來自輕芒：大家好，我是輕芒的編輯 ronghui。本周我們和大家一起閱讀的《紐約時報》文章，是一位黑人太空人的故事。今年 7 月 20 日是阿波羅 11 號登月 50 周年的紀念日，當我們紀念人類登月壯舉時，會提起當時一個個鮮活的人，有一些人被歷史記住，有一些人被歷史遺忘。Ed Dwight 這個名字，也許對很多人來說很陌生——他是最早接受訓練的黑人太空人，也曾有機會成為登月太空人的候選人，但卻在種種原因影響下，最終離開航空事業，成為了一名雕塑家。你從這個故事中，可以看到被太空競賽、平權運動籠罩的美國 60 年代，可以看到種族歧視影響下的美國社會，也可以看到一個人被時局捧起也被時局遺棄，但他似乎始終保持著平和、謙遜的心態。這篇文章的作者是 Emily Ludolph，圖文版權來自《紐約時報》。
*圖片來自 Ed Dwight 個人收藏
5The bone-rattling trip to the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere used to require a steady hand, a powerful jet and the precision of an airman ready to dodge enemy fire.
從前，要想經過劇烈顛簸前往大氣層上部區域，除了需要一架強大的噴氣式飛機，飛行員還要做到沉著穩重，並能精確躲避敵人的轟炸。
The dangers were immense. You could black out. Gravitational force could pull blood from your eyes, rendering you sightless. Or you could merely end up in a flat spin and plummet to Earth without ever getting a good view of what lay beyond it.
這份工作非常危險。你可能會失去知覺；重力過載會使你腦部失血，產生黑視；你也可能連地平線都沒看清就陷入水平螺旋，一頭栽向地面。
It was just the sort of challenge that a chiseled 29-year-old aspiring astronaut named Ed Dwight was after.
而這位臉部稜角分明、有志成為航天員的 29 歲年輕人追求的正是這種挑戰。他的名字叫做埃德·德懷特。
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 星式戰鬥機飛行員。這款機型就像鉻合金製成的標槍，它的機翼小得好像只是個裝飾品。如果能在理想情況下保持直線飛行，它可以飛得又快又高。飛機的一頭是一隻巨大的引擎，另一頭則是飛行員的座位。
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.
德懷特駕駛飛機呼嘯著衝向太陽，空氣在咆哮，他感受到了突破音障時熟悉的震蕩感。爬升至 8 萬英尺（約合 2.44 萬米）左右高空時，隨著傷痕累累的大氣層邊緣越來越近，德懷特關閉了飛機發動機。
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樹葉，漂浮在地球最稀薄的空氣裡。他的眼前是彎曲的地平線，他的頭頂則是漆黑的浩瀚宇宙。
「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.」
現年 85 歲的德懷特回憶說：「第一次飛到這樣的高度時我心想：天啊，什麼情況，好好看一看。你可以看到地球美麗的藍色表面，特別震撼。」
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.
德懷特只做過幾次這樣的飛行，不過人們都說他的總飛行時間達 9000 小時。這位小時候當過祭壇助手的飛行員，後來進入了美國航太研究飛行員學校，受訓成為太空人。這所學校隸屬位於加州的愛德華茲空軍基地，當時的校指揮官則是查克·耶格爾。和其他人一樣，德懷特有夢想、有經驗，也有著良好的家庭背景。但和學校裡其他飛行員不同的是，他是一個黑人。
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，美國正轟轟烈烈地開展民權運動和太空競賽。這兩大運動在多數情況下並行發展，互不幹涉，但是 5 英尺 4 英寸（約合 1.63 米）的德懷特卻讓兩者有了短暫的交叉。
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.
當時的甘迺迪政府積極推動民權運動，因而也成了德懷特的擁護者。急於捧紅民權鬥士、記錄歷史轉折點的黑人記者把他的頭像登在了報紙頭版。當時的美國渴望向世人證明：儘管此前俄羅斯率先進入了太空，但美國才是真正的超級大國。就在這樣的大背景下，德懷特成了美利堅進步的化身。這是一場冷戰時期高風險的公關行動。
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.
然而加利福尼亞的高空卻是德懷特到過的離太空最近的地方。一場意外讓美國早期航天事業備受打擊，也讓原本有望成為航天員的德懷特不得不接受現實，他轉而開始執行一系列無關緊要的任務。
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?
