Once at a space conference I attended in Colorado Springs, NASA astronaut Victor Glover — the pilot of NASA's upcoming Artemis 2 mission to the moon — said something that caused a bit of a stir.
It was April 17, 2023, just two weeks after NASA had
named Glover to the Artemis 2 crew, a lunar flight that will make him the first person of color ever to visit the moon. Glover was there at the Space Symposium conference with other astronauts to talk about, well, space.
But he also told a group of reporters about his weekly tradition: Every Monday, he listens to "Whitey on the Moon" on the way to work at NASA's
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
lover happens to be Black. And now he's going to the moon. NASA is targeting April 1 for the launch of
Artemis 2, which will send Glover and three other astronauts on a 10-day lunar flyby mission.
"It's funny, because that Space Symposium caused me a lot of grief in the next months because people tried to quote me out of context," Glover told me in an interview last September. "And it ain't about racism. It's about the human condition."
"Whitey on the Moon" is a spoken-word poem by Gil Scott-Heron published and set to music in 1970. It recounts the challenges of doctor bills, taxes and high rent for Black Americans at a time when the U.S. was spending billions to send astronauts to the moon and beat the Soviet Union during the Cold War space race.
You can read the full poem here.
It begins:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
"That song is a reminder that everybody wasn't having a good time in 1968 when we launched the first Apollo missions. People were struggling," Glover said. "Some people were like, 'These bills and these potholes, like my condition hasn't been improved by NASA.'
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