Mandla Maseko, a 25-year-old disc jockey living in a South African township, hopes to defy the laws of physical and political gravity by becoming the first black African in space, according to report in Report in TheGuardian.

He is one 23 young people who beat out a million other applicants from around the world to win the Lynx Apollo Space Academy competition. The prize: to be blasted 62 miles into orbit aboard a Lynx Mark II shuttle in 2015.

Maseko was among three South Africans – one black, one white, one of Indian origin – selected from 85,000 hopefuls, who traveled to the U.S. this month to attend a space camp in Orlando.

They joined more than 100 international contestants in challenges that included assault courses, skydiving, air combat and G-force training, building and launching a rocket, and a written aptitude test.

The judges included Astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

“I got to shake (Aldrin’s) hand three times,” Maseko said, according to TheGuardian report. “I was like, oh, is this you? He said, ‘Yes, it is me!'”

The young Maseko became interested in space through the science fiction series “Star Trek” and films such as “Armageddon” and “Apollo 13,” TheGuardian reports.

“I thought, that looks fun,” he said. “No matter what life throws at you, you can use it and come out on top. If you get lemons, you must make lemon juice.”

Maseko grew up in the Mabopane township near the South African capital, Pretoria, where electrical power was spotty. His reality? “Once it rains, the lights go out,” he said. “I do know the life of a candle.”

The son of a toolmaker and cleaning supervisor, he said his parents struggled to provide a better life for him and his siblings than they had had.

“I’m not trying to make this a race thing but us blacks grew up dreaming to a certain stage,” Maseko said. “You dreamed of being a policeman or a lawyer but you knew you won’t get as far as pilot or astronaut. Then I went to space camp and I thought, I can actually be an astronaut.”

That possibility still hasn’t sunk in. “It’s crazy,” Maseko said. “I’m envious of myself.”

Maseko will be the second South African in space after Mark Shuttleworth, a white entrepreneur and philanthropist who bought a seat on a Russian Soyuz capsule for £12m and spent eight days on board the international space station in 2002, TheGuardian reports.

Maseko’s father, who grew up in such poverty that he got his first pair of shoes when he was 16, was determined that his children would never go hungry, the report says. Maseko and his four younger siblings lived in a simple brick house with access to electricity and running water. “I don’t remember going to bed without having eaten,” he said. “My dad provided for us. He is my hero, and then Nelson Mandela comes after.”

Maseko at one time enrolled as a part-time civil engineering student but had to drop out due to lack of funds. Then this year he saw an ad for a chance to go into space. “I was in the right place at the right time and in the right frame of mind,” he said.

The competition required him to send in a photo. He got a friend to photograph him in mid-air after jumping off a wall. It also asked him to explain his motivation. “I want to defy the laws of gravity,” he said.

Aldrin is among 12 people – all American, all men and all white – to have walked on the moon. But Africa has growing space ambitions: the majority of the Square Kilometre Array — the world’s largest and most powerful radio telescope — will be spread across South Africa. Eight other countries on the continent are also involved.

Maseko, whose Twitter profile shows him in a spacesuit, is aware of his own symbolism nearly two decades after the dismantling of apartheid, TheGuardian reports.

“I’m a township boy and I’m doing this for the typical township boy who wasn’t born with a silver spoon,” he said. “I’ll be the first black South African and the first black African to go into space. When you think of the firsts, the first black presidents – Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela – just to know your name will be written with those people is unbelievable.

“South Africa has come a long way. We have reached a stage where we are equal and we are one. Next year is the 20th anniversary of democracy and what better way to celebrate than sending the first black South African into space?”