而这位脸部棱角分明、有志成为航天员的 29 岁年轻人追求的正是这种挑战。他的名字叫做埃德·德怀特。

In 1962, he piloted an F-104 Starfighter, essentially a chrome javelin, with wings so small as to seem gestural, designed to go very fast and very high, ideally in a straight line. A massive engine took up one end; the other was occupied by the pilot.

1962 年，他是一名 F-104 星式战斗机飞行员。这款机型就像铬合金制成的标枪，它的机翼小得好像只是个装饰品。如果能在理想情况下保持直线飞行，它可以飞得又快又高。飞机的一头是一只巨大的引擎，另一头则是飞行员的座位。

As he thundered toward the sun, air roared against the fuselage, and Dwight felt the familiar lurch of passing through the sound barrier. On cue at 80,000 feet, as the bruised edge of the atmosphere drew closer, Dwight cut the fuel to the engine.

德怀特驾驶飞机呼啸着冲向太阳，空气在咆哮，他感受到了突破音障时熟悉的震荡感。爬升至 8 万英尺（约合 2.44 万米）左右高空时，随着伤痕累累的大气层边缘越来越近，德怀特关闭了飞机发动机。

He became a mere leaf, floating along the thinnest layers of Earth’s air. In front of him spread the curvature of the planet, with the black sea of space overhead.

他化作了一片小小的树叶，漂浮在地球最稀薄的空气里。他的眼前是弯曲的地平线，他的头顶则是漆黑的浩瀚宇宙。

“The first time you do this it’s like, oh my God, what the hell? Look at this,” recalled Dwight, now 85. “You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. It’s absolutely stunning.”

现年 85 岁的德怀特回忆说：「第一次飞到这样的高度时我心想：天啊，什么情况，好好看一看。你可以看到地球美丽的蓝色表面，特别震撼。」

Dwight only made a handful of flights like this, but all told he spent 9,000 hours in the air. A former altar boy turned airman, he was among the pilots training to become astronauts at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, helmed by Chuck Yeager at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Dwight had the drive, the experience and the solid family backstory of all his peers. Unlike every other pilot in the program, he was black.

德怀特只做过几次这样的飞行，不过人们都说他的总飞行时间达 9000 小时。这位小时候当过祭坛助手的飞行员，后来进入了美国航太研究飞行员学校，受训成为宇航员。这所学校隶属位于加州的爱德华兹空军基地，当时的校指挥官则是查克·耶格尔。和其他人一样，德怀特有梦想、有经验，也有着良好的家庭背景。但和学校里其他飞行员不同的是，他是一个黑人。

Two grand stories that America tells itself about the 1960s are the civil rights movement and the space race. They are mostly rendered as separate narratives, happening at the same time but on different courses. In the 5-foot-4 figure of Ed Dwight, they came together for a transitory moment.

在 1960 年代，美国正轰轰烈烈地开展民权运动和太空竞赛。这两大运动在多数情况下并行发展，互不干涉，但是 5 英尺 4 英寸（约合 1.63 米）的德怀特却让两者有了短暂的交叉。

The Kennedy administration, a supporter of civil rights, became Dwight’s champion. The black press, eager to mark milestones by lionizing barrier breakers, splashed his face across front pages. Dwight personified American progress at a time when the country was eager to prove that while Russia had beaten us into orbit, the United States was the true superpower. It was a high-stakes contest of Cold War optics.

当时的肯尼迪政府积极推动民权运动，因而也成了德怀特的拥护者。急于捧红民权斗士、记录历史转折点的黑人记者把他的头像登在了报纸头版。当时的美国渴望向世人证明：尽管此前俄罗斯率先进入了太空，但美国才是真正的超级大国。就在这样的大背景下，德怀特成了美利坚进步的化身。这是一场冷战时期高风险的公关行动。

But the top of the California sky was the closest Dwight would ever get to space. He went from being a prospective astronaut to working on a series of obscure assignments, dealing a major blow to America’s early attempts to integrate the ranks of its space pioneers.

然而加利福尼亚的高空却是德怀特到过的离太空最近的地方。一场意外让美国早期航天事业备受打击，也让原本有望成为航天员的德怀特不得不接受现实，他转而开始执行一系列无关紧要的任务。

Eight years after Dwight piloted that plane, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the lunar surface, leaving a plaque that read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” But what if a black person had landed on the moon with them, uttered the words “one small step for man” and set that plaque in place? What kind of leap for mankind would that have been?

德怀特驾驶这架飞机 8 年后，尼尔·阿姆斯特朗和巴兹·奥尔德林登上了月球。他们留下的纪念牌上写道：「公元 1969 年 7 月，来自地球的人类第一次登上月球，我们为全人类的和平而来。」但如果有个黑人也和他们一起登上了月球、如果是他说出了「我个人的一小步」，并把纪念牌放在月球表面，结果会是怎样？这对人类来说会是怎样的飞跃？

To Charles Bolden, a former astronaut who became the first African American administrator of NASA in 2009, there is no doubt. “To see an Ed Dwight walking across the platform getting into an Apollo capsule would have been mind-boggling in those days,” he said. “It would’ve had an incredible impact.”

对 2009 年成为首位非洲裔美国国家航空航天局局长的查尔斯·博尔登来说，这点是毋庸置疑的。他表示：「如果当时能看到埃德·德怀特穿过平台走进阿波罗太空舱，那会给人带来极大的冲击。」

It took two decades after Dwight became an astronaut trainee before a black American would go to space.

从德怀特接受宇航员训练起，到第一位美国黑人进入太空，这个过程一共用了 20 年。

Ed Dwight’s path had started years earlier.

而埃德·德怀特若干年前就开始了他的飞行之路。

In 1959, while Dwight was a bomber pilot at Travis Air Force Base in California, a young Navy psychologist named Robert Voas was busy losing his car in the Pentagon’s vast parking lot. Voas had joined NASA with the special task of figuring out who the first Americans in space would be — the Mercury Seven as they would later be known. “We were sort of awed by the feeling that you were involved in the selection program for someone like either Columbus or Lindbergh,” he recalled in 2002, for a NASA oral history project.

1959 年，德怀特还在加州特拉维斯空军基地驾驶轰炸机。同一时期，一个名叫罗伯特·沃尔斯的年轻海军心理学家却总在五角大楼的停车场里迷路，找不到自己的车。沃尔斯此前加入了国家航空航天局，他肩负着一项特殊的任务：选拔第一批进入太空的美国人，也就是日后被称为「水星七人组」的宇航员。2002 年，沃尔斯在美国国家航空航天局的口述历史项目中回忆说：「想到你选拔的是哥伦布或者林德伯格这样的人物，我们都有点儿肃然起敬。」（查尔斯·林德伯格，美国飞行家，1927 年首次单独完成横越大西洋的不着陆飞行，译注）。

Before beginning his search, Voas drafted a memo to his supervisor asking whether to focus solely on technical qualifications or to take “public relations” into account. “Were we concerned at all about having a mix of ethnicity?” Voas said. “Were we concerned about whether both men and women should be included?” Voas said he was told that “the whole emphasis should be on who could most reliably and effectively fly this vehicle,” but his questions about representation and diversity would dog the newly formed space program for decades.

