There is a specific kind of quiet pride that settles over the Inland Empire when one of its own breaks a barrier that has stood for half a century. This Wednesday, as NASA’s Artemis II mission lifts off, the eyes of the world will be on the moon, but the heart of the story beats right here in Southern California. Victor Glover, a former Ontario High School wrestler and Pomona native, is set to become the first Black person to reach the moon. It is a milestone that resonates deeply in a region where the desert sky often feels like the next logical frontier.

Glover, now 49, isn’t just a pilot; he is a Navy test pilot who wears his excitement on the sleeve of his royal-blue jumpsuit. Whereas the mission is a lunar flyby—meaning the crew will circle the moon without landing or entering lunar orbit—the symbolism is heavy. Glover previously made history in 2020 as the first Black person to serve on a long-duration International Space Station expedition. But this time, the trajectory is different. He is going further than any Black astronaut before him.

The Weight of Being “First”

For Glover, the title of “first” stirs complicated feelings. In the flurries of media interviews that accompany life as an astronaut, he has acknowledged the deep responsibility he feels toward the next generation of Black astronauts he hopes to inspire. Yet, he often reframes his role into NASA’s greater mission, pointing to the many Black trailblazers who walked the path before him.

Livingston Holder, a former manned spaceflight engineer with the Air Force and a space shuttle payload specialist, recalled thinking, “That cannot be right,” when he first heard the statistics. “How can we go two decades without flying a Black astronaut on a full mission to the station? How can that possibly be?” Holder, whose own planned mission to space was canceled after the Challenger disaster in 1986, notes that while several trailblazing Black astronauts stayed aboard for several days helping build the ISS on space shuttle missions, none had lived aboard for months on end as an expedition crew member until Glover.

“He’d probably been the first Black person to do X, Y or Z,” Holder said of Glover. Since Glover is a team player, and not the first person to serve on an ISS expedition or reach the moon generally, but instead the first Black person to do so, Holder added, “I don’t think he really wanted to emphasize ‘I’m the first.'”

Historical Context and Local Roots

The path wasn’t always clear. Glover wasn’t really supposed to be the first Black person to serve on an ISS expedition, either. In 2018, Jeanette Epps was scheduled to join a Russian Soyuz mission to the ISS, which would have given her the title, but five months before the mission, NASA suddenly benched her without explanation.

While Glover was aboard the ISS during his previous tenure, many Black Americans were forced to grapple with Earthly challenges. Just months before that launch, a white police officer murdered George Floyd in the streets of Minneapolis. It is a familiar tension in Black America: The Apollo program began during the peak of the civil rights movement. Many criticized the program as a distraction from the country’s problems and a waste of money that the government could instead use to better the lives of everyday Americans.

During the training for his current moon mission, Glover listened to the poem “Whitey on the Moon” by the late Black poet and jazz musician Gil Scott-Heron every week on his morning commute. The poem articulates those arguments painfully and pointedly, grounding him in his work even as he prepares to leave the atmosphere.

For locals in Pomona and beyond who see the next generation of NASA astronauts in their cute, nerdy children, Glover’s example is deeply meaningful. Born in 1976 in Pomona, Glover was an adrenaline junkie who dreamed of being everything from a stuntman to a race car driver. His parents, a police officer and a bookkeeper, encouraged his curiosity. The young astronaut-to-be similarly looked up to his grandfather, who enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War but was told he couldn’t fly because of his race.

When a young Glover watched a space shuttle launch on television, he immediately wanted to drive the thing. His first attempt to leave Earth was through sports—pole vaulting, to be specific. Throughout his time at Ontario High and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Glover also added football into the mix and ultimately became best known for his wrestling prowess. He even felt quite intimidated by his college teammate at the time, Chuck Liddell, who ultimately became an MMA star.

From the Mojave to the Moon

Like many others before him—including Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon—Glover cut his teeth as a test pilot out in the Mojave. He attended test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, the site of many daring Armstrong flights and space shuttle landings, then served with the Navy’s Dust Devil test pilot squadron in China Lake, Calif. This local connection to the high desert testing grounds is a crucial part of the region’s aerospace identity.

After getting a bachelor’s degree in engineering, Glover enlisted in the Navy in 1998. Over his 15 years in the military, he accumulated 3,500 flying hours in more than 40 aircraft, earned a few master’s degrees, and served in 24 combat missions. One of his commanding officers bestowed on him a call sign that’s stuck through his NASA days: “Ike,” meaning “I know everything.” It is a sensibility his four daughters surely appreciate when Glover, a family man at his core, checks in from space to aid them with their homework.

In 2013, while Glover was in Washington, D.C., on assignment as a Navy legislative fellow, he happened to miss a phone call from NASA. After frantically calling back, he got the news: He was one of eight selected out of a pool of more than 6,000 for the space agency’s 21st class of astronauts.

On Artemis II, he won’t be the only “first” on the capsule. NASA astronaut Christina Koch is set to be the first woman to reach the moon, and Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, is set to be the first non-American to do so. Holder, whom Glover has pointed to as a mentor, is happy to live vicariously through Glover’s generation of Black astronauts. On a recent trip to Australia, Holder, now a co-founder of the spaceflight startup Radian Aerospace, stopped by one of the many stations that will help the astronauts communicate with Earth to send Glover a message ahead of launch: “Through you, we all go to the moon.”

Supporting the Next Generation of Explorers

Given my background in analyzing regional development and education, if this trend impacts you in Southern California, here are the three types of local professionals you need to know about to help nurture similar ambitions in your community.

Specialized STEM Tutors and Mentors

Looking at Glover’s path through Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and his engineering degree, academic foundation is non-negotiable. Residents should look for tutors who specialize in advanced physics and calculus, specifically those with experience preparing students for military academies or NASA internships. The criteria here is simple: do they have a track record of placing students in competitive engineering programs? You want someone who understands the rigor of test pilot school prerequisites, not just general homework help.

Youth Sports Coaches with Leadership Focus

Glover’s background in wrestling and football at Ontario High wasn’t just about athletics; it was about discipline and teamwork. When hiring coaches for local youth leagues in the Inland Empire, look for those who emphasize mental resilience and leadership over just winning games. The criteria should include a philosophy that integrates academic accountability with athletic performance, mirroring the balance Glover maintained between his sports and his eventual engineering career.

Aerospace Career Counselors

With Edwards Air Force Base and China Lake nearby, the region is ripe with aerospace opportunities. Families should seek out career counselors who understand the specific pathways into the Navy, Air Force, and civilian space sectors. The key criterion is connectivity: does this professional have direct links to recruitment officers or mentorship programs within the Department of Defense or private space startups like Radian Aerospace? General career advice won’t cut it for a trajectory this specific.

For Glover, space exploration is an opportunity to lift all Americans and invest in technology that creates hope for a better future. “Every time you are the first — the first person in your family to go to college, the first person from your school to get a PhD … It’s key for all the people that start where you started,” Holder said. Now they can say, “‘Oh, it is possible.'”

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