In 1964, five years before Apollo 11 made the United States the first country to land a man on the Moon, there was a Zambian science teacher who believed his country would get there first.

This man had found the inspiration for this on his first airplane flight. While on this flight, the pilot refused to comply with his odd request to stop the plane so that he could get out and walk on the clouds. After the encounter, the Zambian made up his mind to enter the Space Race…

Thereafter, his main objective was singular: to get Zambia ahead of both the Soviet Union and the USA in the space race. And what better way to do this than to send his team of astronauts first to mars and then to the moon a year later.

He had big dreams, namely, using a catapult-inspired “firing system” to send an aluminium and copper spacecraft, holding ten afronauts, as he called them, to the Moon.

This eccentric man was named Edward Makuka Nkoloso.

So here is the odd but somewhat inspiring story of Edward Nkoloso, the man who had the big dream of Zambia dominating the space race…

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Music:

Allégro - Emmit Fenn

Kai Engel - Harbor

Kai Engel - Summer Days

Kai Engel - Nocturne

John Stockton Slow Drag - Chris Zabriskie


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Sources:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-zambian-afronaut-who-wanted-to-join-the-space-race

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/zambian-space-programme

https://www.spacelegalissues.com/space-law-edward-makuka-nkoloso-the-afronauts-and-the-zambian-space-program/

https://medium.com/@Astrosanderson/the-untold-story-of-the-zambian-afronauts-72f6f26ad84e

https://www.africanexponent.com/post/10462-nkoloso-had-the-desire-to-dream-beyond-the-ordinary-and-conquering-new-frontiers


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