沃尔斯开始调查前，给上司起草了一份备忘录，询问是否只应关注技术指标，还是需要把「公关」因素也考虑在内。他问道：「我们要关心种族的问题吗？男女都应该包括在内吗？」他说他得到的回答是：「应该重点关注谁最可靠、谁能最有效地驾驶这艘飞船。」但在后来的十几年里，种族和性别多样性问题将一直困扰着美国的太空项目。

The idea that early astronauts must first be test pilots, like the hotshots at Edwards, was not a foregone conclusion. Voas imagined a nationwide competition that could include deep-sea divers, arctic explorers or race car drivers. The most important characteristics for the first classes of astronauts headed into the unknown would be the ability to respond coolly if something went wrong and levelheadedness in the face of hostile environments.

一开始，宇航员并不需要像爱德华兹空军基地的精英一样必须是飞机试飞员。沃尔斯设想可以办一场全国性比赛，参赛选手可以是深海潜水员、北极探险者、赛车手等。第一批进入太空的宇航员最重要的特质在于，他们在恶劣环境中遇到意外时要能保持沉着冷静。

*图片来自 Dwight 个人收藏

Riding a rocket had little in common with flying a plane, aside from being airborne. “The basic thing you have to understand,” Dwight explained recently, “is everything that happens on that spaceship, from the time you crawl into that seat to the time it touches down, is controlled from the ground. There’s no one thing that makes a good astronaut. I don’t know any person with determination and will that can’t go to space.”

除了都需要在空中飞行，乘坐火箭和驾驶飞机几乎没有共通之处。近日德怀特解释说：「你首先得明白，从爬进座舱直到飞船着陆，船上发生的一切都是由地面控制的。没有什么特定的品质能造就一名优秀的宇航员。在我认识的人里，只要有决心、有意志，就都能去太空。」

*图片来自 Dwight 个人收藏

Even Yeager, the aerospace training program’s future commandant, insisted in 1959, “I’ve been a pilot all my life, and there won’t be any flying to do in Project Mercury.”

就连这个宇航员培训项目未来的指挥官耶格尔也在 1959 年表示：「我做了一辈子飞行员，但水星计划不需要做任何飞行操作。」

But President Dwight D. Eisenhower vetoed the idea of an open call. A career army man, the president decreed the astronauts would come from military backgrounds. That way, they would have not only the desired discipline, outlook and comportment but also a proven ability to cope in psychologically challenging situations — and the security clearances necessary for a program with significant classified aspects. With the United States deep into the Cold War, candidates would be the high-profile proxies in a global game of influence.

然而德怀特·艾森豪威尔总统否决了公开选拔的提议。身为职业军人，总统要求宇航员必须有军事背景。如此一来，候选人不仅能遵守纪律、有正确的人生观和得体的举止，也具备应对高压的能力——此外，他们也有参加机密工作的安全权限。随着冷战不断激化，候选宇航员将成为美苏争霸过程中备受关注的形象大使。

According to NASA’s chief historian, Bill Barry, this one decision set a course that the space race would follow for years to come. “Once you do that,” he explained, “you bake in all of the stuff that’s already there. For example, that there are no African Americans who are test pilots. There are no women who are test pilots.”

美国国家航空航天局首席历史学家比尔·巴里认为，艾森豪威尔的这一决定为未来数年内的太空竞赛定下了基调。他解释说：「一旦定下了这条标准，很多事就没得商量了。比方试飞员里没有一个非裔美国人，也没有一个女飞行员。」

As Tom Wolfe described them in “The Right Stuff,” the first astronauts were “seven patriotic God-fearing small-town Protestant family men with excellent backing on the homefront.” These would be America’s celestial heroes. They had camera-ready wives and families and projected the camaraderie of an elite corps. Not surprisingly, those first space soldiers were all white.

正如汤姆·沃尔夫在《太空先锋》所写，第一批宇航员是「7 个爱国、虔诚、来自小镇清教徒家庭的男性，他们得到了国内民众的全力支持」。这些人将成为美国人的航天英雄，他们有随时准备好上镜的妻子和家人，也展现了精英部队成员之间的战友情谊。

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. The next month, in an address to a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy announced his intention to put Americans on the moon, declaring it necessary “if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny.”

1961 年 4 月 12 日，苏联宇航员尤里·加加林成了第一个进入太空的人。次月，肯尼迪总统在国会两院联席会议上宣布了登月计划，并宣称「如果要赢得世界各地正在进行的自由与暴政间的斗争」，美国就有必要这么做。

By that time, broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow had become the director of the U.S. Information Agency, in charge of fighting the Cold War on the “hearts and minds” front. Watching the handsome Gagarin barnstorm Brazil, Japan, Liberia and other countries — and the screaming crowds that turned out for him — Murrow had an epiphany.

此时，广播记者爱德华·默罗已担任美国新闻署署长，负责在冷战中赢取「民心」。看到相貌英俊的加加林前往巴西、日本、利比里亚等地做巡回演讲（迎接他到访的人群总会高声欢呼），默罗突然灵光一现。

In September, he wrote to the administrator of NASA with what was essentially a bid for international diplomacy: “Why don’t we put the first non-white man in space? If your boys were to enroll and train a qualified Negro and then fly him in whatever vehicle is available, we could retell our whole space effort to the whole non-white world, which is most of it.”

是年 9 月，他写信给航空航天局局长，从本质上说他是在探讨外交策略：「我们为什么不把第一个非白人送上太空呢？要是你的手下能招收一个合格的黑人，让他接受培训，然后让他坐上任何一艘可以飞的飞船，那我们就能向整个非白人世界讲述我们探索太空的努力，毕竟非白人人口占了很大一部分。」

With waves of countries emerging from colonial rule, the United States could not maintain credibility with Ghana, India, Indonesia or Nigeria, for instance, if much of America was still segregated.

随着一个又一个国家摆脱殖民统治，如果美国大部分地区仍在实行种族隔离的做法，那它就无法赢得加纳、印度、印尼、尼日利亚等国人民的信任。

“The map’s being divided into who’s pro-Soviet and who’s pro-USA, and our astronauts are goodwill ambassadors,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who wrote “American Moonshot,” which was published this year. “We’re touting them around to show people the greatness of the American experiment. You put a person of color in space, and it’ll show how noble our democracy is.”

历史学家道格拉斯·布林克利在今年出版的《美国登月之旅》一书中写道：「各个国家分为亲苏派和亲美派，我们的宇航员则是亲善大使。我们带着他们到处宣传，向世人展示美国登月计划的伟大。要是能把一个有色人种送进太空，那就能显示我们的民主制度有多么高尚。」

In summer 1962, Murrow put his proposal for a black astronaut directly to the president, who passed it along in a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, with the “hope that something might be done.” Johnson’s aide George Reedy dug into the pros and cons. “There can be no doubt of the tremendous value to the United States of having a Negro as an astronaut in a space flight,” Reedy wrote in a confidential memo. However, he added, the administration should “dispose of the concept that NASA can just reach out and grab a Negro and make an astronaut candidate out of him.”

