A roar of liquid-propellant engines and ten minutes of weightlessness have carried Owolabi Musa Salis, a United States-based lawyer and 2019 Alliance for Democracy governorship candidate in Lagos, into the record books. Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule, flying mission NS-33, climbed to 105 kilometres above the West Texas desert, crossed the Kármán line that marks the edge of space and returned safely with six private astronauts on board.
Salis’s seat makes him the first Nigerian citizen ever to leave Earth.Although commercial and largely ceremonial, the flight is a milestone for Nigeria. The country has launched satellites for observation and communications, yet its official human-space-flight ambitions have languished because of budget constraints. Salis, who paid for his own ticket, has achieved privately what public agencies have projected for the next decade, reminding policymakers that diaspora capital and personal drive can sometimes outpace state programmes.
For Blue Origin the mission extends its sub-orbital tourism programme. NS-33 is the firm’s thirteenth crewed launch since 2021 and brings the passenger count to seventy. Revenue from these short hops supports development of larger projects such as the delayed New Glenn orbital rocket, while a manifest that now includes the first Nigerian passenger helps the company court international customers and regulatory goodwill.
Salis’s own trajectory is unconventional for an astronaut. Born in Ikorodu, he trained first as a chartered accountant, later qualified as an attorney in Nigeria and New York, and now works as a financial consultant. He is also an adventurer who has journeyed to the North Pole. During the flight he sported a cap styled on a traditional Yoruba fila, an unmistakable nod to his heritage. Salis is the author of Equitocracy, a book that argues democracy must place equity among diverse groups at its centre, and he serves in the Soul Maker Ministry, an organisation that preaches inclusion in a diverse universe. He dedicated his space-flight to victims of discrimination and civil-rights violations, saying the view of Earth from above underlines the need for justice on the ground.
Salis’s ascent may not give Nigeria an astronaut corps or domestic launch capability overnight, yet it offers a powerful symbol. One politician-lawyer has shown that individual ambition, private capital and reusable rockets can shorten the distance between a Lagos classroom and the edge of space.
