Mandla Maseko—a South African man who became a national hero after winning the chance to become the first black African in space—has been killed in a motorbike crash before he could embark on his historic mission. Maseko, 30, was nicknamed “Afronaut” after winning a trip to space in a 2013 competition run by a U.S.-based space academy. More than a million people from 75 countries entered the competition to be one of 23 people who would travel on an hour-long trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship. Maseko had already undergone training at the Kennedy Space Center for the trip. He was killed in a crash on Saturday, according to his family.