1962 年夏天，默罗把有关黑人宇航员的提议直接呈交给了总统，总统在一份备忘录中把该提议传给了时任美国国家航空航天委员会主席的副总统林登·约翰逊，并「希望有谁可以做点什么」。约翰逊的助理乔治·里迪于是仔细研究了选拔黑人宇航员的利与弊。他在一份机密备忘录中写道：「毫无疑问，让一名黑人宇航员参与太空飞行任务能对美国产生巨大价值。」但他也补充说，肯尼迪政府应该「摈弃一种观念，那就是航空航天局能轻易找来一名黑人，然后让他经过培训成为候选宇航员。」

Doing so risked any number of public relations disasters. The man might flunk out, making it look as though he had been set up for failure. He might die — a significant risk — leading to the accusation that African Americans were being treated as expendable. The worst-case scenario, Reedy wrote, would be if the public caught on to an “artificial selection,” which would undermine the whole endeavor.

选用黑人可能会招致各种公关危机，比如他可能会被淘汰，让人觉得他是被内定出局的；他可能会死（这个风险尤其重大），于是就有人会指责说，在政府眼里非裔美国人是可以随便牺牲的；而最糟糕的情况是，一旦公众察觉到「选拔程序有人为操纵的痕迹」，那就会破坏整个努力。

And there was a big problem. As Reedy summarized NASA’s position, no African American applicants had even come close to moving through the agency’s selection process. Kennedy’s executive order in 1961 encouraging the government to take “affirmative action” to promote equal employment opportunities was too recent to have affected the pool of available black pilots. A solution was, Reedy explained, “beyond the scope of NASA activities and is basically a problem for the whole nation.”

除此之外还有一个大问题。根据里迪的总结，当时还没有一个非裔申请者能在国家航空航天局的选拔程序中崭露头角。尽管肯尼迪于 1961 年颁布的行政令鼓励政府采取「平权行动」来促进平等就业，但这一举措为时太晚，能符合条件的黑人飞行员寥寥可数。里迪解释说，要解决这个问题的话，「已经超出了航空航天局的能力，可以说它是整个国家面临的问题」。

Even so, the Navy and Air Force were directed by the White House to scour their ranks for any candidates. The secretary of the Air Force, Eugene M. Zuckert, was by now used to 7 p.m. phone calls asking for “a list of Negro officers by name, above the rank of second lieutenant,” for 6:30 the next morning, he said in an oral history in 1969. The Air Force came back with a surprising answer: A young black pilot was ready to start training at Edwards.

尽管如此，白宫仍然指示美国海军和空军在军官中寻找人选。空军部长尤金·朱克特在 1969 年记录的一份口述历史资料中表示，他已经习惯了每天晚上 7 时接到电话，要求他在第二天一早 6 时 30 分提供「军衔高于少尉的黑人军官名单」。不过空军的回复令人惊讶：有个年轻的黑人飞行员已经准备好了前往爱德华兹空军基地接受训练。

In Ed Dwight, the White House had found more than Murrow could have hoped for: a charismatic flyer with a cum laude aeronautics degree from Arizona State University, and the required flight time and performance ratings.

白宫在埃德·德怀特身上发现了默罗原本不敢奢望的品质：他是个充满个人魅力的飞行员；他的专业是航空学，并以优等成绩毕业于亚利桑那州立大学；他的飞行时间和表现评分也都达到了要求。

As a child, Dwight learned Latin and served as an altar boy at his local Catholic parish. He worked a paper route and delivered food from his parents’ restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas. Sometimes he earned nickels cleaning private planes at the nearby airport after their white owners returned from hunting trips in Wyoming. “From the time I was a little itty-bitty kid, I was going to the airport every day,” he remembered. “I began to study all the airplanes, and I’d draw all the airplanes. This was my private fantasy.”

德怀特小时候学过拉丁语，并在当地天主教堂做过祭坛助手。他送过报纸，也在父母位于堪萨斯城的餐馆里当过送餐员。有时候他还会去附近的机场，帮那些从怀俄明州打猎回来的白人擦洗私人飞机。德怀特回忆说：「从很小的时候开始我就每天都去机场。我会研究所有的飞机，然后把它们画下来。这是我偷偷追求的梦想。」

Today, at 85, Dwight recalled his early dreams of flying as a full-body memory, stretching up from his toes to the soft pads of his fingers to illustrate the angles of flight and descent. In running shoes and a tracksuit, he darts around his sculpture studio, where he has crafted likenesses of jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. He is especially spirited when talking about his childhood.

如今，85 岁的德怀特说起儿时的梦想时依旧激动地手舞足蹈。从脚尖到柔软的指腹，他用了全身的力量来示意飞机飞行和下降的角度。他在自己的雕塑工作室里跑来跑去，在这里他已创作了迪齐·吉莱斯皮、路易斯·阿姆斯特朗等爵士大师的肖像。谈起自己的童年时，他显得特别兴奋。

Dwight and his older sister integrated the local Catholic high school, though not before a blacks-only shower was built and Dwight was lectured on not looking at white girls. He went out for the football team and boxed. It seemed the only thing that the diminutive teenager did not excel at was basketball, but he still played.

德怀特和他的姐姐曾一起在当地一所接收黑人学生的天主教高中就读。学校设有黑人学生专用的种族隔离浴室；人们还告诫德怀特不许看白人女孩。他加入了学校的橄榄球队，还练习过拳击。那时候，这个身材矮小的少年唯一不太擅长的运动是篮球，但他还是会打篮球。

“He just charmed everybody,” recalled Dwight’s youngest sister, Liz Chow. “Everybody loved Ed Dwight. He had a kind of a bubbly effervescent type of personality. He walked into a room, and it just lit up. I often wondered whether or not there was someone above him, maybe a guardian angel, steering him, because everything he attempted to do he succeeded at.”

德怀特最小的妹妹利兹·乔回忆说：「他的魅力能征服每个人，所有人都爱埃德·德怀特。他的性格非常活泼外向。每次他走进一个房间，那里的气氛就会活跃起来。我一直觉得他的身边可能有一个守护天使，一直指引着他，因为他想做的所有事情最后都做成功了。」

What he wanted to do was fly. “But this was a white man’s world,” Dwight recalled of his formative years in the early 1950s. “Kansas was segregated at the time. And I never thought for a minute that I would really fly an airplane. This was crazy.”

那时，他想做的事就是飞行。「但是那时候的世界是属于白人男性的，」德怀特这样回忆他成长的 1950 年代，「那时候堪萨斯州还在实施种族隔离制度。我从来没想过我真的能驾驶飞机。这个想法在当时太疯狂了。」

But then one day on the front page of a newspaper he saw “an African American pilot from Kansas City, my hometown, that had been shot down in Korea,” he explained, adding, “He was standing on a wing of a jet, and he was a prisoner of war, and I was like, oh my God, they’re letting black folks fly jets.”

