Victor Glover’s call sign is “IKE.” It stands for “I Know Everything.” As a former Naval Flight Officer, I appreciated that immediately. Kind of a compliment, kind of a dig. In Naval Aviation, the people who trust you with their lives also reserve the right to give you a hard time.
I photographed Victor in February 2022 at Johnson Space Center in Houston. We worked in spacecraft and aircraft simulators, places where he had spent countless hours preparing for flight. Our shared Naval Aviation history made the connection real and familiar. He had returned from nearly six months in space, but there was an ease between us that came from having served in the same world.
Victor flew combat missions and became a Navy test pilot before NASA selected him as an astronaut in 2013. Test flying requires more than handling an aircraft well. You have to notice what it does, understand what you expected it to do, and explain the difference to the people who built it. That experience would serve him aboard two very different spacecraft.
In November 2020, he launched aboard Resilience as pilot of Crew-1, the first operational SpaceX Crew Dragon mission. He spent 168 days in space and completed four spacewalks. He also became the first Black astronaut to serve on a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station. Other Black astronauts had visited. Victor lived and worked there for months.
The station is a laboratory, and an astronaut’s body is part of the experiment. Without the ordinary demands of gravity, muscles and bones change. Even familiar movements require adjustment. Understanding those changes is essential if people are to spend longer periods away from Earth.
Victor installed equipment for research on bone and joint health. He wore a virtual reality headset for an experiment examining time perception, and participated in another studying how people control their grip in microgravity. The work asked practical questions about what happens when a body accustomed to Earth must function somewhere else. After the mission, the research continued through observations of the astronauts back on the ground.
In April 2026, Victor piloted Artemis II around the Moon. His first spaceflight had taken him to an established orbiting laboratory. This one tested Orion with a crew aboard, carrying four people beyond Earth orbit and home again. That September, he retired from active astronaut service and entered NASA’s emeritus program, through which he could help train and mentor those who followed.
The call sign made me smile. After spending time with Victor, I began to wonder if he might actually know everything.
