Ronald E. McNair grew up in rural South Carolina with an innate sense of perseverance.
As a young boy, he went to the local library to check out a book. This was at a time when African Americans weren’t allowed to do so, and he was asked to leave, said his wife, Cheryl McNair, in a Netflix interview. When he politely refused, the police were called, and his parents, too. But McNair eventually left with the book.
“He later said, ‘armed with preparation and armed with determination,’ he passed these obstacles,” Cheryl recalled.
These principles stuck with McNair.
“Way back in high school, I had the thoughts of science and space, astronauts, etc,” he said in a TV interview. “But, you know, where I came from, that wasn’t the kind of thing a Black kid thought about. You know, how do you get to do something like that? What do you do?”
He was born in Lake City, South Carolina. His affinity for space and technology earned him the nickname “Gizmo.” He had an early interest in the Russian satellite Sputnik. Growing up, McNair played the saxophone and enjoyed sports.
Excelling in his studies, he received numerous accolades throughout his academic career. In 1971, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in physics from North Carolina A&T State University before pursuing a PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned an honorary degree from his undergraduate alma mater in 1978, one from Morris College in 1980 and another from the University of South Carolina in 1984.
He met his wife in Massachusetts while obtaining his PhD. The pair eventually moved to California, where he joined Hughes Research Laboratories as a staff physicist.
“He came home one day and said, ‘This was in my mailbox, and it’s an application to become an astronaut. What do you think?’” Cheryl McNair told Netflix. “I said, ‘Well, what do you think? That sounds exciting to me. I think you can do it.’ And he said, ‘Hmm. Yeah, I think I can.’”
Joining NASA’s space shuttle Class of 1978 — one of only three African Americans to be accepted — he became a mission specialist, first flying on Challenger in 1984 as the second African American in space.
“He described it as just so beautiful appearing without divisions or lines, peaceful … As he thought the Lord meant for us to live,” Cheryl McNair told CBS in 2016.
At the start of the decade, he and his wife grew their family, welcoming two children, Joy and Reginald.
Then, McNair was assigned to fly aboard the Challenger STS-51L mission once more in 1986. His commander for that mission, Francis Richard “Dick” Scobee, described him once in a panel as an “expert on the Spartan Halley, the comet research satellite.”
“My sense of anticipation is greater this time than the first,” McNair said in an interview before the second Challenger flight. “I know how much fun it is and how fascinating the entire experience is.”
The second mission filled him with that same sense of determination he showed in childhood.
“I had the privilege of being part of the crew a couple years ago that made the first landing here at the Cape, and I intend to be a part of the crew to make the first return landing to the Cape,” he said at a press conference ahead of the 1986 flight.
He died at age 35 and was survived by his wife and two young daughters, both under age four at the time.
Fellow astronaut Richard Covey remembered McNair’s presence at NASA.
“Ron McNair was relatively quiet, but he was extraordinarily skilled at karate,” Covey said in a Netflix interview. He was an accomplished saxophonist. Those were the ways that Ron spoke out.”
McNair held a 5th-degree black belt and served as a karate instructor. Other favorite activities beyond playing jazz music on the saxophone included running, boxing, football, playing cards and cooking.
Carrying his love of music with him everywhere, McNair had sought to play music from Jean Michel Jarre’s album “Rendez-Vous” aboard the Challenger in 1986.
Academic programs such as the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program have been established in his name. There’s a monument dedicated to him in Brooklyn, New York, as well as a building at MIT, a boulevard in his hometown, a parks and recreation center in Florida, a crater on the moon, numerous schools and more.