直到有一天，他在报纸的头版上看到「一个来自我的家乡堪萨斯城的非裔美国飞行员，在朝鲜被击落了，」他补充道，「那位飞行员站在一架喷气式飞机的机翼上面，他是一名战俘，而我当时在想，天呐，黑人居然可以驾驶飞机。」

So Dwight enlisted in the Air Force in 1953. He rose through the ranks, from cadet to second and then first lieutenant. He leaped into procedural vacuums, streamlining operations and preparing manuals. When instructors were absent, he ran instrument training classes. He administered examinations to his fellow pilots and flew extensively in his off-duty hours. He completed correspondence courses in electronic engineering and calculus. In one evaluation, a lieutenant colonel wrote that Dwight’s “aggressiveness, coupled with his unlimited ability, place him in the outstanding category for a young officer.” Another superior wrote, “I would not hesitate to nominate Lt. Dwight to represent me or the Air Force in dealings with the public.” On top of all that, he looked like a movie star.

因此，德怀特在 1953 年加入了空军。他在军中一路晋升，从军校学员，到少尉，再到中尉。他参与完善了操作程序，简化了流程并编写操作手册；他负责在教员不在时管理仪器培训班，组织一同训练的其他飞行员的考试，并充分利用闲暇时间拼命地练习飞行；他还完成了电子工程和微积分的函授课程。在一次评估中，一位中校写道，德怀特具备 「进取心，加上他卓越的能力，是一名杰出的青年军官。」另一位上级写道「我坚决支持提名德怀特中尉代表我或美国空军处理公共关系事务。」除了表现优异以外，他还有着电影明星般英俊的外型。

He also had the superhuman confidence of a true fighter jock. Dwight wrote in his 2009 self-published memoir, “Soaring on the Wings of a Dream”: “Fighter pilots are universally Type-A personalities, independent, aggressive, daring, risk-oriented, total control freaks, and the real good ones are usually arrogant asses. Exercising absolute control over a complex, multimillion-dollar, high-speed machine that requires the ultimate in training, superior intellectual input, and psychomotor reaction requires such a personality. You did not get ‘into’ a fighter, you strapped it onto your ass and it became an extension of your physical body.”

他更有着真正的战斗机驾驶员所具备的那种过人的自信。德怀特在 2009 年出版的自传《借梦想的翅膀翱翔》中写道：「战斗机飞行员一般都是 A 型人格——独立、进取、大胆、渴望冒险、控制狂等等，而特别优秀的战斗机飞行员，通常都是傲慢的混蛋。要能精确地控制一台复杂的、价值数百万美元的高速飞行机器，就需要经过最严密的训练，并具备卓越的智力和过硬的心理素质，而这也就需要操作者具备 A 型人格。不是你『进入』了战斗机，而是你把战斗机绑在你的屁股下面，把它变成了你身体的一部分。」

Arriving at the astronaut training program at Edwards, Dwight felt as if he had been personally anointed. Kennedy had even called his parents to congratulate them, Dwight said.

加入爱德华兹空军基地的宇航员训练项目时，德怀特觉得自己是被特意选中的。据德怀特说，肯尼迪总统甚至曾专门打电话给他的父母，向他们道贺。

They were heady times. Many weeks, Dwight would leave his wife and two children behind Thursday night and take off from Edwards for another leg of a nationwide speaking tour, delivering remarks at Lions Clubs and in elementary schools, where he encouraged black children to study what today we call STEM subjects. The message was clear: I am proof of the promise of civil rights. If a black man can train to be an astronaut, we can do anything.

那是一段令人兴奋的时光。连着很多个星期，德怀特每个周四晚上都要离开妻子和两个孩子，从爱德华兹出发进行全国巡回演讲。他在狮子会和小学校园致辞，鼓励非裔孩子们努力学习「STEM」课程（科学、技术、工程和数学四个学科的英文首字母缩写）。他要传达的信息很明确：我的经历证明了非裔美国民权运动的意义。如果一个黑人能受训成为宇航员，那么我们就能做任何事。

“Negro Astronaut Aiming for Moon,” The New York Times proclaimed. “Kansas Native in Line as First Sepia Astronaut,” The Indianapolis Recorder announced. The U.S. Information Agency sent photos of Dwight to newspapers: Dwight racing to his jet, explaining a computer program, contemplating spaceship models with Yeager. Dwight was featured on magazine covers, accepted national awards from the Urban League and was photographed with Charlton Heston. By Dwight’s measure, he was receiving 1,500 fan letters a day. “I had a private secretary,” Dwight told Ebony magazine in 1984. “I was sending out 5,000 press photographs a month, and I made 176 speeches the first year.”

《纽约时报》曾发文《非裔宇航员梦想登月》报道他的故事。《The Indianapolis Recorder》报纸也曾刊登文章《来自堪萨斯城的年轻人有望成为史上首位黑皮肤宇航员》。美国新闻署给媒体发放了很多德怀特的照片：德怀特驾驶飞机，他向别人解释计算机程序，他和耶格尔一起注视飞船模型等等。德怀特还登上了许多杂志的封面，获得了民权组织城市联盟颁发的奖项，还曾和查尔顿·赫斯顿合影。据德怀特回忆，他那时平均每天会收到 1500 封粉丝来信。在 1984 年接受《Ebony》杂质采访时，德怀特说：「那时，我每个月要给媒体发送 5000 张照片；在受训的第一年，我一共做了 176 次演讲。」

“He was as popular in the African American press as John Glenn was in the white press,” said Richard Paul, who with Steven Moss wrote the 2015 book “We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program.”

理查德·保罗说：「那时候他在非裔美国人媒体上的热度，可以跟约翰·格伦在白人媒体上的热度媲美。」2015 年，理查德·保罗和史蒂文·莫斯出版了二人合著的历史书《我们不能失败：太空计划中的首批非裔美国人》。

“He really is everywhere — NASA doesn’t put the brakes on it because it’s great publicity,” Moss added. “To be an astronaut in 1962, there was nothing bigger than that. Even if you were three steps away. A mathematician who becomes a mayor is an amazing thing. A technician who becomes the first black elected City Council person in Florida is a big deal. But it’s not an astronaut in 1962.”

「那时候所有的媒体都在关注他。美国航空航天局也不会阻止媒体争相报道德怀特，因为他们也获得了曝光量，」莫斯补充到，「在 1962 年成为宇航员，具有其他任何事件都无可比拟的重要性，即便他还需要通过其他选拔程序才能正式成为宇航员。一个数学家当选市长是一件大事；一个技师成为弗罗里达州史上第一位黑人民选市议员也很了不起，但是这些都不如在 1962 年成为宇航员那么意义重大。」

It did not matter that Dwight was still a certificate away from even applying to NASA; he was a celebrity.

虽然德怀特要先顺利毕业，才能申请进入美国国家航空航天局，但是这也显得不那么重要了；那时候的他，已经是一位家喻户晓的名人。

His budding fame did not matter to Yeager, though.

然而，德怀特不断攀升的名气对耶格尔来说毫无意义。

A colonel when he and Dwight met, Yeager had been a legend in the military since World War II. He was born in Myra, West Virginia, a tiny town on the Mud River, deep in Appalachia. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1941, at age 18, and started as a flight mechanic. By the end of the war, in which he once downed five enemy planes in a single day, he was a 22-year-old captain with a battery of medals on his chest, a hero.