德懷特駕駛這架飛機 8 年後，尼爾·阿姆斯特朗和巴茲·奧爾德林登上了月球。他們留下的紀念牌上寫道：「公元 1969 年 7 月，來自地球的人類第一次登上月球，我們為全人類的和平而來。」但如果有個黑人也和他們一起登上了月球、如果是他說出了「我個人的一小步」，並把紀念牌放在月球表面，結果會是怎樣？這對人類來說會是怎樣的飛躍？
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.」
對 2009 年成為首位非洲裔美國國家航空航天局局長的查爾斯·博爾登來說，這點是毋庸置疑的。他表示：「如果當時能看到埃德·德懷特穿過平臺走進阿波羅太空艙，那會給人帶來極大的衝擊。」
It took two decades after Dwight became an astronaut trainee before a black American would go to space.
從德懷特接受太空人訓練起，到第一位美國黑人進入太空，這個過程一共用了 20 年。
Ed Dwight’s path had started years earlier.
而埃德·德懷特若干年前就開始了他的飛行之路。
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，德懷特還在加州特拉維斯空軍基地駕駛轟炸機。同一時期，一個名叫羅伯特·沃爾斯的年輕海軍心理學家卻總在五角大樓的停車場裡迷路，找不到自己的車。沃爾斯此前加入了國家航空航天局，他肩負著一項特殊的任務：選拔第一批進入太空的美國人，也就是日後被稱為「水星七人組」的太空人。2002 年，沃爾斯在美國國家航空航天局的口述歷史項目中回憶說：「想到你選拔的是哥倫布或者林德伯格這樣的人物，我們都有點兒肅然起敬。」（查爾斯·林德伯格，美國飛行家，1927 年首次單獨完成橫越大西洋的不著陸飛行，譯註）。
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.
沃爾斯開始調查前，給上司起草了一份備忘錄，詢問是否只應關注技術指標，還是需要把「公關」因素也考慮在內。他問道：「我們要關心種族的問題嗎？男女都應該包括在內嗎？」他說他得到的回答是：「應該重點關注誰最可靠、誰能最有效地駕駛這艘飛船。」但在後來的十幾年裡，種族和性別多樣性問題將一直困擾著美國的太空項目。
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.
一開始，太空人並不需要像愛德華茲空軍基地的精英一樣必須是飛機試飛員。沃爾斯設想可以辦一場全國性比賽，參賽選手可以是深海潛水員、北極探險者、賽車手等。第一批進入太空的太空人最重要的特質在於，他們在惡劣環境中遇到意外時要能保持沉著冷靜。
*圖片來自 Dwight 個人收藏
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.」
除了都需要在空中飛行，乘坐火箭和駕駛飛機幾乎沒有共通之處。近日德懷特解釋說：「你首先得明白，從爬進座艙直到飛船著陸，船上發生的一切都是由地面控制的。沒有什麼特定的品質能造就一名優秀的太空人。在我認識的人裡，只要有決心、有意志，就都能去太空。」
*圖片來自 Dwight 個人收藏
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.」
就連這個太空人培訓項目未來的指揮官耶格爾也在 1959 年表示：「我做了一輩子飛行員，但水星計劃不需要做任何飛行操作。」
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.
然而德懷特·艾森豪總統否決了公開選拔的提議。身為職業軍人，總統要求太空人必須有軍事背景。如此一來，候選人不僅能遵守紀律、有正確的人生觀和得體的舉止，也具備應對高壓的能力——此外，他們也有參加機密工作的安全權限。隨著冷戰不斷激化，候選太空人將成為美蘇爭霸過程中備受關注的形象大使。
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.」
美國國家航空航天局首席歷史學家比爾·巴裡認為，艾森豪的這一決定為未來數年內的太空競賽定下了基調。他解釋說：「一旦定下了這條標準，很多事就沒得商量了。比方試飛員裡沒有一個非裔美國人，也沒有一個女飛行員。」
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.
正如湯姆·沃爾夫在《太空先鋒》所寫，第一批太空人是「7 個愛國、虔誠、來自小鎮清教徒家庭的男性，他們得到了國內民眾的全力支持」。這些人將成為美國人的航天英雄，他們有隨時準備好上鏡的妻子和家人，也展現了精英部隊成員之間的戰友情誼。
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，蘇聯太空人尤裡·加加林成了第一個進入太空的人。次月，甘迺迪總統在國會兩院聯席會議上宣布了登月計劃，並宣稱「如果要贏得世界各地正在進行的自由與暴政間的鬥爭」，美國就有必要這麼做。
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.
