Speaker 1: You have five minutes.
Speaker 2: It's late nineteen sixty four in the bush outside Lusaka, Zambia,
Speaker 2: in southern Africa. The air is hot, the tension thick.
Speaker 2: A small crowd gathers into clearing, their eyes fixed on
Speaker 2: one man. A man who frankly looks like he just
Speaker 2: leaped out of a comic book. Silky red and green pants,
Speaker 2: a military helmet, and a cape, yes, a cape, billowing
Speaker 2: in the wind behind him. His name is Edward in Colosso,
Speaker 2: and he is here to launch Zambia into the space Age.
Speaker 1: Edward and Colosso is orchestrating a plan to send African
Speaker 1: astronauts into space.
Speaker 2: That's doctor Lucy Gasser, who teaches cultural studies at the
Speaker 2: University of Osbrook in Germany.
Speaker 1: And his plan is to give the Soviets and the
Speaker 1: Americans a run for their money in the Cold War
Speaker 1: space face.
Speaker 2: Just months earlier, in Coloso helped Zambia win independence after
Speaker 2: decades of British rule. Now he's crowned himself Minister of
Speaker 2: Space and he's hungry to put the new country on
Speaker 2: a different kind of map.
Speaker 1: He wants to launch Zambia onto the world stage. As
Speaker 1: he launches rockets not just to the Moon, but then
Speaker 1: also to Mars T minus two.
Speaker 2: Minutes in Coloso hand picks twelve young men and women
Speaker 2: to become Zambia's first astronauts in Coloso paces inspecting his
Speaker 2: new recruits today, they're attempting a test launch. There's no
Speaker 2: time to waste. He's made bold claims that Zambia will
Speaker 2: land a man on the moon next year.
Speaker 1: And Colostal positions the Zambian space program as a contender
Speaker 1: in the cold Wolf space race, and so not as
Speaker 1: some sort of hobbled late comer, but to be ahead
Speaker 1: of the other two on a number of friends, and
Speaker 1: he anticipates a future in which independent family is like
Speaker 1: at the global forefront.
Speaker 2: The other two being the Soviet Union and the United States.
Speaker 2: When a reporter later asked in Koloso how he planned
Speaker 2: to beat them to the moon, the space minister didn't hesitate.
Speaker 3: Perhaps the Americans would like to join me in my
Speaker 3: space programs. I'd be most happy, But let's get one
Speaker 3: thing straight. I step on the moon and hoist the
Speaker 3: Zambian flag first.
Speaker 2: Do you minus one minute? In Coloso motions to one
Speaker 2: of his astronauts, twenty one year old Godfrey Munwano steps forward.
Speaker 2: In Coloso, plops a combat helmet onto the young man's
Speaker 2: head and stuffs him into a forty gallon oil drum.
Speaker 2: The launch site goes quietine in Koloso tilts the barrel
Speaker 2: onto its side, takes a deep breath one and shoves
Speaker 2: the barrel. The drum lurches downhill, faster and faster. A
Speaker 2: dizzy Godfrey starts slipping out until it smacks into a
Speaker 2: gum tree in Kloso frowns. He turns to a journalist
Speaker 2: beside him.
Speaker 3: Well, for one thing, we are going to have to
Speaker 3: get a bigger barrel.
Speaker 2: Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Zarn Burnett and this is the Zambian Space Program.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to very special episodes. So glad you could
Speaker 4: join us. If you're new here. Name is Jason English.
Speaker 4: I'm joined by Danias Schwartz and Saren Burnett Y. Each
Speaker 4: week we tell one crazy story and this week gets
Speaker 4: a deep dive into the Zambian Space Program.
Speaker 5: This is where I get to bring up.
Speaker 4: I did, in fact work when I was in high
Speaker 4: school at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, so I'm really
Speaker 4: something of a space expert. Yes, I love when we
Speaker 4: get to tap into your Adler Planetarium knowledge. Yeah, they
Speaker 4: should have an exhibit here on the Zambian space program.