德怀特进入爱德华兹空军基地时，耶格尔已经是上校了。他自二战时期起就是军队中的传奇人物。他出生在阿巴拉契亚地区深处、西弗吉尼亚州马德河畔的一个叫麦拉的小镇。1941 年，18 岁的耶格尔加入了空军，成为了一名机械师。二战期间，他曾创下一天之内击落五架敌机的辉煌战绩。到战争结束时，年仅 22 岁的他已经是一位胸口挂满荣誉勋章的上尉了，一位战争英雄。

Yeager went out to the California desert in 1947, when the base, then called Muroc, was barely more than a dry lake bed and a smattering of improvised barracks. There, that same year, among the fabled pilots of the early jet-testing programs, he broke the sound barrier and became the “fastest man alive.” By 1962, the year he became the school commandant, Yeager was the quintessential military flyer and as much a part of Edwards as the airstrip.

耶格尔在 1947 年来到了位于加利福尼亚州沙漠深处的空军基地，那时这里还叫穆拉克空军基地，除了干涸的湖床和几座临时搭建的营房之外几乎什么都没有。同年，耶格尔和其他几位传奇飞行员一同参加了一个早期试飞项目。在此过程中，他成功突破了音障，成为了当时世界上飞行速度最快的飞行员。到 1962 年，他出任美国空军试飞员学校的校长时，他已经是当时最出色的军用飞行员之一，也是爱德华兹空军基地的骨干力量。

From Day 1, Dwight said, Yeager wanted him gone. Yeager had little patience for White House input on military matters, as he explained in his 1985 autobiography, “Yeager.” Dwight said he immediately felt he was not welcome, that he was not of the group. “He told those guys on the first day, ‘We can get him out of here in six months. We can break him,’ ” Dwight remembered a classmate telling him.

德怀特说，从受训第一天起，耶格尔就想把他赶走。耶格尔在他 1985 年出版的自传《耶格尔》中曾提到，他很讨厌白宫对军事问题的干涉。德怀特说，他加入训练项目后，立刻感到自己非常不受欢迎，他觉得自己不属于这个集体。德怀特还回忆，一个同学曾告诉他：「耶格尔在第一天就跟其他人说，『我们可以在六个月内就把他赶出去，我们可以彻底打垮他的信心。』」

As Tom Wolfe described in “The Right Stuff”: “Every week, it seemed like, a detachment of Civil Rights Division lawyers would turn up from Washington, from the Justice Department, which was headed by the president’s brother, Bobby. The lawyers squinted in the desert sunlight and asked a great many questions about the progress and treatment of Ed Dwight and took notes.

正如汤姆·沃尔夫在《正确的事》里面所记录的：「每个礼拜，都会有司法部民权司从华盛顿派来的律师团来到空军基地，那时候的司法部部长是总统的弟弟罗伯特·肯尼迪。在沙漠里刺眼的阳光下，这些律师眯着眼睛询问很多关于埃德·德怀特的训练进展和待遇的问题，还做了记录。」

“There were days when ARPS seemed like the Ed Dwight case with a few classrooms and some military hardware appended,” Wolfe added, referring to the Aerospace Research Pilot School.

沃尔夫还写到：「有一段时间，整个美军航空航天研究飞行员学校看起来就像是『埃德·德怀特案』调研基地，只不过多了几间教室，还有一些军用装备。」

After a weekend of press events, Dwight would fly back to base, where his classmates had been hitting the books to prepare for the week ahead. In addition to speeches, he faced the all-too-typical travails of a black serviceman of his generation. When the test pilot students traveled for training, waiters refused to serve him. Cars left without him, and hotel rooms were mysteriously not booked. The combination of public appearances and private indignities was weighing on Dwight.

那时，德怀特要用整个周末来参加媒体活动，之后再飞回基地训练。可是他的同学都在用周末的时间为下一周的训练做准备。除了要到处演讲，他还经历了那个时代黑人军人所遭遇的许多典型的种族歧视问题。当学员们为了训练而四处奔波时，服务员总是拒绝为德怀特提供服务；汽车会丢下他直接出发；他的酒店房间总是「神秘地」找不到预订记录。公众人物的身份，加上私下遭遇的歧视和不公，让德怀特倍感压力。

“The disadvantage I had was all the other guys in this program didn’t have that distraction,” Dwight said. “I’ve got to get up the next day and have an exam and deliver the goods and let them know that I’m equal to the other guys who didn’t have to go make 10 speeches that weekend.”

德怀特说：「我的劣势就是，其他学员没有这么多让他们分心的事情。我要早起参加考试，要靠优异的成绩来向他们证明我不比任何人差，可是他们其他人却不用在周末做十次演讲。」

But the only thing waiting for Dwight on Monday was Yeager. “Every week, right on the dot,” Dwight recalled, “he’d call me into his office and say, ‘Are you ready to quit? This is too much for you and you’re going to kill yourself, boy.’ Calling me a boy and I’m an officer in the Air Force.”

每个周一，等待着德怀特的，都是来自耶格尔的压力。德怀特回忆说：「每周的同一时间，他都会把我叫去他的办公室，问我『你做好准备放弃训练了吗？这些任务对你来说太难了，你会自杀的，小子。』我是一名空军军官，他却叫我『小子』。」

Yeager denies Dwight’s account of his treatment: He said he did not tell anybody that he would get Dwight out of the program, did not have weekly meetings with him and did not call him “boy.” But he was no champion of Dwight and did question his ability. “Isn’t it great that Ed Dwight found his true calling and became an accomplished sculptor?” Yeager said in an email.

耶格尔否认德怀特曾遭受过这样的待遇。他说，他从未对任何人说过要把德怀特赶出这个项目，也没有每周叫德怀特去自己的办公室，更没有叫他「小子」。但是，耶格尔并不喜欢德怀特，也确实质疑过他的能力。耶格尔在邮件中写道：「埃德·德怀特后来找到了自己真正该做的事，成为了一名优秀的雕塑家，难道不是好事吗？」

Dwight, though, felt his treatment was so unfair that he later took bias charges to higher-ups. Yeager was incensed. In his autobiography, he wrote: “The Air Force counselor, their chief lawyer, flew to Edwards from the Pentagon to personally take charge of the case. Man, I was hot. I told that lawyer: ‘You do have a case of discrimination here. The White House discriminated by forcing us to take an unqualified guy. And we would have discriminated by passing him because he was black.’”

德怀特认为他所遭受的待遇太不公平了，因此，后来他向上级投诉说自己遭到了种族歧视。耶格尔因此感到十分愤怒。他在自传中写道：「空军顾问和他们的首席律师从五角大楼飞到了爱德华兹，亲自调查这个案件。天呐，我那时候可谓『炙手可热』。我告诉那个律师：『这里确实有歧视案件。白宫强迫我们接收一个不合格的学员是歧视行为。我们如果仅仅因为他是黑人而让他毕业，那也是歧视行为。』」

Dwight garnered scrutiny from some fellow students, recalled Robert Tanguy, a classmate of Dwight’s who retired as a major general. “That was always something that they were wondering about,” he said. “Is Ed down here because he’s black?”