此時，廣播記者愛德華·默羅已擔任美國新聞署署長，負責在冷戰中贏取「民心」。看到相貌英俊的加加林前往巴西、日本、賴比瑞亞等地做巡迴演講（迎接他到訪的人群總會高聲歡呼），默羅突然靈光一現。
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，他寫信給航空航天局局長，從本質上說他是在探討外交策略：「我們為什麼不把第一個非白人送上太空呢？要是你的手下能招收一個合格的黑人，讓他接受培訓，然後讓他坐上任何一艘可以飛的飛船，那我們就能向整個非白人世界講述我們探索太空的努力，畢竟非白人人口佔了很大一部分。」
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.
隨著一個又一個國家擺脫殖民統治，如果美國大部分地區仍在實行種族隔離的做法，那它就無法贏得加納、印度、印尼、奈及利亞等國人民的信任。
「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.」
歷史學家道格拉斯·布林克利在今年出版的《美國登月之旅》一書中寫道：「各個國家分為親蘇派和親美派，我們的太空人則是親善大使。我們帶著他們到處宣傳，向世人展示美國登月計劃的偉大。要是能把一個有色人種送進太空，那就能顯示我們的民主制度有多麼高尚。」
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，默羅把有關黑人太空人的提議直接呈交給了總統，總統在一份備忘錄中把該提議傳給了時任美國國家航空航天委員會主席的副總統林登·詹森，並「希望有誰可以做點什麼」。詹森的助理喬治·裡迪於是仔細研究了選拔黑人太空人的利與弊。他在一份機密備忘錄中寫道：「毫無疑問，讓一名黑人太空人參與太空飛行任務能對美國產生巨大價值。」但他也補充說，甘迺迪政府應該「擯棄一種觀念，那就是航空航天局能輕易找來一名黑人，然後讓他經過培訓成為候選太空人。」
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.
選用黑人可能會招致各種公關危機，比如他可能會被淘汰，讓人覺得他是被內定出局的；他可能會死（這個風險尤其重大），於是就有人會指責說，在政府眼裡非裔美國人是可以隨便犧牲的；而最糟糕的情況是，一旦公眾察覺到「選拔程序有人為操縱的痕跡」，那就會破壞整個努力。
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.」
除此之外還有一個大問題。根據裡迪的總結，當時還沒有一個非裔申請者能在國家航空航天局的選拔程序中嶄露頭角。儘管甘迺迪於 1961 年頒布的行政令鼓勵政府採取「平權行動」來促進平等就業，但這一舉措為時太晚，能符合條件的黑人飛行員寥寥可數。裡迪解釋說，要解決這個問題的話，「已經超出了航空航天局的能力，可以說它是整個國家面臨的問題」。
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.
儘管如此，白宮仍然指示美國海軍和空軍在軍官中尋找人選。空軍部長尤金·朱克特在 1969 年記錄的一份口述歷史資料中表示，他已經習慣了每天晚上 7 時接到電話，要求他在第二天一早 6 時 30 分提供「軍銜高於少尉的黑人軍官名單」。不過空軍的回覆令人驚訝：有個年輕的黑人飛行員已經準備好了前往愛德華茲空軍基地接受訓練。
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.
白宮在埃德·德懷特身上發現了默羅原本不敢奢望的品質：他是個充滿個人魅力的飛行員；他的專業是航空學，並以優等成績畢業於亞利桑那州立大學；他的飛行時間和表現評分也都達到了要求。
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.」
德懷特小時候學過拉丁語，並在當地天主教堂做過祭壇助手。他送過報紙，也在父母位於堪薩斯城的餐館裡當過送餐員。有時候他還會去附近的機場，幫那些從懷俄明州打獵回來的白人擦洗私人飛機。德懷特回憶說：「從很小的時候開始我就每天都去機場。我會研究所有的飛機，然後把它們畫下來。這是我偷偷追求的夢想。」
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 歲的德懷特說起兒時的夢想時依舊激動地手舞足蹈。從腳尖到柔軟的指腹，他用了全身的力量來示意飛機飛行和下降的角度。他在自己的雕塑工作室裡跑來跑去，在這裡他已創作了迪齊·吉萊斯皮、路易斯·阿姆斯特朗等爵士大師的肖像。談起自己的童年時，他顯得特別興奮。
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.
