Dylan in Space

An unremarkable object in the Boathouse collection - a sepia photograph of a 20‑year‑old Dylan Thomas - has a story that stretches far beyond Laugharne. Once owned by Pamela Hansford, Dylan’s first love and correspondent between 1933 and 1934, the photograph eventually found its way into the hands of NASA.

The link between Dylan Thomas and the American space programme begins with George Abbey, a senior NASA official who played a major role in selecting astronauts during the height of the United States’ space exploration era.

Welsh Roots and NASA Leadership

George Abbey’s family roots lie firmly in Laugharne. His mother, Bridget Gibby, was born there, and the family remained closely connected to the community. One of George’s cousins, Dick Lewis, was the local milkman and a close friend of both Dylan and Caitlin Thomas. Dick lived at Eynonsdown on Newbridge Road and later served as a pallbearer at Dylan’s funeral in 1953.

Bridget later moved to London, where she met her future husband, Sam Abbey, a Londoner who had emigrated to Canada and returned after being wounded while serving in the First World War. After the birth of their first son, the couple moved back to Canada, where George Abbey was born in 1932.

George initially applied to become an astronaut while serving in the US Air Force but, although his application was unsuccessful, he went on to build a 39‑year career at NASA. His work spanned the early Apollo missions through to the development of the International Space Station. By the 1980s, he was selecting crew members for the Space Shuttle programme - including the first American woman in space - and in 1996 he became Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Dylan Thomas Goes to Space

In 1998, proud of his Welsh heritage and his family’s connections to Laugharne, George Abbey arranged for the sepia photograph of young Dylan Thomas to be loaned from the poet’s former home. The photograph travelled aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia from 17 April to 3 May 1998. After returning to Earth, it was placed back in the Dylan Thomas Boathouse, accompanied by a special inscription recording its extraordinary journey into space.

A Poem in Orbit

The connection between Dylan Thomas and the Space Shuttle Columbia continued into the spacecraft’s final mission in 2003. Among the seven‑person crew was Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who carried with him a copy of Thomas’s famous poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” The poem’s powerful themes resonated deeply with Ramon and echoed the spirit of the mission. As Columbia orbited the Earth, Thomas’s words travelled with it - uniting poetry and space exploration in a moving and unexpected way.