Astronaut Victor Glover Listens to Protest Poem Every Monday

Every Monday morning on his drive to NASA, astronaut Victor Glover plays a protest song that criticizes spending billions on space travel.

Glover, 47, will become the first person of color to visit the moon when Artemis 2 launches on April 1. But before he helps make history, he listens to Gil Scott-Heron's spoken-word poem "Whitey on the Moon" to remember an uncomfortable truth about the original space race.

The 1970 poem tells the story of a Black family struggling with doctor bills and high rent while America spent billions to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. "A rat done bit my sister Nell, with Whitey on the moon," it begins. "I can't pay no doctor bill, but Whitey's on the moon."

"That song is a reminder that everybody wasn't having a good time in 1968 when we launched the first Apollo missions," Glover told reporters. "People were struggling."

Glover grew up in Pomona, California, in a community similar to the one described in the poem. He started this weekly tradition to keep perspective and share it with his NASA colleagues at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"That song reminds me that, at that time, that community didn't feel heard," he said. "It's a reminder to me that there are more perspectives and more stories out there than you'll hear from the people cheering for NASA on a regular basis."

Then he added something powerful: "But those people? We work for them too."

Why This Inspires

Glover's Monday ritual caused controversy when he first mentioned it at a 2023 space conference. Some tried to quote him out of context, he says, but he stood firm on his message.

"It ain't about racism," he explained. "It's about the human condition."

This isn't the first time Glover has spoken about social justice. After George Floyd's murder in 2020, he tweeted about processing difficult emotions while preparing for space missions. When a critic asked why he couldn't just stick to space, Glover replied: "Remember who is doing space. People are."

The father of four daughters sees no contradiction between celebrating space exploration and acknowledging its complicated history. "I live in the America that sent me to space and told my grandfather he couldn't fly during the Korean conflict when he was enlisted," he said.

When Artemis 2 circles the moon this April, Glover will carry both perspectives with him: the wonder of space exploration and the reminder that progress must lift everyone.