德懷特和他的姐姐曾一起在當地一所接收黑人學生的天主教高中就讀。學校設有黑人學生專用的種族隔離浴室；人們還告誡德懷特不許看白人女孩。他加入了學校的橄欖球隊，還練習過拳擊。那時候，這個身材矮小的少年唯一不太擅長的運動是籃球，但他還是會打籃球。
「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.」
德懷特最小的妹妹利茲·喬回憶說：「他的魅力能徵服每個人，所有人都愛埃德·德懷特。他的性格非常活潑外向。每次他走進一個房間，那裡的氣氛就會活躍起來。我一直覺得他的身邊可能有一個守護天使，一直指引著他，因為他想做的所有事情最後都做成功了。」
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.」
那時，他想做的事就是飛行。「但是那時候的世界是屬於白人男性的，」德懷特這樣回憶他成長的 1950 年代，「那時候堪薩斯州還在實施種族隔離制度。我從來沒想過我真的能駕駛飛機。這個想法在當時太瘋狂了。」
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，他在報紙的頭版上看到「一個來自我的家鄉堪薩斯城的非裔美國飛行員，在朝鮮被擊落了，」他補充道，「那位飛行員站在一架噴氣式飛機的機翼上面，他是一名戰俘，而我當時在想，天吶，黑人居然可以駕駛飛機。」
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，德懷特在 1953 年加入了空軍。他在軍中一路晉升，從軍校學員，到少尉，再到中尉。他參與完善了操作程序，簡化了流程並編寫操作手冊；他負責在教員不在時管理儀器培訓班，組織一同訓練的其他飛行員的考試，並充分利用閒暇時間拼命地練習飛行；他還完成了電子工程和微積分的函授課程。在一次評估中，一位中校寫道，德懷特具備 「進取心，加上他卓越的能力，是一名傑出的青年軍官。」另一位上級寫道「我堅決支持提名德懷特中尉代表我或美國空軍處理公共關係事務。」除了表現優異以外，他還有著電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.」
他更有著真正的戰鬥機駕駛員所具備的那種過人的自信。德懷特在 2009 年出版的自傳《借夢想的翅膀翱翔》中寫道：「戰鬥機飛行員一般都是 A 型人格——獨立、進取、大膽、渴望冒險、控制狂等等，而特別優秀的戰鬥機飛行員，通常都是傲慢的混蛋。要能精確地控制一臺複雜的、價值數百萬美元的高速飛行機器，就需要經過最嚴密的訓練，並具備卓越的智力和過硬的心理素質，而這也就需要操作者具備 A 型人格。不是你『進入』了戰鬥機，而是你把戰鬥機綁在你的屁股下面，把它變成了你身體的一部分。」
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.
加入愛德華茲空軍基地的太空人訓練項目時，德懷特覺得自己是被特意選中的。據德懷特說，甘迺迪總統甚至曾專門打電話給他的父母，向他們道賀。
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.
那是一段令人興奮的時光。連著很多個星期，德懷特每個周四晚上都要離開妻子和兩個孩子，從愛德華茲出發進行全國巡迴演講。他在獅子會和小學校園致辭，鼓勵非裔孩子們努力學習「STEM」課程（科學、技術、工程和數學四個學科的英文首字母縮寫）。他要傳達的信息很明確：我的經歷證明了非裔美國民權運動的意義。如果一個黑人能受訓成為太空人，那麼我們就能做任何事。
「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.」
《紐約時報》曾發文《非裔太空人夢想登月》報導他的故事。《The Indianapolis Recorder》報紙也曾刊登文章《來自堪薩斯城的年輕人有望成為史上首位黑皮膚太空人》。美國新聞署給媒體發放了很多德懷特的照片：德懷特駕駛飛機，他向別人解釋電腦程式，他和耶格爾一起注視飛船模型等等。德懷特還登上了許多雜誌的封面，獲得了民權組織城市聯盟頒發的獎項，還曾和查爾頓·赫斯頓合影。據德懷特回憶，他那時平均每天會收到 1500 封粉絲來信。在 1984 年接受《Ebony》雜質採訪時，德懷特說：「那時，我每個月要給媒體發送 5000 張照片；在受訓的第一年，我一共做了 176 次演講。」
「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.」
理察·保羅說：「那時候他在非裔美國人媒體上的熱度，可以跟約翰·格倫在白人媒體上的熱度媲美。」2015 年，理察·保羅和史蒂文·莫斯出版了二人合著的歷史書《我們不能失敗：太空計劃中的首批非裔美國人》。
「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.」
「那時候所有的媒體都在關注他。美國航空航天局也不會阻止媒體爭相報導德懷特，因為他們也獲得了曝光量，」莫斯補充到，「在 1962 年成為太空人，具有其他任何事件都無可比擬的重要性，即便他還需要通過其他選拔程序才能正式成為太空人。一個數學家當選市長是一件大事；一個技師成為弗羅裡達州史上第一位黑人民選市議員也很了不起，但是這些都不如在 1962 年成為太空人那麼意義重大。」
It did not matter that Dwight was still a certificate away from even applying to NASA; he was a celebrity.
