Bluford will receive the 2021 Air Force ROTC Distinguished Alumnus Award for his “exceptionally meritorious and superior service to the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over 29 years,” according to the award description. The national award is given to one person annually. There are more than 140 AFROTC detachments in the United States that produce more than 3,000 officers each year.
Innovation Park at Penn State building dedication
On Oct. 8, 230 Innovation Blvd. at University Park will be named in honor of Bluford in an invitation-only ceremony. The building houses the Center for Innovation Metal Processing through Direct Digital Deposition, a collaborative effort between the Applied Research Laboratory, the College of Engineering and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The center facilitates the research and development of several additive manufacturing systems for the benefit of broad academic, government and industrial projects, as well as a state-of-the-art design studio and prototyping laboratory.
The ceremony will include remarks from Amy Pritchett, head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering; Nick Jones, executive vice president and provost; Justin Schwartz, Harold and Inge Marcus Dean in the College of Engineering; Janiyah R. Davis, third-year Schreyer Honors Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts and student representative on the Board of Trustees; and Kriston Ramdas, graduate student in aerospace engineering.
Bluford’s accomplishments
Bluford joined the NASA astronaut training program in 1978 as one of three African Americans in his class. Five years later, he flew his first mission on the Space Shuttle Challenger to launch an Indian communication and weather satellite and test the shuttle’s remote manipulator system during STS-8.
Born in Philadelphia in 1942, Bluford earned an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from Penn State in 1964 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant from the Penn State Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. He began flying for the Air Force in 1966 and flew 65 combat missions over North Vietnam and a total of 144 combat missions in his career. In 1974 he was accepted into the Air Force Institute of Technology and earned his master’s degree and doctorate in aerospace engineering. In his astronaut career, he logged 688 hours in space over four missions, with his final flight aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1992. Before retiring as an astronaut, Bluford earned his master of business administration from University of Houston at Clear Lake in 1987.