U.S sculptor to honour first Nigerian-American astronaut to travel to space

Monday, August 4, 2025 - World renowned Space Monument designer, Steve Barber, has mooted the idea of honouring Nigerian-American  lawyer and astronaut, Chief Owolabi Salis, as the first Nigerian to travel to the outer space, beyond the Karman Line.

This feat had earned Silas great public acclaim at his United States base.

Barber, reputed for the quality of his monumental memorabilia, about 37 world class monuments for accomplished astronauts, mooted the idea to the U.S-based Nigerian astronaut, and Lagosian, who hails from Ikorodu.

Planning to design a monument for Salis, he was quoted as saying that the President Bola Tinubu-led government should, as a mark of honour, appreciate the manner in which the epoch making adventure had elevated Nigeria in global reckoning.

According to him, this feat has conferred on the renowned global and space adventurer an elevated status as a foremost national ambassador of his country.

The monument, with a durable span of longevity to last for 1000 years, was described by the U.S, California-based monument designer as a befitting and deserving honour for the astronaut.

He noted that the monument will serve as a beacon of inspiration to fire the zeal of blacks and Nigerians towards a greater quest for space exploration.

Barber said the monument, with inspirational citations artistically engraved, will be unveiled on July 4, 2026, and to be conveyed to the birth-place of Salis.

The Nigerian-born lawyer made history as the first Nigerian to travel to the outer-space above the Karman Line, thus placing him in the privileged bracket of about 720 people, dead and living; estimated to have navigated an adventure in space exploration.

“This is no mean feat as our planet is five billion years old, with 117 billion people, of which just 720 people had been to space,”Salis said.

Earlier between the first week of January,2024 and July 2024, celebrated upwardly high-mobile globe trotter who had travelled to over 120 countries across all the continents of the world, also made history as the first in Black Africa, to have ever visited the diametrically extreme hemisphere of the Arctic and Antarctic North and South Pole respectively, within a season.