雖然德懷特要先順利畢業，才能申請進入美國國家航空航天局，但是這也顯得不那麼重要了；那時候的他，已經是一位家喻戶曉的名人。
His budding fame did not matter to Yeager, though.
然而，德懷特不斷攀升的名氣對耶格爾來說毫無意義。
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.
德懷特進入愛德華茲空軍基地時，耶格爾已經是上校了。他自二戰時期起就是軍隊中的傳奇人物。他出生在阿巴拉契亞地區深處、西維吉尼亞州馬德河畔的一個叫麥拉的小鎮。1941 年，18 歲的耶格爾加入了空軍，成為了一名機械師。二戰期間，他曾創下一天之內擊落五架敵機的輝煌戰績。到戰爭結束時，年僅 22 歲的他已經是一位胸口掛滿榮譽勳章的上尉了，一位戰爭英雄。
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.
耶格爾在 1947 年來到了位於加利福尼亞州沙漠深處的空軍基地，那時這裡還叫穆拉克空軍基地，除了乾涸的湖床和幾座臨時搭建的營房之外幾乎什麼都沒有。同年，耶格爾和其他幾位傳奇飛行員一同參加了一個早期試飛項目。在此過程中，他成功突破了音障，成為了當時世界上飛行速度最快的飛行員。到 1962 年，他出任美國空軍試飛員學校的校長時，他已經是當時最出色的軍用飛行員之一，也是愛德華茲空軍基地的骨幹力量。
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.
德懷特說，從受訓第一天起，耶格爾就想把他趕走。耶格爾在他 1985 年出版的自傳《耶格爾》中曾提到，他很討厭白宮對軍事問題的幹涉。德懷特說，他加入訓練項目後，立刻感到自己非常不受歡迎，他覺得自己不屬於這個集體。德懷特還回憶，一個同學曾告訴他：「耶格爾在第一天就跟其他人說，『我們可以在六個月內就把他趕出去，我們可以徹底打垮他的信心。』」
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.
正如湯姆·沃爾夫在《正確的事》裡面所記錄的：「每個禮拜，都會有司法部民權司從華盛頓派來的律師團來到空軍基地，那時候的司法部部長是總統的弟弟羅伯特·甘迺迪。在沙漠裡刺眼的陽光下，這些律師眯著眼睛詢問很多關於埃德·德懷特的訓練進展和待遇的問題，還做了記錄。」
「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.
沃爾夫還寫到：「有一段時間，整個美軍航空航天研究飛行員學校看起來就像是『埃德·德懷特案』調研基地，只不過多了幾間教室，還有一些軍用裝備。」
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.
那時，德懷特要用整個周末來參加媒體活動，之後再飛回基地訓練。可是他的同學都在用周末的時間為下一周的訓練做準備。除了要到處演講，他還經歷了那個時代黑人軍人所遭遇的許多典型的種族歧視問題。當學員們為了訓練而四處奔波時，服務員總是拒絕為德懷特提供服務；汽車會丟下他直接出發；他的酒店房間總是「神秘地」找不到預訂記錄。公眾人物的身份，加上私下遭遇的歧視和不公，讓德懷特倍感壓力。
「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.」
德懷特說：「我的劣勢就是，其他學員沒有這麼多讓他們分心的事情。我要早起參加考試，要靠優異的成績來向他們證明我不比任何人差，可是他們其他人卻不用在周末做十次演講。」
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.」
每個周一，等待著德懷特的，都是來自耶格爾的壓力。德懷特回憶說：「每周的同一時間，他都會把我叫去他的辦公室，問我『你做好準備放棄訓練了嗎？這些任務對你來說太難了，你會自殺的，小子。』我是一名空軍軍官，他卻叫我『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.
