Black Astronaut Made Space History in 1995. Now He's Getting Inducted into Hall of Fame (Exclusive)

Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. grew up successful Texas arsenic NASA was processing and ever had an liking successful subject — but erstwhile he watched man onshore connected nan moon, moreover astatine 13, he began to person astronaut dreams.

“I knew what I wanted to do,” he tells PEOPLE. “I wanted to travel nan footsteps of these awesome men, quality beings, that had done thing for nan very first clip successful quality history.”

That’s precisely what he did.

Now Harris — who became nan first Black personification to execute a spacewalk and precocious released his 2nd book, Embracing Infinite Possibilities — will beryllium inducted into nan U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame connected Saturday, May 31.

Before going to assemblage astatine nan University of Houston, Harris, now 68, tells PEOPLE he realized he wanted to go a expert truthful he could believe medicine connected Earth — and successful space.

Following his residency successful soul medicine astatine nan Mayo Clinic successful Minnesota, Harris pursued a fellowship in endocrinology because he was “advised to find nan astir captious facet of humans successful abstraction that needed to beryllium solved” — and 1 of those is bony loss. (Astronauts suffer 1% of bony per period successful space, he says.)

By 1990, Harris applied and spent a twelvemonth of astronaut basal training. About 3 weeks later, he was assigned to his first mission: nan STS-55 connected Space Shuttle Columbia successful 1993. During that trip, Harris says he did nan first aesculapian introspection successful abstraction and moreover nan first intravenous line.

“It was only earthy for maine to say, ‘Okay, if we're going to beryllium successful abstraction for agelong periods of time, really do we guarantee that humans tin past up there?’ " he recalls.

For his 2nd mission, STS-63 connected Space Shuttle Discovery successful 1995, Harris completed his historical spacewalk. That ngo was besides notable because Eileen Collins made history arsenic nan first female abstraction commander.

“To beryllium portion of nan instauration for what we're doing successful abstraction now is really fulfilling,” he says, adding that he loves to spot younger astronauts taking complete — and having longer stays successful space. 

Speaking of those longer stays, though nan International Space Station wasn't built during his profession arsenic an astronaut, immoderate of nan devices that crews usage coming were primitively developed successful his laboratory.

After his 2 abstraction missions  — which included logging 438 hours and walking complete 7.2 cardinal miles — he ventured into philanthropy pinch nan motorboat of his nonprofit, which supports younker programs successful mathematics and subject acquisition and crime prevention. 

Then it was clip to spell aft his dream of becoming an entrepreneur — and his activity has ever been a spot up of nan curve.

As CEO and managing partner of Vesalius Ventures, Harris focused connected telemedicine earlier galore moreover knew really that would activity and was antecedently hired by Spacehab (now nan Astrotech Corporation), 1 of nan first commercialized backstage abstraction companies.

“That was measurement up of SpaceX and Blue Origin, and what we're doing now," he adds.

As for nan early of abstraction tourism and wherever he believes nan abstraction programme is headed, Harris says he continues to beryllium excited that location are much avenues to get to space.

“There'll beryllium tremendous opportunities connected nan moon. And I deliberation that erstwhile we past return that bigger leap to spell to Mars,” he believes.

He yet sees nan continued advancement arsenic a measurement to unify.

“When I was retired connected my spacewalk," he says, “looking backmost astatine nan earth, [I realized] really important this spaceship that we unrecorded connected satellite Earth is to america all. From that distance, you can't spot nan divisions that disagreement america present connected earth. And my dream is that abstraction will beryllium an opportunity for america to travel together arsenic a people."

Embracing Infinite Possibilities is retired now. You tin acquisition it here.