Soon-To-Be Astronaut Mandla Maseko Dies In Motorbike Crash
A South African air force member has died in a motorbike crash before getting the chance to be in space
Mandla Maseko who was nicknamed ‘Afronaut’ won the chance to fly into space in a 2013 competition.
Mr Maseko beat one million entrants to win one of the 23 places on the trip 103km (64 miles) into space, organised by a US-based space academy.
The part-time DJ died in a motorcycle accident on Saturday, according to a family statement in local media.
Before the trip originally schedule for 2015, he had spent a week at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida where he did skydiving and G-Force training.
People from 75 countries had entered the competition for the hour-long sub-orbital trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship.
No firm plans for the trip had been made public at the time of Mr Maseko’s death.