耶格爾否認德懷特曾遭受過這樣的待遇。他說，他從未對任何人說過要把德懷特趕出這個項目，也沒有每周叫德懷特去自己的辦公室，更沒有叫他「小子」。但是，耶格爾並不喜歡德懷特，也確實質疑過他的能力。耶格爾在郵件中寫道：「埃德·德懷特後來找到了自己真正該做的事，成為了一名優秀的雕塑家，難道不是好事嗎？」
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.』」
德懷特認為他所遭受的待遇太不公平了，因此，後來他向上級投訴說自己遭到了種族歧視。耶格爾因此感到十分憤怒。他在自傳中寫道：「空軍顧問和他們的首席律師從五角大樓飛到了愛德華茲，親自調查這個案件。天吶，我那時候可謂『炙手可熱』。我告訴那個律師：『這裡確實有歧視案件。白宮強迫我們接收一個不合格的學員是歧視行為。我們如果僅僅因為他是黑人而讓他畢業，那也是歧視行為。』」
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?」
據德懷特的同學、退休少將羅伯特·坦吉回憶，德懷特也遭到了一些同學的質疑，他提到：「他們一直都疑心，埃德能入選這個項目，是因為他是黑人。」
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.」
在訓練過程中，坦吉曾與德懷特一起飛行，而他覺得德懷特的能力沒有任何問題。「我覺得埃德是一個合格的學員，」坦吉說，「他具備參加這個訓練項目所需的資質。當初不管是誰選他進入這個項目的，這都是一個非常正確的選擇，因為埃德是一位冷靜穩健的飛行員。」
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.」
工程師伍迪·方丹和德懷特差不多同時進入愛德華茲空軍基地。方丹曾和德懷特一起打壁球，還一起參加周末的雞尾酒派對。他回憶說：「我們是那裡為數不多的黑人，所以我們都想要放鬆一下。埃德會參加這些聚會，玩得也很開心。他是一個特別有趣的人。」方丹還補充道：「我當時完全沒意識到，他承受著那麼大的壓力。」
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.
演講任務和訓練帶來的壓力也給德懷特的婚姻帶來了麻煩。在軍方的敦促下，德懷特與妻子休·莉蓮達成了協議，她搬到了愛德華茲，和德懷特以及他們的兩個孩子住在一起。可是此時，他們的關係早就已經出現了裂痕，此後又在媒體曝光的影響之下變得更為緊張。
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.
德懷特夫婦在空軍基地的生活是十分孤立無助的，而各種邀請飛行員攜家屬出席的軍官俱樂部或後院燒烤聯誼活動，並不能幫助他們排解任何問題。德懷特只能通過每日給自己的母親打電話來尋求安慰。他回憶說：「母親花了很多時間來告訴我，我是多麼的優秀，她有多麼愛我，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.
德懷特也曾向更有影響力的朋友尋求幫助。他說：「我花了很多時間在五角大樓四處遊說別人，跟所有願意和我說話的人交談。」耶格爾和其他高級軍官也注意到了這一點，他們自然心懷不滿。
Dwight was unfazed. He had a friend in the president, and he was going to be an astronaut.
德懷特並不受他們的影響。他是美國總統的朋友，他會成為一名太空人。
「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.」
德懷特說：「當時，我想登上《生活》雜誌的封面。每次有新的《生活》雜誌出版，都會有人搶，大家都爭著要買。」
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.」
他還說：「報刊工作人員準備的《生活》雜誌總是供不應求。這就是我當時的想法。我夢想著當我走在百老匯大街上，每一家報攤裡的每一本雜誌，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.」
最後，耶格爾還是讓德懷特畢業了。儘管耶格爾最初質疑過德懷特的飛機駕駛能力，也質疑過太空人需要由飛行員來擔任的這個要求，但是30歲的德懷特還是獲得了飛入太空的資質。耶格爾寫道：「德懷特最終還是堅持了下來，勉強通過了。他拿到了畢業證書，具備了成為美國歷史上首位黑人太空人的資格。」
Now it was up to NASA.
現在就看 NASA 了。
*Ed Dwight 手中拿著 T-38 飛機模型，是他最喜歡的飛機。圖片攝於 2019 年 7 月 1 日。攝影：Nathan Bajar，圖片版權：《紐約時報》
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 在休斯敦召開了一場新聞發布會，公布了新一屆太空人培訓班的入選名單。14 位入選的太空人走上舞臺，每個人都理著平頭，穿著深色西裝，打著漂亮的領帶，後來登上月球的巴茲·奧爾德林也在其中。但德懷特不在。他是美國空軍推薦的飛行員之一，但卻沒能在 271 位申請者中脫穎而出。
*攝影：Nathan Bajar，圖片版權：《紐約時報》
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.