Speaker 2: They really should.
Speaker 5: I agree.
Speaker 4: I really enjoyed the high level pre internet trolling that's
Speaker 4: going on throughout this story.
Speaker 2: And I love that they want to enter into like
Speaker 2: a space race between the US and the USSR.
Speaker 4: They're like and Zambia, And I like how mad everybody
Speaker 4: seems to be getting at them at every phase. You're like,
Speaker 4: if someone is trying to get a reaction, like, don't
Speaker 4: let them. But they succeeded wildly here. It makes me laugh.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. Just a few weeks after Zambia gained
Speaker 2: independence in nineteen sixty four, Edward and Coloso founded what
Speaker 2: he called National Academy of Science, Space Research, and Philosophy.
Speaker 2: His mission plant Zambia's flag on the Moon. It was ambitious,
Speaker 2: no training, no funding, no and I mean zero experience
Speaker 2: in aerospace anything, and no government funding either. Just in
Speaker 2: Colosso a cape and a vision.
Speaker 5: He trained on his students and by rolling them down
Speaker 5: hills inside the drum.
Speaker 2: That's doctor Kathleen Lewis.
Speaker 5: I'm curator of International space programs and space suits at
Speaker 5: the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Doctor Lewis knows a thing or two about spaceflight. And
Speaker 2: in case you thought pushing an astronaut downhill was a
Speaker 2: one time stunt, oh no, it was the training program.
Speaker 2: It was, doctor Lewis admits, unorthodox, but also it kind
Speaker 2: of makes sense, which was.
Speaker 5: Not completely far off from you know, sitting in a centerfuge,
Speaker 5: seeing the fact, disorienting, confusing and testing people.
Speaker 2: In Koloso's training methods had to be thrifty, so he
Speaker 2: stuffed his space cadets into more barrels and dunked them
Speaker 2: in rivers, made them walk on their hands and swing
Speaker 2: from high ropes, then cut them loose from the rope. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: Encoloso would drive his astronauts to a town far outside Lusaka.
Speaker 3: There is a mining shaft up there, four hundred feet deep,
Speaker 3: filled with water. We will throw them in.
Speaker 2: Strange as it looked, there was a method to the madness.
Speaker 2: The river dunk simulated splashdowns the rope, cutting a crash
Speaker 2: course in free fall and hurling cadets into a four
Speaker 2: hundred foot shaft a test of their nerve m Kloso
Speaker 2: was convinced if Americans and the Soviets could shoot for
Speaker 2: the Moon, Zambia could too.
Speaker 3: Some people think I'm crazy, but I'll be laughing the
Speaker 3: day I planted Zambia's flag on the Moon.
Speaker 2: For launch vehicles, he built crude ten foot barrels shaped
Speaker 2: like capsules. Rocket propulsion was out of reach, so he
Speaker 2: made a catapult. One launch made it six feet off
Speaker 2: the ground. Then came another idea dynamite. What he lacked
Speaker 2: in resources he made up in imagination. He was undeterred.
Speaker 2: His sites were set on the Moon. In nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: he wrote an article with an unforgettable title.
Speaker 1: It is cold, We're going to Mars, but the space
Speaker 1: girl to catm the missionary.
Speaker 2: The promise of a space girl in particular captured people's attention.
Speaker 1: He draws out Matame Lambas as his stock after notch,
Speaker 1: and she is the title's space girl who is supposed
Speaker 1: to be launched to Mars.
Speaker 2: At the time, Mata and Wombo was just a teenager,
Speaker 2: but Enkoloso was determined to make her the second woman
Speaker 2: to visit space, the first being Soviet cosmonaut and amateur
Speaker 2: skydiver Valentina Terrishkova. Why Mata and Wombo. She had zero qualifications,
Speaker 2: but she did have cats.
Speaker 3: They are to provide her with companionship on the long journey.
Speaker 3: When she arrives on Mars, she will open the door
Speaker 3: of the rocket and drop the cats on the ground.