据德怀特的同学、退休少将罗伯特·坦吉回忆，德怀特也遭到了一些同学的质疑，他提到：「他们一直都疑心，埃德能入选这个项目，是因为他是黑人。」

But Tanguy, who flew with Dwight during their training, found nothing unusual about his qualifications. “I thought Ed was a very normal pilot for the program,” Tanguy said. “He was qualified for it. He was an awfully good selection if somebody selected him, because he was a level-headed guy.”

在训练过程中，坦吉曾与德怀特一起飞行，而他觉得德怀特的能力没有任何问题。「我觉得埃德是一个合格的学员，」坦吉说，「他具备参加这个训练项目所需的资质。当初不管是谁选他进入这个项目的，这都是一个非常正确的选择，因为埃德是一位冷静稳健的飞行员。」

Woody Fountain, who started at Edwards Air Force Base as an engineer around the same time Dwight arrived, played squash with Dwight and saw him at weekend cocktail parties. “We all wanted to relax since there were so few of us black folks out there,” Fountain said. “Ed was right there in the middle of the parties, having a good time. An absolutely funny guy to be around.” Fountain added, ”I was never cognizant of what he was going through.”

工程师伍迪·方丹和德怀特差不多同时进入爱德华兹空军基地。方丹曾和德怀特一起打壁球，还一起参加周末的鸡尾酒派对。他回忆说：「我们是那里为数不多的黑人，所以我们都想要放松一下。埃德会参加这些聚会，玩得也很开心。他是一个特别有趣的人。」方丹还补充道：「我当时完全没意识到，他承受着那么大的压力。」

Amid the stress of his speaking obligations and his training, Dwight was also having trouble in his marriage. At the urging of the Air Force, he had brokered an agreement with his wife, Sue Lillian, from whom he was estranged by this time. She joined him and their two children at Edwards, but their relationship grew even more tense, particularly under the scrutiny of the media.

演讲任务和训练带来的压力也给德怀特的婚姻带来了麻烦。在军方的敦促下，德怀特与妻子休·莉莲达成了协议，她搬到了爱德华兹，和德怀特以及他们的两个孩子住在一起。可是此时，他们的关系早就已经出现了裂痕，此后又在媒体曝光的影响之下变得更为紧张。

Life on the base was an alienating experience, and the usual pilots-and-wives camaraderie at the officers club or backyard barbecues was not a real outlet for the Dwights. He found solace in almost daily calls with his mother. “She took an inordinate amount of time telling me how incredible I was, how I could do anything in the universe I wanted to do and that I was loved,” Dwight recalled.

德怀特夫妇在空军基地的生活是十分孤立无助的，而各种邀请飞行员携家属出席的军官俱乐部或后院烧烤联谊活动，并不能帮助他们排解任何问题。德怀特只能通过每日给自己的母亲打电话来寻求安慰。他回忆说：「母亲花了很多时间来告诉我，我是多么的优秀，她有多么爱我，而且我能做成任何我想做的事。」

Dwight also turned to his powerful friends. “I spent hours in the Pentagon, running around there doing lobbying and talking to anybody who would talk to me,” he said. Yeager and other superior officers noticed, with rancor.

德怀特也曾向更有影响力的朋友寻求帮助。他说：「我花了很多时间在五角大楼四处游说别人，跟所有愿意和我说话的人交谈。」耶格尔和其他高级军官也注意到了这一点，他们自然心怀不满。

Dwight was unfazed. He had a friend in the president, and he was going to be an astronaut.

德怀特并不受他们的影响。他是美国总统的朋友，他会成为一名宇航员。

“I wanted to be on the cover of Life magazine,” Dwight said. “And people were fighting when the issue came out. They were beating each other up to get the magazine.”

德怀特说：「当时，我想登上《生活》杂志的封面。每次有新的《生活》杂志出版，都会有人抢，大家都争着要买。」

He added, “The news guys couldn’t put enough Life magazines on the shelf to supply all these people. That was my deal. I would think about walking down Broadway, and every newsstand, man, and every magazine on it, there’d be no magazines but me.”

他还说：「报刊工作人员准备的《生活》杂志总是供不应求。这就是我当时的想法。我梦想着当我走在百老汇大街上，每一家报摊里的每一本杂志，上面的封面人物都是我。」

Yeager ultimately graduated him. Despite initial concerns about Dwight’s flying ability, and the question of whether astronauts even needed to be pilots, the 30-year-old was now eligible for space. As the commandant wrote, “Dwight hung on and squeezed through. He got his diploma qualifying him to be the nation’s first black astronaut.”

最后，耶格尔还是让德怀特毕业了。尽管耶格尔最初质疑过德怀特的飞机驾驶能力，也质疑过宇航员需要由飞行员来担任的这个要求，但是30岁的德怀特还是获得了飞入太空的资质。耶格尔写道：「德怀特最终还是坚持了下来，勉强通过了。他拿到了毕业证书，具备了成为美国历史上首位黑人宇航员的资格。」

Now it was up to NASA.

现在就看 NASA 了。

*Ed Dwight 手中拿着 T-38 飞机模型，是他最喜欢的飞机。图片摄于 2019 年 7 月 1 日。摄影：Nathan Bajar，图片版权：《纽约时报》

In October 1963, the agency held a news conference in Houston to announce the astronauts selected for the next class. The 14 chosen men, including future moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, filed onstage, all crew cuts, dark suits and smart ties. Dwight was not there. He had been one of the pilots recommended by the Air Force, but, out of the 271 total applicants, he was not among the chosen.

1963 年 10 月，NASA 在休斯敦召开了一场新闻发布会，公布了新一届宇航员培训班的入选名单。14 位入选的宇航员走上舞台，每个人都理着平头，穿着深色西装，打着漂亮的领带，后来登上月球的巴兹·奥尔德林也在其中。但德怀特不在。他是美国空军推荐的飞行员之一，但却没能在 271 位申请者中脱颖而出。

*摄影：Nathan Bajar，图片版权：《纽约时报》

A reporter asked Deke Slayton, director of NASA’s astronaut office, “Was there a Negro boy in the last 30 or so that you brought here for consideration?” Slayton leaned into his microphone and answered flatly, “No, there was not.” And with that, the space-bound men filed offstage to pose for publicity photos.

一位记者问 NASA 宇航员办公室主任迪克·斯雷顿：「过去三十年左右，有没有哪个你带来这里的黑人男孩进入过你的考虑范围？」斯雷顿靠近话筒，干巴巴地答道：「不，没有。」与此同时，这些最终会被送上太空的宇航员们纷纷走下舞台，摆好姿势，准备拍摄宣传照。

Despite that disappointment, Dwight was confident that someone was still watching over his career and held out hope for the next class selection, scheduled for 1965. “Washington was able to solve all the problems that were popping up,” he said. “Until Nov. 22, 1963.”

虽然很失望，但德怀特相信，还有人在关照他的职业生涯。他依然对 1965 年的下一届宇航员培训班甄选抱有希望。「华盛顿可以解决一切突然冒出来的问题，」他说，「直到 1963 年 11 月 22 日。」

On that day, Dwight and his classmates were at a Boeing plant near Seattle for a mission simulation. Dwight was waiting for his turn in the simulator, about to put on his spacesuit, when the news arrived that the training exercise was canceled. President Kennedy had been shot. “My heart fell down into my ankles,” Dwight recalled. The pilots trooped into the executive dining room to discuss the news. Dwight, who as a young man had been inspired by Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage,” ate quietly by himself.