一位記者問 NASA 太空人辦公室主任迪克·斯雷頓：「過去三十年左右，有沒有哪個你帶來這裡的黑人男孩進入過你的考慮範圍？」斯雷頓靠近話筒，乾巴巴地答道：「不，沒有。」與此同時，這些最終會被送上太空的太空人們紛紛走下舞臺，擺好姿勢，準備拍攝宣傳照。
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.」
雖然很失望，但德懷特相信，還有人在關照他的職業生涯。他依然對 1965 年的下一屆太空人培訓班甄選抱有希望。「華盛頓可以解決一切突然冒出來的問題，」他說，「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，德懷特和同學在西雅圖附近一家波音工廠參與任務模擬。排隊等著用模擬器的德懷特剛穿上航天服，就有消息傳來說訓練取消了，甘迺迪總統遇刺了。德懷特回憶道：「當時我的心一下沉到了谷底。」飛行員們成群結隊地走進行政餐廳，討論著這個消息。年輕時曾受甘迺迪的《當仁不讓》鼓舞的德懷特默默地一個人吃著飯。
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.」
搭在德懷特肩膀上支持他的那隻手似乎也消失了。他可以感覺得到，自己的夢想正從手中溜走。他努力想要重振以前華盛頓的人脈關係。「我陷入了一個無人問津的糟糕境地，」他說，「我的團隊、所有的支持似乎都離我而去了。」
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.
沒過幾周，德懷特在愛德華茲空軍基地的職業生涯就結束了。1964 年 1 月，他被派駐到了俄亥俄州的懷特-帕特森空軍基地。他曾經很擅長繞開空軍的管理階層，但現在他只能降級去運輸機上做實驗了。
「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.
「感覺就是很絕望，」查爾斯·博爾頓說，「你知道流程是什麼，你知道有什麼責任和命令束縛著你，你完全看不到任何出路。」博爾頓曾在 1960 年代末接受飛行員訓練，後來步步高升成為了一名上將，是 NASA 首位非裔美國領導人。博爾頓和德懷特一樣曾在華盛頓的政治圈如魚得水，一群南方國會議員阻撓他職業生涯時，他直接去了甘迺迪總統的辦公室。博爾頓還說：「就我們知道的所有早期參與這些項目的人而言，事情某種程度上都是這麼發展的。」
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》雜誌發表了一篇文章，深入關注了這位被遺忘的黑人太空人。文章發表後，《紐約時報》和其他報刊雜誌也發表了相關的文章。媒體在愛德華茲空軍基地以北約一小時車程的中國湖海軍航空站停機坪上採訪了德懷特。
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.
這位飛行員穿著飛行服，戴著摺疊帽，被領到了話筒前。他一個人站著，在一群記者面前眨著眼睛。一排穿著卡其制服的白人軍官和飛行員站在記者後面看著他們。
「Why aren’t you an astronaut now?」 one of the journalists asked.
一位記者問：「為什麼你現在沒當太空人？」
「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，我不能告訴你，」德懷特答道，「這個問題我不予置評。除此之外，我不會在這個時候做出任何公開聲明，談論任何我在愛德華茲訓練期間遭到的任何公然的種族壓力。」
「Do you feel that what’s happened to you is a setback for civil rights opportunities in this country?」 another reporter asked.
另一位記者問：「你覺得你的遭遇是否體現了這個國家公民權利機會的倒退？」
Dwight scanned the cameras, and the row of officers behind them, and answered, 「I would rather not comment on that.」 He left it there.
德懷特掃視了一下攝像機和站在後面的軍官，答道：「我也不想對此發表評論。」他離開了。
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 從沒完整解釋過德懷特沒能入選的原因。他們當時沒有，現在也沒有披露過太空人最終選拔的具體標準。
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，斯雷頓去世一年後，他的回憶錄《迪克！》出版了。他在這本回憶錄中介紹了太空人選拔的方式：「我設計了一套評分體系，用來對太空人候選人進行最後的評估。這套評分體系分學術、飛行表現和性格/積極性三個部分，每個部分十分，三十分是最高分。有些項目的評分是固定死的：你飛夠了一定的時間、接受了足夠的教育，就能得到相應的分數。有些項目的評分則設計得比較主觀。」
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 首席歷史學家比爾·巴裡解釋道：「現在他們在尋找一組過去從沒透露過權衡方式的東西。我懷疑可能根本就沒什麼衡量標準。當時他們要找的是一群非常擅長飛行，而且適應能力很強的聰明人。除此之外，他們也會考慮『這個人會成為一位優秀的 NASA 代言人嗎？』他們還想要能夠乖乖聽話的人。」
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.」