Speaker 3: If they survive, she will then see that Mars is
Speaker 3: fit for human habitation.
Speaker 2: Enkoloso and Mata, we'd try to train about a dozen cats.
Speaker 2: The Russians had already sent up dogs. The Americans launched apes.
Speaker 2: Cats were not a completely wacky idea, right if you.
Speaker 5: Look at it. You know, cats have that natural ability
Speaker 5: to right themselves when they're in free fall, so, you know,
Speaker 5: might make a whole lot more sense than then using
Speaker 5: dogs and monkeys.
Speaker 2: Still the barrels, the ropes, the handstands, the space cats.
Speaker 2: Western journalists descended on Lusaka ground Zero for the Zambient
Speaker 2: space program. Most treated it, especially in Colosso, as a joke.
Speaker 5: It's one of those stories that has sort of been
Speaker 5: simmering per decades. Sadly, it comes up usually as a punchline.
Speaker 1: By and large in the West, the tone is one
Speaker 1: of disbelief and ridicule. They make fun of it.
Speaker 2: Some writers giggled, some condescended, and others were straight up racist.
Speaker 2: Like A. K. Chesterton, author of the nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: book The New Unhappy Lords.
Speaker 1: I can't recommend it. It's wildly racists and anti Semitic,
Speaker 1: but it is a historical document I supposed, and in
Speaker 1: it Chesterton uses the Zambian space program and as proof
Speaker 1: of the absurdity of the idea that Africans should be
Speaker 1: ready for self rule.
Speaker 2: In Coloso was unfazed. He reveled in the attention, but
Speaker 2: not everybody in Zambia was laughing, and Coloso was up
Speaker 2: to something else, something that western reporters might miss.
Speaker 1: The question that emerged from me was who's calling the
Speaker 1: stocks here, Who's who's dancing to, who's cheering, who's performing
Speaker 1: for whom? And who who's making fun of him?
Speaker 2: Perhaps he was playing them all. To really understand Edward
Speaker 2: and Coloso with his capes and barrels and bravado, you
Speaker 2: have to rewind to a time before Zambia existed. Okay,
Speaker 2: you are in the early nineteen forties. The country was
Speaker 2: Northern Rhodesia, a British protectorate. Back then, Edward and Koloso
Speaker 2: was a twenty something. He dreamed of becoming a preacher,
Speaker 2: or maybe a science teacher. But thousands of miles north
Speaker 2: Europe was in flames.
Speaker 1: So what do we know about Colosso he served in
Speaker 1: the Second World War.
Speaker 2: So he joined the British military, one of fifteen thousand
Speaker 2: Zambians who fought for the Allies. His assignment the Signal Corps.
Speaker 2: It was technical, disciplined, precise. When the war ended, he
Speaker 2: came home to Northern Rhodesia a sense of pride. He'd
Speaker 2: served the Empire and now he wanted to serve his people.
Speaker 2: He spent the following years championing the rights of Zambian veterans,
Speaker 2: but the system wasn't built for him. While white soldiers
Speaker 2: received loans to start businesses, scholarships to improve job skills,
Speaker 2: black vets got rejection letters. We are entirely forgotten in
Speaker 2: Coloso said so. In nineteen fifty six, in Coloso, now
Speaker 2: leader of a large veterans organization, petitioned the Colonne government.
Speaker 2: Their response crickets. The silence hardened him. It all came
Speaker 2: to a head in the mid nineteen fifties when white
Speaker 2: politicians dug up and moved a cemetery to make room
Speaker 2: for settlers. In Koloso snapped. He stormed into the district
Speaker 2: Commissioner's office, fists slamming the desk, shouting that the dead
Speaker 2: were sacred. The bureaucrats threatened to kick him out of town.
Speaker 2: Enkoloso never forgot the insult. Years later, he staged a
Speaker 2: stunt at Lusaka's Ridgeway Hotel, a white's only establishment. He
Speaker 2: walked into the hotel restaurant carrying the bloody corpse of
Speaker 2: a white woman and dumped it onto the floor, declaring.
