Alex McColgan

His willing recruits were a group of 12 teenagers he was training at the Space Programmes HQ, a secret location seven miles outside of Lusaka, at an abandoned farmhouse.

Marta Mwambwa, the girl who was supposed to actually fly the mission, was just 16 years old at the time.

NASA had ex-military Air Force pilots and engineers in state-of-the-art, purpose-built facilities.

Un Coloso had a dozen high school children in a field.

Now I know it seems like I'm making this up, but this really happened, as absurd as it all sounds.

And that's what's so mysterious about Uncoloso.

He was an intelligent guy.

He read about space.

He was a science teacher, a veteran, and a valued member of the political movement that led to the nation's independence.

So what was his endgame?

Why was he talking about this mission if he must have known it wasn't viable?

Some have speculated that his motivation to join the space race came from a place of national pride and a desire to elevate not just Zambia, but all of Africa to the world stage.

He was seen as working to dismantle stereotypes about Africans that had held steady during the colonial era, and instead show that Africans are capable of contributing to scientific and technological advancements.

If his goal was to get the international press talking, he certainly succeeded.

Time magazine ran an article about him, as did several other outlets.

News crews went out to film video interviews with him and record his team training.

His colourful personality and outlandish claims definitely helped capture public imagination and media curiosity, even if it wasn't clear if he was serious or not.

Uncoloso maintained he was serious until his death in 1989.

When asked about it in 2016, the first president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, said, There's another theory that his whole project was satire, a parody of the Western conquest of other nations.

There didn't seem to be a reason for such goofy-looking training exercises other than to capture people's attention.