GUION STEWART BLUFORD JR. (Born 1942) is an Aerospace Engineer who became the first African American to travel into space in 1983. A former Air Force officer and fighter pilot, he made four trips to space. In 1978, he was one of 35 individuals selected from 10,000 applicants in NASA’s first competition to become space shuttle astronauts. On August 30, 1983, he rode into Earth orbit on the Challenger Space Shuttle Mission. By the time he retired from NASA in 1993, he had spent more than 28 days in space over four missions and was later inducted into the United States Astronaut Hal of Fame.