Speaker 3: White men, your time is limited. We have killed the
Speaker 3: wife of Wolenski.
Speaker 2: Wolenski was the prime minister at the time.
Speaker 3: We shall soon pounce on you.
Speaker 2: Koloso was lying about the body. It wasn't the prime
Speaker 2: minister's wife. He'd borrowed the corpse from a crooked mortician
Speaker 2: and smeared it with goat blood. But the white men
Speaker 2: in the hotel bar didn't know that. They scurried away.
Speaker 2: The room, now empty, in Coloso sat down and started
Speaker 2: drinking their leftover beer. His message was unmistakable. In Coloso,
Speaker 2: the patriot, the ex soldier was done fighting for the
Speaker 2: British empire. Now he was fighting to overthrow it.
Speaker 1: And he was also an active member of the Dambian
Speaker 1: anticoloidinal resistance movements, which got him arrested and imprisoned. In
Speaker 1: like the mid late fifties.
Speaker 2: I think in Coloso became a militant freedom fighter. Accounts
Speaker 2: follow his rise to the top of the country's revolutionary hierarchy.
Speaker 2: He was called Colonel. He encouraged his fellow citizens to
Speaker 2: practice civil disobedience, stopped buying British imports, their food, their chicken.
Speaker 2: He encouraged them to stop using knives and forks. It
Speaker 2: was time, he said, to throw off the shackles of
Speaker 2: the colonizer and embrace their native culture and identity. But
Speaker 2: in the speech, one witness remembers he was not opposed
Speaker 2: to violence.
Speaker 6: He called on all sections, especially the women and the youth,
Speaker 6: to fight and if necessary, die for liberation. Many more
Speaker 6: would die yet before freedom was achieved. These deaths must
Speaker 6: be regarded as bridges towards our goal.
Speaker 2: By nineteen sixty four, the fight was one. The new
Speaker 2: Republic of Zambia declared its independence, and one of his
Speaker 2: closest allies, Kenneth Cawunda, became its first President. That relationship
Speaker 2: thrust in Coloso into a position of power and influence.
Speaker 2: He wasn't just a radical outsider anymore. He had the
Speaker 2: ear of the President, and that's when he started dreaming
Speaker 2: of space. The Space Race is often described as a
Speaker 2: proxy war between two world superpowers, rockets as weapons, astronauts
Speaker 2: as soldiers in a battle to prove who had the
Speaker 2: stronger military, But it was also a giant marketing campaign.
Speaker 5: That was also a competition to demonstrate to newly liberated
Speaker 5: nations that you know, which was the best course. Were
Speaker 5: you going to take up capitalism or were you going
Speaker 5: to follow a communist's ideal.
Speaker 2: By the mid nineteen sixties, dozens of countries had gained
Speaker 2: or were fighting for their independence, and many faced a choice.
Speaker 2: Aligned with Moscow or Washington. Dominance in the space race
Speaker 2: could tip the scales.
Speaker 5: And that is what the argument that was being presented
Speaker 5: by both sides to these newly liberated states in Africa
Speaker 5: and Asia and nine alone states.
Speaker 2: Both sides built ground stations cross Africa, Nigeria, Madagascar, tracking signals,
Speaker 2: transmitting telemetry, and Coloso saw it for what it was,
Speaker 2: colonization in disguise with rockets.
Speaker 5: In Coloso, who's a very astute, sophisticated observer of world politics,
Speaker 5: is claiming that this is part of our future too.
Speaker 5: This is not just a great powers future.
Speaker 1: There's some kind of undeniable energy to Zambia's taking a
Speaker 1: claim in the space rates at this moment, particularly because
Speaker 1: it does coincide with its moment of claiming its independence
Speaker 1: from colonial rule.
Speaker 3: Let us make a Zambian rocket today. We shall never
Speaker 3: remain behind other races. This is our heavenly destiny, our
Speaker 3: natural ambition, and our scientific and cultural hegemony.
