Merritt Island – Four-time spaceflight veteran Peggy Whitson made a good excuse not to show up on Saturday for her own guiding ceremony to the American Astronauts Hall of Fame.
She is in quarantine to go to space again.
Whitson is set to command a private ASIOM Space AX-4 mission flying on the new SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will be released as early as June 8th.
“Know that my heart is with you. It’s a privilege to be part of such a respected group of individuals who have dedicated their lives to exploring the unknown,” she said in a message recorded at a nearby, private location.
But they had fellow astronaut Bernard Harris, who became the first black man to perform a spaceship, and two space shuttle astronaut Bernard Harris, who was on hand.
With both him and Whitson’s plaque revealed, he was joined by dozens of former astronauts and NASA officials. He became the 110th and 111th member of the Hall of Fame, created by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in 1990, and represented the visitor complex in his own building honoring visitors.
Both had important careers at NASA, but Whitson spent a little more time in space.
Whitson’s first space trip, selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996, took place in the Space Shuttle Endeavor at STS-111 for his first stay of four stays on the International Space Station in 2002. She also went home with an effort with STS-113 and returned twice in 2007 and 2016 with Soyuz Missions. She became the first female commander of the space station.
After retiring from NASA, she joined the private company Axiom Space and led her second commercial mission, Axiom 2, in 2023.
Four trips reached over 675 days in space. He gave her the highest record of an all-time space woman and the record of an American astronaut. That total is set to increase for another two weeks once AX-4 is complete.
“I applied four times for NASA’s astronaut training program over nine years and was rejected. Ten years later, after my fifth application, I finally made it. “The era of being denied the chance of my dreams has given me an incredible experience as a leader, a lot of teams and a member of international partnerships.
“After all, they were all important to my career as an astronaut. Each mission, each spacecraft, and each experiment conducted on the International Space Station was a step towards understanding our universe and improving our lives on Earth.”
Harris was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1990, flying his first mission at Space Shuttle Columbia in 1993, the STS-55, and in 1995 the STS-63 rode the Space Shuttle Discovery.
The second flight, a dress rehearsal flight to dock a mission with the Russian space station Mir, was not intended to feature a spacecraft, but Domino set up Harris’ groundbreaking experience.
“The truth is, I didn’t know I was the first African American until I got back inside. I got a call saying that President Clinton wanted to talk to me,” he said. “I was like, “What’s it for?”
Harris, 68, was born in Temple, Texas in 1956 and in Beaconsfield, Iowa in 1960, and 65, Whitson, cited Apollo 11 Moonwalk and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as inspiration for becoming astronauts.
“When I was nine, landing on the moon seemed to achieve space,” Whitson said. “My nine-year-old self thought that astronauts had to be the ultimate job.
“So, thanks to the moon landing, even the first rides with Captain Kirk and Spock and his father in the Cessna 150, that spark has grown into a passion for space exploration.”
Harris, 13, when history was made, said he struggled with other events from the time.
“I was old enough to go through the civil rights movement in the early ’60s,” he said. “I could turn one channel at that point, see some of the greatest accomplishments of humans, turn the channel and see black people fighting for the right to vote or exist depending on which region of the country they are in.”
He said he was still amazed at the way his 13-year-old mind was able to blend those events together.
“I came to the conclusion that even if no one in the program looked like me, there were no women in the program, and none of the colours they saw in the program.
Original issue: May 31, 2025, 2:54pm EDT