那天，德怀特和同学在西雅图附近一家波音工厂参与任务模拟。排队等着用模拟器的德怀特刚穿上航天服，就有消息传来说训练取消了，肯尼迪总统遇刺了。德怀特回忆道：「当时我的心一下沉到了谷底。」飞行员们成群结队地走进行政餐厅，讨论着这个消息。年轻时曾受肯尼迪的《当仁不让》鼓舞的德怀特默默地一个人吃着饭。

The hand on Dwight’s shoulder also seemed to have vanished. He could feel his dream slipping away. He tried to reinvigorate old Washington contacts. “I was in this trap of no man’s land,” he said. “The team and all the support system I had seemed to have left me hanging out there.”

搭在德怀特肩膀上支持他的那只手似乎也消失了。他可以感觉得到，自己的梦想正从手中溜走。他努力想要重振以前华盛顿的人脉关系。「我陷入了一个无人问津的糟糕境地，」他说，「我的团队、所有的支持似乎都离我而去了。」

Within weeks, Dwight’s career at Edwards ended. By January 1964, he was stationed at Wright-Patterson in Ohio. The hotshot so used to circumventing the Air Force hierarchy was now relegated to running experiments on transport planes.

没过几周，德怀特在爱德华兹空军基地的职业生涯就结束了。1964 年 1 月，他被派驻到了俄亥俄州的怀特-帕特森空军基地。他曾经很擅长绕开空军的管理阶层，但现在他只能降级去运输机上做实验了。

“It’s this hopeless feeling,” said Charles Bolden, who trained as a pilot in the late 1960s before rising through the ranks to become a general and the first African American to lead NASA. “You know what the process is and you know what the chain of responsibility and command is and you don’t see any way out of it.” Like Dwight, Bolden also navigated Washington politics, going straight to President Johnson’s office when his career was stonewalled by a bloc of Southern congressmen. “Everything sort of followed the same pattern that all of us have seen who have been among the earlier people to come into any of these programs,” Bolden added.

「感觉就是很绝望，」查尔斯·博尔顿说，「你知道流程是什么，你知道有什么责任和命令束缚着你，你完全看不到任何出路。」博尔顿曾在 1960 年代末接受飞行员训练，后来步步高升成为了一名上将，是 NASA 首位非裔美国领导人。博尔顿和德怀特一样曾在华盛顿的政治圈如鱼得水，一群南方国会议员阻挠他职业生涯时，他直接去了肯尼迪总统的办公室。博尔顿还说：「就我们知道的所有早期参与这些项目的人而言，事情某种程度上都是这么发展的。」

The next year, Ebony magazine published an article that looked into the case of the forgotten black astronaut. The piece was followed by articles in The New York Times and elsewhere, and the media caught up with Dwight on the tarmac of the naval air station at China Lake, about an hour’s drive north of Edwards.

第二年，《Ebony》杂志发表了一篇文章，深入关注了这位被遗忘的黑人宇航员。文章发表后，《纽约时报》和其他报刊杂志也发表了相关的文章。媒体在爱德华兹空军基地以北约一小时车程的中国湖海军航空站停机坪上采访了德怀特。

The pilot, in his flight suit and folding cap, was ushered to the microphone. He stood alone, blinking at a scrum of reporters. A row of white officers dressed in khaki uniforms and aviators watched from the back of the group.

这位飞行员穿着飞行服，戴着折叠帽，被领到了话筒前。他一个人站着，在一群记者面前眨着眼睛。一排穿着卡其制服的白人军官和飞行员站在记者后面看着他们。

“Why aren’t you an astronaut now?” one of the journalists asked.

一位记者问：「为什么你现在没当宇航员？」

“Well, I couldn’t begin to tell you,” Dwight responded. “I have no comment for that question. But other than that, I won’t make any overt statements at this time outlining any overt racial pressures at any time during my training at Edwards.”

「唔，我不能告诉你，」德怀特答道，「这个问题我不予置评。除此之外，我不会在这个时候做出任何公开声明，谈论任何我在爱德华兹训练期间遭到的任何公然的种族压力。」

“Do you feel that what’s happened to you is a setback for civil rights opportunities in this country?” another reporter asked.

另一位记者问：「你觉得你的遭遇是否体现了这个国家公民权利机会的倒退？」

Dwight scanned the cameras, and the row of officers behind them, and answered, “I would rather not comment on that.” He left it there.

德怀特扫视了一下摄像机和站在后面的军官，答道：「我也不想对此发表评论。」他离开了。

NASA has never given a full explanation for why Dwight did not make the cut. The agency did not then, and does not today, disclose the exact criteria for final astronaut selections.

NASA 从没完整解释过德怀特没能入选的原因。他们当时没有，现在也没有披露过宇航员最终选拔的具体标准。

Slayton explained the process in his 1994 memoir, “Deke!” (which was published the year after he died): “I had already developed a point system that we used in making the final evaluations on astronaut candidates. There were three parts: academic, pilot performance, and character/motivation, 10 points for each part, with 30 being the highest possible score. Some of it was cut-and-dried: You got points for a certain amount of flying time and for education. Some of it, by design, was subjective.”

1994 年，斯雷顿去世一年后，他的回忆录《迪克！》出版了。他在这本回忆录中介绍了宇航员选拔的方式：「我设计了一套评分体系，用来对宇航员候选人进行最后的评估。这套评分体系分学术、飞行表现和性格/积极性三个部分，每个部分十分，三十分是最高分。有些项目的评分是固定死的：你飞够了一定的时间、接受了足够的教育，就能得到相应的分数。有些项目的评分则设计得比较主观。」

Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, explained: “They’re looking for a collection of things that they were never forthcoming about how they’re weighted. I suspect that there may not have been any formula for that. They were looking for a package of people who were extremely good at flying, who were highly adaptable, smart.” He added, “By that point, they’re also looking at, ‘Is this person going to be a good spokesman for the agency?’ but also they wanted to have people who would do what they were told.”

NASA 首席历史学家比尔·巴里解释道：「现在他们在寻找一组过去从没透露过权衡方式的东西。我怀疑可能根本就没什么衡量标准。当时他们要找的是一群非常擅长飞行，而且适应能力很强的聪明人。除此之外，他们也会考虑『这个人会成为一位优秀的 NASA 代言人吗？』他们还想要能够乖乖听话的人。」

In the years since, the agency’s priorities have evolved. NASA spokesman Robert Jacobs said: “The specifics of Ed’s story and why he never flew in space are hard to address nearly 60 years after the fact, but we can say that it took decades for the astronaut corps and other areas of the agency to truly be reflective of America’s diversity. Following the Apollo-era, we saw more of an emphasis on science, medicine, engineering, and other disciplines in the astronaut selection process, and that opened new doors. The 1978 astronaut class and the space shuttle era brought in the diversity we didn’t see in the space program of the 1960s. Today, we have an astronaut corps that better represents our diverse cultures.”