Speaker 2: Proud, defiant and convinced, Zambia deserved a place among the
Speaker 2: stars as an independent nation, and he wanted to stay
Speaker 2: that way. There was one problem. Both the Soviets and
Speaker 2: the Americans had poached hundreds of German rocket scientists. They
Speaker 2: had billions of dollars, vast industrial bases and brains like
Speaker 2: Werner von Braun. In Coloso, he had a few science books,
Speaker 2: a barrel, and a catapult. He tried scraping together money.
Speaker 2: He asked the United Nations for a nineteen million dollar loan.
Speaker 2: He solicited the US embassy too, no reply from either.
Speaker 3: I know that those imperialist neocolonialists are delaying the loan
Speaker 3: as long as they can because they are scared of
Speaker 3: Zambia's space knowledge.
Speaker 2: Western newspapers picked up the story. Donations trickled in a
Speaker 2: few dollars here, a telescope from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab there,
Speaker 2: but mostly in Coloso got lots of fan mail. He
Speaker 2: joked that he had amassed the finest stamp collection on
Speaker 2: all of Africa, but even rare stamps wouldn't get him
Speaker 2: into space. So what he lacked in funding he made
Speaker 2: up for in imagination. The barrels, the dynamite, the space cats, queue,
Speaker 2: the ridicule and eye rolls. And then came the comic book.
Speaker 3: I get a lot of ideas from this, so have
Speaker 3: many American and Russian scientists.
Speaker 2: Reporters roared, but in Colosso was onto something. Early rocket
Speaker 2: pioneers were inspired by pulps science fiction, first Jules Verne,
Speaker 2: then the Buck Rogers comic strip featuring a futuristic ray
Speaker 2: gun toting adventure hero.
Speaker 5: You have Buck Rogers cited frequently when you talked to
Speaker 5: those early pollioneers of Rocket Tree.
Speaker 2: Even Robert Goddard, who successfully invented the first liquid fueled rocket,
Speaker 2: had been ridiculed, he took it as inspiration.
Speaker 5: Goddard was ridiculed in The New York Times over his ideas,
Speaker 5: you know that you could possibly send something, or you
Speaker 5: could send blasting caps to the moon with a rocket.
Speaker 5: They later apologized for having lambasted him for what they
Speaker 5: referred to as a moon hoax.
Speaker 2: So if Encoloso looked like a fool, he stood in
Speaker 2: good company. But maybe he wasn't a fool at all,
Speaker 2: because when the world laughed, Koloso may have been training
Speaker 2: his cadets for something else entirely, not a moonshot, but
Speaker 2: a kind of misdirection, a cover, a play unfolding just
Speaker 2: out of sight.
Speaker 1: What in Coloso is actually doing in training his cadets
Speaker 1: was training them in an anti colonial revolutionary activity, including like
Speaker 1: how to make and use explosives.
Speaker 2: In other words, the Zambian space program may never have
Speaker 2: been about the stars. It may have been affront for
Speaker 2: something far more earthly and far more dangerous. By nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five, Zambia's space program began to s but Mata Mumbu,
Speaker 2: the space girl with the twelve Cats, was nearing the
Speaker 2: end of training. She completed more than fifty barrel rolls
Speaker 2: down a hill until pregnancy forced her into retirement. Progress slowed,
Speaker 2: and Koloso claimed one of his rockets was quote sabotaged
Speaker 2: by the foreign elements. More astronauts hit the exits.
Speaker 3: Two of my best men went on a drinking spree
Speaker 3: a month ago and haven't been seen since. Another of
Speaker 3: my astronauts has joined a local tribal song and dance group.
Speaker 2: One cadet reinvented himself as a pole acrobat. Another had
Speaker 2: told her reporter.
Speaker 6: We aw a dynamic music group when we owned space cadets.
Speaker 2: So much for the Astronaut Corps. It was starting to
Speaker 2: look less like NASA and more like spinal Tap. Once again,
Speaker 2: mockery rained down. But here's the thing. Maybe the haters
Speaker 2: were missing the point. A few years ago, the writer
Speaker 2: and novelist None Spel interviewed Zambia's first president and Encoloso's
Speaker 2: close friend, Kenneth Gowanda.
