Washington, D.C

Washington, DC’s Renowned Astronaut, Col. Frederick D. Gregory

Published

2 years ago

February 17, 2024

Washington, DC’s Renowned Astronaut, Col. Frederick D. Gregory

Frederick Drew Gregory, is the first astronaut born, reared, and educated in the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, which is also home to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. He is a veteran of three space shuttle missions and the first African American to pilot and command a mission in space. He is also the first African American to rise to the second-highest NASA leadership position, Deputy Administrator.

Gregory’s story is generationally entwined with the history of the District of Columbia (DC). In an era of profound racism and segregation, Gregory’s family were respected members of Washington’s influential Black community. When he was born in 1941, members of his family already were making history, and Gregory followed suit in his own time.

NASA portrait of Frederick Gregory.

Gregory’s uncle, Dr. Charles R. Drew, became famous for his medical research and innovation during World War II. His father, Francis Anderson Gregory, was locally prominent as assistant superintendent of DC Public Schools for many years and served as the first Black president of the Public Library’s Board of Trustees; the branch library in the Fort Davis neighborhood where the Gregory family lived is named in his honor. His mother, Nora Drew Gregory, a graduate of Dunbar High School, had a thirty-year career as a teacher in Washington’s elementary schools and led the library board after her husband. Her niece—Gregory’s cousin—Charlene Drew Jarvis served on the DC Council for more than two decades.

Gregory remembers his father taking him to Andrews Air Force Base for air shows and car races when he was a child; that was his earliest exposure to aviation. He also knew several Tuskegee Airmen who were friends of his father and often visited the Gregory’s home, when he was too young to understand their historical significance but enjoyed their tales of flying. As a teenager, he made the connection between flying and the military and decided he wanted to be an aeronautical engineer and military aviator.

Gregory’s life became illustrious after he graduated from Anacostia High School—Washington’s schools were not yet integrated, but Gregory was active in an integrated Boy Scout troop. Nominated by civil rights activist and member of Congress Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Gregory attended the United States Air Force Academy, where he was the only Black cadet in his class and one of very few African Americans at the academy. He graduated with distinction and a degree in military engineering in 1964 and was commissioned as an officer into the Air Force.

When Gregory joined the Air Force, he first flew helicopters and then fighter aircraft, including the F-4 Phantom. He served in Vietnam, where he flew 550 combat rescue missions, and returned to enter the Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent, Maryland. While serving as an engineering and research test pilot for both the Air Force and NASA, he earned a master’s degree in information systems from George Washington University, in his hometown. During his career, he logged 7,000 hours in more than 50 aircraft.

In 1978, NASA introduced Gregory as a pilot among the first new astronauts—the “TFNG” or “thirty-five new guys”—selected for the space shuttle era. His astronaut class included two more African Americans, scientists Guion Bluford and Ronald McNair; the three soon became NASA’s first African American astronauts to go to space. Among his other classmates were the first six women selected to join the astronaut corps and the first Asian American in space. The group received extraordinary media attention as NASA’s first examples of a more diverse astronaut corps. Jet and Ebony magazines featured the African Americans with pride.

Ronald McNair, Guy Bluford, and Fred Gregory, three of NASA’s first Black astronauts from the 1978 astronaut class.

March 1978 cover of Jet Magazine featuring McNair, Bluford, and Gregory.

Gregory flew on three space shuttle missions. The first, in 1985, was STS 51-B, a Spacelab science mission on Challenger, for which he was the pilot, the first African American in that role. He flew again in 1989, this time as commander of STS-33 on Discovery, for a classified Department of Defense mission. On this mission, Gregory became the first African American to command a spaceflight. His next mission as commander, STS-44 in 1991 on Atlantis, was also for the Department of Defense. Gregory claims he was so focused on his missions that he never really thought about being the first Black pilot or commander, but other people made it a mark of distinction.

Gregory during STS-44 on Space Shuttle Atlantis.

After his last flight, Gregory transferred to NASA Headquarters in Washington to serve as Associate Administrator for the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance and then as Associate Administrator for the Office of Space Flight. In 2002, he became NASA’s Deputy Administrator, second in command to the Administrator during the difficult time of the 2003 Columbia tragedy and its aftermath. Once again, he was the first African American in the agency’s senior leadership, a position he held until 2005. He also served briefly as acting NASA Administrator in early 2005, after Sean O’Keefe left and before Mike Griffin was sworn in. His NASA career was equally balanced between years in Texas and back home in Washington, DC.

Gregory has received many military and NASA medals and awards, as well as education and civic honors. Like his father’s legacy was honored with a named library, Gregory has been honored with a building bearing his name, Gregory Hall at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

After he logged 455 hours in space, spent his military career in Vietnam and around the country and his active astronaut years in Texas, Gregory came home to Washington for his final stint at NASA and his retirement. This renowned Washingtonian remains active as a speaker, advisor, and consultant.

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Washington, D.C

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

Published

9 hours ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

4 things to know about the weather:

Chances of rain in the morning
Gusty Sunday
Chilly Monday
Temps will rise again through the work week

Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.

After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.

The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.

Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.

However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.

QuickCast

SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s

MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s

Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.

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Washington, D.C

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

Published

1 day ago

April 18, 2026

Press Room

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.

“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”

Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.

Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.

“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.

“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”

Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”

A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.

Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.

Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.

But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.

“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”

At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.

The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.

Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.

For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.

“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.

“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”

For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.

In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.

Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.

“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”

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