and Maseko was one of those winners. In December 2013, Maseko and the other winners were flown to the US to attend space camp in Orlando, Florida. He went through challenges like skydiving, G...