Speaker 1: And he said, up it was. It was all a
Speaker 1: bit of fun, right, He said, it wasn't serious.
Speaker 2: A lark, a prank, a bit of theater. Gowanda said,
Speaker 2: it's likely that Encoloso knew he couldn't beat the US
Speaker 2: or Soviets. To the moon. But he could mock them,
Speaker 2: steal their spotlight. He could pull focus and get the
Speaker 2: world talking about Zambia.
Speaker 5: It was also very scathing commentary on his present time.
Speaker 5: He was satirizing and ridiculing the vast expense to both
Speaker 5: the United States and the USSR were paying out to
Speaker 5: compete in space programs.
Speaker 2: At the time, Americans and Soviets were pooring obscene sums
Speaker 2: of money into space exploration. Some of that money even
Speaker 2: helped build listening stations in Africa, infrastructure meant to serve
Speaker 2: Washington and Moscow, not Lusaka.
Speaker 5: You have the Americans placing line bases to track their
Speaker 5: spacecraft and using the African continent for their own political gains.
Speaker 5: If you have colonizers sending money into space and using
Speaker 5: African countries as political pawns in their activities, and.
Speaker 2: Colossa wanted to stick it to them to make them
Speaker 2: look ridiculous. And he wasn't alone. When Neil Armstrong made
Speaker 2: his one Small step onto the Moon in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: jazz poet and musician Gil Scott Heron cut through the
Speaker 2: ticker tape parades with a stinging spoken word poem called
Speaker 2: whitey On the moon.
Speaker 7: I can't pay no doctor bills, but White he's on
Speaker 7: the moon. Ten years from now, I'll be paying still
Speaker 7: while White he's on the moon. You know, the man
Speaker 7: jumps up my red last night because White is on
Speaker 7: the moon. No hot to, no tallet, no lights.
Speaker 2: But why he's on the moon. He wasn't the only
Speaker 2: person to ask if there weren't bigger priorities in the
Speaker 2: good old US.
Speaker 1: Of a the amount of money that is spent on
Speaker 1: the Space project when so many African Americans were confronting
Speaker 1: struggles such radical inequality. It just seemed by spending money
Speaker 1: on this was insulting. It just seems to like, really
Speaker 1: crystallized perfectly when you look at these things next to
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: And in that light, a guy wearing a satin cape
Speaker 2: rolling teenagers down hills and barrels starts to feel less
Speaker 2: like a joke and more like a mirror. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: non Wally Serpel wrote an article in The New Yorker
Speaker 2: asking why were Western writers so oblivious to in Coloso's satire.
Speaker 2: After all, Incloso's cocked eyebrows seemed pretty obvious. Take that
Speaker 2: article he wrote about colonizing Mars. In it, he vows
Speaker 2: not to repeat the whole missionary thing to the Martians.
Speaker 1: His plan suggests like that the Zambian astronauts might take
Speaker 1: on the role of the colonizing force in miles, but
Speaker 1: that they would essentially do a better job of it,
Speaker 1: a less violent job of it. Since European colonizes very
Speaker 1: much did force Christianity unto colonized peoples, I at least
Speaker 1: find it really difficult to read this part of the
Speaker 1: article not in the key of irony. Right.
Speaker 2: So, while Americans were making in Goloso the butt of
Speaker 2: the joke, his barbs at the quote colonizers of space
Speaker 2: went completely over their heads. But here's where things take
Speaker 2: an even sharper turn. There's another theory that suggests that
Speaker 2: the Zambian space program was more than just an elaborate prank.