從那以後，NASA 重視的特質不斷變化。NASA 發言人羅伯特·雅各布斯表示：「艾德的事過去將近六十年了，他故事中的一些細節以及他沒能上太空的原因，我們現在很難做出解釋。不過，我們可以說，太空人隊伍和 NASA 其他部門花了幾十年的時間才（讓人員構成）真正反映出美國的多樣性。阿波羅時代後，我們可以看到，太空人選拔更注重科學、醫學、工程學和其他學科知識，（為更多人）打開了新的大門。1978 屆太空人培訓班和太空梭時代帶來的多樣性是我們在 1960 年代太空項目中不曾看到過的。如今，我們的太空人隊伍能夠更好地反映我們多元的文化。」
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 年的德懷特辭去了空軍的職務。第二年，第二位入選太空人的黑人羅伯特·勞倫斯在愛德華茲空軍基地服役時，因星式戰鬥機事故去世。尼爾·阿姆斯特朗踏上月球時，德懷特住在丹佛，為 IBM 工作。和當時其他美國人不同，德懷特說他不記得鷹號登陸月球時他在哪裡了。
*Dwight 在他位於丹佛的工作室裡工作，攝於 2019 年 7 月 1 日。攝影：Nathan Bajar，圖片版權：《紐約時報》
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邁出「個人的一小步」14 年後，美國才將一位非裔美國太空人送上太空。如今 572 位上過太空的太空人中，有 356 位美國人，其中只有 14 位是非裔美國人。離開空軍後，德懷特開過餐廳和航空公司，回學校讀了個美術的碩士學位，最後又開了一家鑄造廠。現在，這個曾經計劃要當太空人的男人最為人所熟知的身份是傑出藝術家，專擅用青銅雕刻黑人歷史上的偶像人物。
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.
德懷特還把丹佛邊上一座飛機庫改造成了雕塑工作室。他在那裡工作了三十年。每天清晨，他都會把自己那輛掛著「SCULPTR」裝飾牌照的雷克薩斯停在外面。這個曾經停放飛機的巨大空間如今擺放著德懷特的各種雕塑和模型：米歇爾·歐巴馬和巴拉克·歐巴馬、迪茲·吉萊斯皮、路易斯·阿姆斯特朗……他在城市公園和市中心建造了 120 多座紀念碑，造價高達數百萬美元。德懷特表示，他的雕塑賣給私人買家的價格是 10 萬美元，如果是太空人購買有折扣。
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.」
自從加入 NASA 後，博爾頓就和德懷特很親近。「他有點像是我的榜樣和導師，」博爾頓說，他是在 1980 年代初參加訓練時認識德懷特的，「努力（去追尋夢想）卻落得個失敗的結果，然後再繼續去追夢，艾德知道這個過程有多難多痛苦。對於一個在那裡苦苦掙扎的年輕人而言，他起到了幫助你下定決心不離開的重要作用。」
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，博爾頓獲參議院批准擔任 NASA 局長時，他在聽證會上提到了一個「非常特別的人」。他告訴委員會：「雖然這個人沒能真正成為太空人，但他卻是努力打破美國太空人計劃膚色藩籬的先驅。」
「We don’t know what Ed’s place would have been in space history because we were never given an opportunity,」 Bolden said recently.
博爾頓最近表示：「我們不知道艾德在航天史上會獲得怎樣的地位，因為我們從沒給過他機會。」
Historian Steven Moss said that had it gone differently, Dwight 「would have had his own altar in the civic religion of American space travel.」
歷史學家史蒂文·莫斯表示，如果情況有所不同，德懷特「可能會在美國太空旅行的公民宗教中擁有自己的祭壇」。
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.
事實上，德懷特不僅幾乎創造了歷史，他還致力於保護歷史。目前他正在自己的工作室裡忙著思考更久遠的歷史。有人計劃在維吉尼亞州 Fort Monroe 微風吹拂的海岸上建造一座紀念碑，並考慮聘請德懷特來負責這項工作。400 年前，一艘船載著 20 名安哥拉奴隸來到這裡，把奴隸們賣給維吉尼亞州的殖民者換取食物。跨大西洋的奴隸貿易就此拉開序幕，1250 萬人被送往新大陸，1070 萬人在旅途中活了下來。德懷特說，這也是非裔美國人故事的開篇。
「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.」
「我非常想要這份工作，原因有很多，」他說，「這是黑奴最初踏足的地方，也是美國最有歷史意義的地方。」
It is because of that first that all the other firsts are necessary.
正是因為有著這樣的開始，其他所有的「第一次」都是非裔美國人歷史上不可或缺的重要時刻。
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原文標題：Ed Dwight Was Set to Be the First Black Astronaut. Here’s Why That Never Happened.
原文作者：Emily Ludolph
翻譯：熊貓譯社 智竑 張翯 錢功毅
@2019 New York Times News Service