Alex McColgan

I'm Alex McColgan and you're watching Astrum.

Join me today as we dive into the little-known story of the Zambian Space Program, their proposed mission, unconventional training practices, and the lasting impact of their leader's vision.

After World War II, the US and the Soviet Union realised that in a world with nuclear weapons, there can only be one superpower.

They entered a bitter struggle for dominance, each racing to stay one step ahead of the other, engineering increasingly powerful rocketry and weapons technology.

It didn't take long for their arms race to become a space race.

By the early 1960s, new milestones in space exploration were being made every year.

Both programs had unwavering political and public support, which meant lots of funding, press and progress.

All eyes were on them, and the stakes were super high.

Half a world away, Edward Mukuka Nkoloso was watching too.

A passionate science school teacher, he dreamed of one day creating his own Zambian space program to rival those of the Americans and Soviets.

The only problem, his country was facing its own political struggle, the struggle for independence.

Zambia, then called Northern Rhodesia, had been under British colonial rule since 1888,

Through the 1950s, Zambians grew increasingly disillusioned with colonialist policies such as racial discrimination and limited political representation for Africans.

Nkoloso was one of these Africans.

After fighting in World War II on behalf of Britain, he opened a school for Zambians which was promptly shut down by the British authorities.

This pushed him to join the Zambian Resistance Movement and later the United National Independence Party.

and Colosso also worked hard for both causes close to his heart.

While one hand was fighting for Zambian independence, the other was building the Zambian National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy, which opened in 1960.

The details of what went down at his academy are murky, but it seems this is where Uncoloso's idea for a Zambian space mission emerged.

He was going to send Zambian astronauts, or Afronauts as he called them, to the moon and then to Mars.