Speaker 2: It was a cover. It's nineteen sixty six, a few
Speaker 2: miles outside Lusaka. Sits a complex of drab concrete buildings, small,
Speaker 2: unassuming a steel fence hugging the perimeter, but the banalapar
Speaker 2: appearance belies what's going on inside. This is the African
Speaker 2: Liberation Center. Inside Gorilla fighters from Angola Mozambique and Rhodesia
Speaker 2: plot to overthrow their white colonial governments. One Western paper
Speaker 2: calls it quote the advanced command post of African nationalist violence.
Speaker 2: Another claims that this is where revolutionaries are making plans
Speaker 2: to invade nearby Rhodesia what is now called Zimbabwe. The
Speaker 2: guy at the center of it all, behind a door
Speaker 2: with the word secret stamped in bold letters, is Edward
Speaker 2: and Coloso. His official title here is quote his Excellency's
Speaker 2: personal representative to foreign nationalist parties, which is a polite
Speaker 2: way of saying he was Zambia's fixer, the man tasked
Speaker 2: with wrangling nine rival gorilla groups under one roof and
Speaker 2: keeping them all focused on the prize overthrowing colonial rule.
Speaker 2: According to some, the quote cadet training ridiculed in the
Speaker 2: press wasn't about space at all.
Speaker 1: What Encloso is actually doing in training his cadets was
Speaker 1: training them an anti colonial revolutionary activity, including like how
Speaker 1: to make and use explosives.
Speaker 2: That's the picture painted in nam Wali Surpel's novel The
Speaker 2: Old Drift, and echoed by some of those closest to Encoloso.
Speaker 2: In the end, the reporters who busily mocked Encoloso's aspirations
Speaker 2: in space might have been missing the real story. So
Speaker 2: what was the Zambian space program really? A satire, a
Speaker 2: secret training camp, one big headfake? The truth is slippery
Speaker 2: even today, scholars disagree. Surpel interviewed dozens of people close
Speaker 2: to Encoloso and found nothing conclusive. Lucy Gasser has studied
Speaker 2: a few of these tellings and she isn't sure either.
Speaker 1: The short answers, I really don't know. I'm adri cultural
Speaker 1: studied Skala. I'm interested in the way the story has
Speaker 1: been told. I think what's interesting about that is that
Speaker 1: it is not result, that it is so ambivalent.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's the point. Maybe Inkoloso intended to keep
Speaker 2: us guessing, to play both fool and profit. But here's
Speaker 2: what we do know. Edward and Coloso wanted Zambia and
Speaker 2: Africa as a whole to flourish. Edward and Coloso died
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine, but in some ways he got
Speaker 2: his wish. In April of twenty twenty five, leaders from
Speaker 2: across Africa met in Cairo to celebrate the opening of
Speaker 2: the African Space Agency.
Speaker 5: To serve the African continent's interests. Looking at Earth resources,
Speaker 5: looking at communications satellites, things that will enrich them in
Speaker 5: ways that they were overlooked when when the elephants were
Speaker 5: dancing and you know, the grass was being trampled.
Speaker 2: For decades, African nations have depended on other countries for
Speaker 2: space technology, to monitor crops, for disaster relief and communication satellites.
Speaker 2: But the new Space Agency changes all of that.
Speaker 5: It really is to focus on African needs, the continental needs,
Speaker 5: without relying on global politics.
Speaker 2: Africa is becoming an independent spacefaring continent, exactly what Edward
Speaker 2: and Goloso had dreamed. Recently, Zambia built its first ground
Speaker 2: receiving station. Its first launch is on the horizon, but
Speaker 2: instead of catapults and barrels, it'll be fiber optics and
Speaker 2: weather sensors. Instead of dynamite, it'll be data. Doctor Kathleen
Speaker 2: Lewis at the Smithsonian has one final wish.
Speaker 8: I really hope that somewhere in a warehouse they have
Speaker 8: that barrel, you know, if somebody will come upon it
Speaker 8: and we'll put it in a museum, because I think
Speaker 8: that would be wonderful if they could get it up.
Speaker 5: To Cairo and put it at the headquarters, you know,
Speaker 5: this is our beginning. That would be wonderful thing.
Speaker 2: Barrel, a cape, a dream, and a girl with twelve cats.
