{"id":428070,"date":"2018-08-30T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T14:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight\/"},"modified":"2018-08-30T14:32:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T14:32:00","slug":"celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight","status":"publish","type":"image-article","link":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Guy Bluford’s Historic First Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\" class=\"hds-media hds-module wp-block-image\"><div class=\"margin-left-auto margin-right-auto nasa-block-align-inline\"><div class=\"hds-media-wrapper margin-left-auto margin-right-auto\"><figure class=\"hds-media-inner hds-cover-wrapper hds-media-ratio-none \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1041\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?w=1041\" class=\"attachment-2048x2048 size-2048x2048\" alt=\"Guy Bluford\" style=\"transform: scale(1); transform-origin: 50% 50%; object-position: 50% 50%; object-fit: cover;\" block_context=\"nasa-block\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg 1041w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=300,196 300w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=768,502 768w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=1024,669 1024w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=400,261 400w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=600,392 600w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?resize=900,588 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1041px) 100vw, 1041px\" loading=\"eager\" \/><\/a><\/figure><figcaption class=\"hds-caption padding-y-2\"><div class=\"hds-caption-text p-sm margin-0\">Guy Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, launched into space on shuttle Challenger's STS-8 mission thirty-five years ago, on August 30, 1983.<\/div><\/figcaption><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jsc.nasa.gov\/Bios\/htmlbios\/bluford-gs.html\" rel=\"noopener\">Guion Bluford<\/a>, better known as Guy, launched aboard Challenger’s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission_pages\/shuttle\/shuttlemissions\/archives\/sts-8.html\">STS-8<\/a> mission on August 30, 1983, he became the first African-American to fly in space. Before becoming a member of NASA’s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-feature\/1978-astronaut-class\">“Thirty-Five New Guys” <\/a>\u2013 the 1978 astronaut class, which had the first African-American and first Asian-American astronauts and the first women \u2013 Bluford had a distinguished career. He was an Air Force fighter pilot with a doctorate in aerospace engineering. As an astronaut, Bluford worked with space station operations, the Remote Manipulator System, Spacelab systems and experiments, space shuttle systems, payload safety issues and verifying flight software, and flew on three more shuttle missions – STS 61-A, STS-39 and STS-53 – logging over 688 hours in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image Credit: NASA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guy Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, launched into space on shuttle Challenger’s STS-8 mission thirty-five years ago, on August 30, 1983.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":226781,"template":"","meta":{"nasa_hds_core_meta_l10n":"en-US","nasa_hds_core_meta_article_editor":"","nasa_hds_core_meta_article_contacts":[],"nasa_hds_core_meta_article_topic":"","nasa_hds_core_meta_linked_locations":[],"nasa_hds_core_meta_article_related_articles":[],"hds_migrate_meta_pr_release_id":"","hds_migrate_meta_pr_release_type":"","nasa_hds_core_meta_location_x":"","nasa_hds_core_meta_location_y":"","nasa_hds_core_meta_gallery_images":[]},"categories":[],"news-tags":[],"internal-terms":[],"coauthors":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Celebrating Guy Bluford’s Historic First Flight","url":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg"},"articleSection":"General","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"NASA"}],"creator":["NASA"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"NASA","logo":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/themes\/nasa\/assets\/images\/nasa-logo.svg"},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2018-08-30T14:32:00Z","datePublished":"2018-08-30T14:32:00Z","dateModified":"2018-08-30T14:32:00Z"},"rendered":"<meta name=\"parsely-title\" content=\"Celebrating Guy Bluford’s Historic First Flight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-link\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/celebrating-guy-blufords-historic-first-flight\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-type\" content=\"post\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-image-url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg?w=150&h=150&crop=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-pub-date\" content=\"2018-08-30T14:32:00Z\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-section\" content=\"General\" \/>\n<meta name=\"parsely-author\" content=\"NASA\" \/>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/nasa.gov\/p.js"},"read_time":1,"featured_image":{"id":226781,"file":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/guy.jpeg","title":"Celebrating Guy Bluford’s Historic First Flight","alt":"Guy Bluford","caption":"Guy Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, launched into space on shuttle Challenger's STS-8 mission thirty-five years ago, on August 30, 1983."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/image-article\/428070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/image-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/image-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/image-article\/428070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428070"},{"taxonomy":"news-tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-tags?post=428070"},{"taxonomy":"internal-terms","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-terms?post=428070"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=428070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}