Nobody in Mandla Maseko’s family had ever stepped foot outside of South Africa. But now the young DJ from the township is going into space.

Hailing from Mabopane in Pretoria, 25-year-old Maseko won a competition to get himself himself a seat on a rocket that will fly 103 kilometres into space.

There were a million other entrants from 75 different countries, but Maseko was one of the 23 lucky people who will travel on an hour-long sub-orbital joy ride on the Lynx Mark II spaceship.

A former civil engineering student, Maseko was forced to cut his studies short because he couldn’t afford the fees. But now he’ll be able to do for free what people would ordinarily spend a million bucks on.

Unless an African dictator somehow gets into space before the end of the year, Maseko will become the very first black African to enter the inky black beyond when the ship launches in 2015.

“While I was pregnant with Mandla, I knew I was going to give birth to a star,” said Maseko’s mother.

Ag, cute man

[Source : IOL]