Deep Connection Between Panama's Emberá People And NASA's First Crewed Missions To The Moon -

Deep Connection Between Panama's Emberá People And NASA's First Crewed Missions To The Moon

Panama's Indigenous Emberá people's ancestral knowledge was accumulated over hundreds of years of living in the jungle, which was fundamental to the USAF school's survival field training program.

The training was conducted by Emberá Chief Manuel Antonio Zarco and his team of Emberá instructors. Historically, the Emberá people were called Chocó because they originally came from Colombia's Chocó region bordering Panama.

Director H. Morgan Smith talks about first meeting Chief Zarco in Panama in 1952 in the NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project transcript of a 2022 interview.

The Emberá people's expertise was gained from hacking a path through dense jungle with a machete and sleeping in hammocks above the jungle floor to avoid venomous insect bites.

Author's summary: NASA's moon mission connected to Panama's Emberá people.

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MENAFN MENAFN — 2025-10-25

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