Speaker 2: Mata and Wumble never made it to Mars, but Africa
Speaker 2: made it to space. And Edward and Coloso, whether you
Speaker 2: see him as a charlatan, a satirist, or a visionary,
Speaker 2: got the conversation rolling.
Speaker 4: All right, very special character here. This is another one
Speaker 4: where there's one obvious choice, but a few really good
Speaker 4: supporting choices here. I mean, a cat can a cat
Speaker 4: can win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we make the rules, especially if it's a space cat.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, that's up there, a space monkey
Speaker 2: space cat.
Speaker 4: DA's a Pixar movie right there. Yeah, that one of
Speaker 4: the names in here. We're going to Mars with a
Speaker 4: space girl, two cats and a missionary. Like that's like
Speaker 4: snakes on a movie title. I think that could fill
Speaker 4: up the poster.
Speaker 2: I wrote that down just because I want to imitate
Speaker 2: it in the future for a title. It's so good,
Speaker 2: it's poetry.
Speaker 4: Speaking of cinema, did you happen to cast this one?
Speaker 2: I did. I had a little bit of fun with
Speaker 2: this one. So for Edward and Coloso, I went with
Speaker 2: either John David Washington or else, rather new actor yah
Speaker 2: Ya abdulah Mateen the second. He's right now playing wonder Man.
Speaker 2: I thought he would be good as the Minister of Space.
Speaker 2: And then from Mata Mumba, I thought Letitia Wright from
Speaker 2: Black Panther two. I thought she's just a fantastic although
Speaker 2: I haven't seen Black Panther two because my wife saw
Speaker 2: it without me and I just have never gone back,
Speaker 2: so I can lord it over her. And I also
Speaker 2: like Kennett Kowanda, the first president of Zambia. I liked
Speaker 2: John Boyega for him. I thought that he could have
Speaker 2: like the gravitas and yet also the youth as well,
Speaker 2: So that that's pretty much where I left it off.
Speaker 2: Did you guys have a favorite moment in this?
Speaker 4: I like the flash forward at the very end to
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five where we've been treating this all very satirical,
Speaker 4: look all this, but it turns out they are going
Speaker 4: to get their big space launch. Maybe they do get
Speaker 4: to put a flag on the Moon. I don't know
Speaker 4: about Mars.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but the moon, you know, that's where Elon
Speaker 2: Musk is now going to. So no one really is
Speaker 2: going to Mars anymore. I guess Mars is out.
Speaker 5: Mars is out.
Speaker 2: Moon's back, Yeah, moons back.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: Personally, I love the idea that there are space programs
Speaker 2: planning or you know, the training for their cosmonaut astronaut
Speaker 2: people is that they are going to go go. Do
Speaker 2: we have a barrel? Do we have a rope? We
Speaker 2: have a space program, We need a slightly bigger barrel.
Speaker 4: But other than that, Very Special Episodes is made by
Speaker 4: some very special people. Today's episode was produced in partnership
Speaker 4: with School of Humans. This show is hosted by Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 4: Danish Schwartz, and Jason English. Our senior producer is Josh Fisher.
Speaker 4: Today's episode was written by Lucas Riley. Our story editor
Speaker 4: is Virginia Prescott from School of Humans. Producers are Amelia
Speaker 4: Brock and Eily's Paris. Editing and sound design by Jesse Nice,
Speaker 4: Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher. Research and fact checking
Speaker 4: by Austin Thompson and Lucas Riley. Original music by Alis McCoy,
Speaker 4: Show logo by Lucy Quintonia. Thank you to Anthony West
Speaker 4: for his excellent voiceover work. Social clips by Yarberry Media.
Speaker 4: Executive producers of today's episode are Virginia Prescott and Jason English.
Speaker 4: If you ever want to email the show, you can
Speaker 4: reach us at Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com.
Speaker 4: Be nice to give us a rating and review over
Speaker 4: on Apple or Spotify. We will see you back here
Speaker 4: next Wednesday. Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.