从那以后，NASA 重视的特质不断变化。NASA 发言人罗伯特·雅各布斯表示：「艾德的事过去将近六十年了，他故事中的一些细节以及他没能上太空的原因，我们现在很难做出解释。不过，我们可以说，宇航员队伍和 NASA 其他部门花了几十年的时间才（让人员构成）真正反映出美国的多样性。阿波罗时代后，我们可以看到，宇航员选拔更注重科学、医学、工程学和其他学科知识，（为更多人）打开了新的大门。1978 届宇航员培训班和航天飞机时代带来的多样性是我们在 1960 年代太空项目中不曾看到过的。如今，我们的宇航员队伍能够更好地反映我们多元的文化。」

In 1966, Dwight resigned his commission in the Air Force, after 13 years. The next year, Robert Lawrence, the second black man tapped to be an astronaut, died when his Starfighter crashed at Edwards. By the time Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Dwight was living in Denver, working at IBM. Unlike every other person in the United States at the time, he says he does not remember where he was when the Eagle landed.

1996 年，服役 13 年的德怀特辞去了空军的职务。第二年，第二位入选宇航员的黑人罗伯特·劳伦斯在爱德华兹空军基地服役时，因星式战斗机事故去世。尼尔·阿姆斯特朗踏上月球时，德怀特住在丹佛，为 IBM 工作。和当时其他美国人不同，德怀特说他不记得鹰号登陆月球时他在哪里了。

*Dwight 在他位于丹佛的工作室里工作，摄于 2019 年 7 月 1 日。摄影：Nathan Bajar，图片版权：《纽约时报》

It was not until 1983, 14 years after Armstrong’s “one small step,” that the United States would send an African American into space. Today, of the 572 people who have flown into space — 356 of them Americans — just 14 were African Americans. After leaving the Air Force, Dwight opened a restaurant, started a flight company, went back to school to earn a master of fine arts degree and eventually started a foundry. Today, the man who was on the path to being an astronaut is best known as a distinguished artist, whose specialty is sculpting icons of black history in bronze.

直到 1983 年，也就是阿姆斯特朗在月球上迈出「个人的一小步」14 年后，美国才将一位非裔美国宇航员送上太空。如今 572 位上过太空的宇航员中，有 356 位美国人，其中只有 14 位是非裔美国人。离开空军后，德怀特开过餐厅和航空公司，回学校读了个美术的硕士学位，最后又开了一家铸造厂。现在，这个曾经计划要当宇航员的男人最为人所熟知的身份是杰出艺术家，专擅用青铜雕刻黑人历史上的偶像人物。

Dwight has also turned an airplane hangar on the edge of Denver into his sculpture studio, where he has worked for three decades. Every morning he parks his Lexus with the vanity plate “SCULPTR” outside. The vast space that once sheltered jets now houses a congregation of Dwight’s sculptures and models: Michelle and Barack Obama, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. He has populated city parks and downtowns with more than 120 monuments, the cost of which can run into the millions of dollars. His sculptures sell to private buyers for as much as $100,000, Dwight said, but astronauts get a discount.

德怀特还把丹佛边上一座飞机库改造成了雕塑工作室。他在那里工作了三十年。每天清晨，他都会把自己那辆挂着「SCULPTR」装饰牌照的雷克萨斯停在外面。这个曾经停放飞机的巨大空间如今摆放着德怀特的各种雕塑和模型：米歇尔·奥巴马和巴拉克·奥巴马、迪兹·吉莱斯皮、路易斯·阿姆斯特朗……他在城市公园和市中心建造了 120 多座纪念碑，造价高达数百万美元。德怀特表示，他的雕塑卖给私人买家的价格是 10 万美元，如果是宇航员购买有折扣。

In the years since he joined NASA, Bolden has become close with Dwight. “He became sort of a role model and a mentor for me,” said Bolden, who got to know Dwight while training in the early 1980s. “Ed understands the trials and tribulations of trying and not making it and being able to go on after that. For a young person who is there but struggling, he plays a critical role in helping you decide not to leave.”

自从加入 NASA 后，博尔顿就和德怀特很亲近。「他有点像是我的榜样和导师，」博尔顿说，他是在 1980 年代初参加训练时认识德怀特的，「努力（去追寻梦想）却落得个失败的结果，然后再继续去追梦，艾德知道这个过程有多难多痛苦。对于一个在那里苦苦挣扎的年轻人而言，他起到了帮助你下定决心不离开的重要作用。」

When Bolden was confirmed for the top NASA job before the Senate in 2009, he pointed out a “very special person” at the hearing. “While not actually becoming an astronaut, he was a trailblazer in the attempt to break the color barrier in America’s astronaut program,” he told the committee.

2009 年，博尔顿获参议院批准担任 NASA 局长时，他在听证会上提到了一个「非常特别的人」。他告诉委员会：「虽然这个人没能真正成为宇航员，但他却是努力打破美国宇航员计划肤色藩篱的先驱。」

“We don’t know what Ed’s place would have been in space history because we were never given an opportunity,” Bolden said recently.

博尔顿最近表示：「我们不知道艾德在航天史上会获得怎样的地位，因为我们从没给过他机会。」

Historian Steven Moss said that had it gone differently, Dwight “would have had his own altar in the civic religion of American space travel.”

历史学家史蒂文·莫斯表示，如果情况有所不同，德怀特「可能会在美国太空旅行的公民宗教中拥有自己的祭坛」。

Instead, Dwight is both a person who nearly made history and a person dedicated to preserving it. These days he is busy in his studio, contemplating an even longer history. Plans to build a monument are underway on the windswept coast of Virginia at Fort Monroe, and Dwight is being considered for the commission. There, 400 years ago, a ship arrived carrying 20 enslaved Angolans, who were sold to Virginia settlers in exchange for food. It was the start of our chapter of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in which 12.5 million people were shipped to the New World, with 10.7 million of them surviving the journey. It was the beginning of the African American story, Dwight said.

事实上，德怀特不仅几乎创造了历史，他还致力于保护历史。目前他正在自己的工作室里忙着思考更久远的历史。有人计划在弗吉尼亚州 Fort Monroe 微风吹拂的海岸上建造一座纪念碑，并考虑聘请德怀特来负责这项工作。400 年前，一艘船载着 20 名安哥拉奴隶来到这里，把奴隶们卖给弗吉尼亚州的殖民者换取食物。跨大西洋的奴隶贸易就此拉开序幕，1250 万人被送往新大陆，1070 万人在旅途中活了下来。德怀特说，这也是非裔美国人故事的开篇。

“I want that one bad for any number of reasons,” he said. “The spot where their feet actually touched down, this is the most historic piece of earth in America.”

「我非常想要这份工作，原因有很多，」他说，「这是黑奴最初踏足的地方，也是美国最有历史意义的地方。」

It is because of that first that all the other firsts are necessary.

正是因为有着这样的开始，其他所有的「第一次」都是非裔美国人历史上不可或缺的重要时刻。

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原文标题：Ed Dwight Was Set to Be the First Black Astronaut. Here’s Why That Never Happened.

原文作者：Emily Ludolph

翻译：熊猫译社 智竑 张翯 钱功毅

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