
Following official recognition by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the acclaimed online media, Wikipedia, has officially listed the U.S.-based astronaut, Chief Owolabi Salis, among the universally recognised lists of people who have successfully travelled to outer space.
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) defines space flight as any flight over 100 kilometres (62 miles) above sea level.
Those able to breast the tape above this threshold are awarded with Astronaut Wings.
The globally acclaimed online encyclopedia recognised the Nigeria-born Lawyer and Finance technocrat as the first Nigerian to travel to outer space.
By this rating, Salis, who was numerically listed as 702, amongst the hierarchy of officially acknowledged space travellers since the annals of human existence, thus became not only the first, but also the only Nigerian ever to have successfully undertaken the journey, in the annals of outer-space adventure.
The Nigeria-born Lawyer-Astronaut described the recognition by Wikipedia as immensely gladdening and encouraging, because our planet is approximately five billion years old and about 117 billion people had lived in it, out of which only an infinitesimal 720 people had been to space”
Topping the list was Yuri Gagarin, from the defunct Soviet Union recorded as the first person to have navigated space on April 12, 1961, followed close on the heels by Alan Shepard, the first American to have achieved the feat barely a month after, on May 5, 1961.
According to Wikipedia, the qualification for enlistment is based on achieving an altitude higher than 330,000 feet as stipulated by the Federation Aéronautique Internationale, the universally endorsed body that certifies aviation records.
It could be recalled that on June 29, the history-making Legal luminary, along with six others, took a trip to space, aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft, which took off from West Texas and reached approximately 105 Km altitude, crossing the Karman Line, the internationally recognised boundary for space travel.
The trip code-named NS-33 was undertaken under the auspices of Blue Origin, an aerospace company owned by Amazon, founded by Jeff Broz.
On the historic trip with Salis was Allie Kuehner, Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno Jnr, and Jim Sitkin, in an adventure which Salis, the Leader and Founder of Soul Makers Ministry World-Wide, described as spiritually rewarding.
It could be recalled that just recently, world-renowned sculptor Steve N.Barber mooted a plan to honour Salis with a monument in an honorific gesture to immortalise him.
The visionary project is expected to parade a distinctive touch of class and excellence, proportional to the inspirational trail-blazing feat of the prospective honorand.
The renowned space monument designer was quoted to have expressed that he was expecting the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government, Jeff Bezos or Corporate organizations to shoulder the responsibility as a mark of honor and appreciation of how the epoch making adventure had elevated Nigeria to higher esteem in global reckoning thus conferring on the renowned global and space adventurer an elevated status as a foremost National Ambassador of his country, Nigeria.
The monument with a durable span of longevity expected to last for 1000 years was described by the California based monument designer as a honorific epitaph aptly befitting and deservingly apposite to immortalise the memory of the history making Lawyer-Astronaut who by his epoch-making feat, had succeeded in painting Nigeria in greater visibility, thereby projecting its image more than ever before, in the comity of global nations.
He also expressed his fervent belief that the monument will serve as a beacon of inspiration, expecting to fire the zeal of the Blacks and Nigerians in particular, including the succeeding generations, towards a greater quest for space exploration and the limitless vista of possibilities latent in the revolutionary novel adventure in the annals of scientific voyage of exploration.
According to the California-based monument builder, the monument which will be completed on July 4 next year, with inspirational citations artistically engraved is billed to be unveiled on the historic Independence Day of the American nation, amid a massive media spotlight and universal global cynosure, will be conveyed there-after to the birth-place of the worthy honoree, Astronaut Owolabi Salis.
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