Victor Glover: Historic lunar orbit for African American astronaut

By Reginald G. Victor Herald Contributor On July 20, 1969, the United States landed men on the moon as part of the Apollo program. There were five other moon landing missions. The Apollo program ended in 1972. The United States has plans to send astronauts back to the moon. The goal of the Artemis program is to return astronauts to the moon and develop an ongoing presence there. The Orion Spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will be used in this effort. The SLS is essentially a replacement for the powerful Saturn V launch vehicle used for the Apollo moon missions. The first use of Orion and SLS was Artemis I which was an unmanned mission. It was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 16, 2022. The Orion spacecraft successfully orbited the moon and returned to the Earth on December 11, 2022.  It is planned for the Artemis II mission to also orbit the moon, but it will have an astronaut crew. Victor Glover has been selected as one of this four-person crew. He will be the first African American astronaut to leave Earth orbit and fly to the moon. Glover is 46 years...