Joalda Morancy was on the bus headed downtown this weekend when she realized what time it was. In a few minutes, NASA astronauts were going to launch to space from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Morancy found the live-stream on her phone and watched the engines ignite and the rocket rise like a blazing candle into the sky. As the bus came to a stop, Morancy tucked her phone away and stepped onto the curb, joining the thousands of people who had converged in the heart of Chicago to protest the police killings of black Americans.
Morancy is a college sophomore, studying geophysics and astrophysics. She wants to be an astronaut someday, and she didn’t want to miss the launch on Saturday. But she also wanted to do her part, she told me, to stand in peaceful demonstration for the rights of people who look like her.
“If I look back on this day in the future, I want to know that I was doing all I could for the protests and doing everything I could to just help,” Morancy said, “instead of just sitting at home and watching a space launch.”
Over the weekend, SpaceX flew two astronauts to the International Space Station on NASA’s behalf, a first in spaceflight history. NASA officials have spent months hyping the mission as a bright spot in dark times, and pointed to other milestones still to come: Under President Donald Trump, the United States is working to send Americans to the moon again in less than four years.
And while hist ..
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