Mission Accomplished by Onizuka

Who would have imagined that an individual of a minority could ever make it to space? The story of Colonel Onizuka proves that even Asians are capable of achieving anything.

On January 24-27, 1985, Elisson Onizuka was the first Asian Pacific American Astronaut to participate and serve as the mission specialist on the Discovery orbiter. Ellison Shoji Onizuka was born and raised on Kona, Hawaii and attended University of Colorado to receive his Bachelor’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1968 and finally his Masters Degree in the following year.

Ellison Onizuka continued his passion for flying and partaking in risky launches as he later attended the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California to become a test pilot. He spent more than 1700 hours on 43 different aircrafts and in 1978, he was selected by NASA for the astronaut program. Onizuka became the first Asian-American in space abord Mission 51-C in 1985. This meant a lot not only for Onizuka but for many Asians and Asian-Americans because his hard work earned the respect he deserved as he represented the Asian minority. Obviously, it is a lot of time spent in school and training to become a successful Astronaut and for Onizuka to accomplish this mission.

Unfortunately, his Astronaut life did not last very long. Only a year after his first flight, he was a part of the Challenger team that was launched on January 28, 1986. Due to a result of aerodynamic stress, Onizuka along with his team of other Astronauts were killed in this accident.

After the accident, all of the astronauts’ families except for Onizuka’s widow, filed a lawsuit against the company that built the rocket booster that caused the explosion in space. Her reason why she did not file a lawsuit against them was because she knew that her husband would never desire such thing to be done about something he loved to do. As an Astronaut, he understood the potential dangers and risk of being launched into space. To understand the death of one’s husband like Onizuka’s wife must be such a hard thing to do. But because she did regardless of her terrible loss, she is also a big influence on many spectators. Accidents are called accidents for a reason and she wanted to have the same respect for her husband’s profession.Onizuka's hard work and passion for becoming an Astronaut paid off by earning respect and passing away during a launch.