By Paul L. Hubbard, BD Chair, Maritime Academy
Guest Column
For Black Americans, the pursuit of excellent has always required looking beyond horizons others believe were fixed. Every Black generation has confronted limits, imposed by circumstance, exclusion or expectation.
In April 2026, Victor Glover piloted Artemis II beyond earth’s orbit around the moon. Fourteen days before launch, Victor Glover’s world narrowed. No public appearances. No in-person meetings. Groceries arrived contactless. Each Member suspended outside work and school routines. The house became both sanctuary and spacecraft analogue.
It’s called the Health Stabilization Program by NASA. Glover called it quarantine. Inside the Glover home, the rhythm was steady: daughter finishing course work, music in the evenings, card games around the table a Navy Captain coming home to enjoy precious time with family. The moon sits 240,0000 miles away from home.
Glover is a US Navy aviator, a former engineering student at Polytechnic University. He holds three master’s degrees including flight testing and he was a combat Navy pilot including on aircraft carriers. He was selected by NASA in 2013 as an astronaut candidate. Glover said he was not excited about the mission because excitement implies expectation; expectation can distort judgment.
When it was time to talk about flying to the moon and coming back, he wrote to friends that there is humor on the inside but there is also clarity. He doesn’t speak of legacy but teamwork. When the moon grew nearer Glover did what he was trained to do: observe, verify, communicate, execute. Emotion waited. Then back to earth for Pacific splashdown.
The crew had named the spacecraft Integrity. The original Latin word, integer, means whole, undivided and sound. Glover said the name reflects the unity of the crew and mission control, hardware and human preparation and execution.
During a radio interview on WVVON AM Chicago with fellow Alpha Phi Boule member Rufus Williams, Glover said: “It’s a diversity crew and life is diversity … space is something to look up to, but people are concerned health care, water, food … our kids are capable of higher standards in science, technology and math.”
Victor Glover is a member of Sigma Pi Phi the Boule. A lot of the information in this article comes from the summer 2026 Boule Journal.