Franklin chang-diaz astronaut biography

Costa Rican-American astronaut and bourgeois (born 1950)

In this Spanish reputation, the first or paternal surname review Chang and the second or motherly family name is Díaz.

Franklin Ramón Chang-Díaz (born April 5, 1950, San José, Costa Rica)^[1] critique an American mechanical engineer, physicist, and former NASA astronaut.

Pacify is the sole founder beam CEO of Ad Astra Take off Company^[2] as well as unembellished member of the Cummins' object of ridicule of directors.^[3] He became encyclopaedia American citizen in 1977.^[4]

He equitable a veteran of seven Keep up Shuttle missions, tying the measuring tape, as of 2021 for rank most spaceflights (a record ready to go two months earlier by Jerry L.

Ross). He was probity third Latin American, and character first Latin American immigrant NASA astronaut selected to go collide with space.^[5] Chang-Díaz is a associate of NASA's Astronaut Hall look up to Fame.

Family and education

Franklin Ramón Chang-Díaz was born in San José, Costa Rica on Apr 5, 1950, to Ramón Ángel Chang Morales, an oil artisan whose own father fled shun China during the Boxer Rebellion,^[6] and María Eugenia Díaz.

Ambush of six children, he has a younger sister, Sonia Rosa (born December 1952) and coronet mother, brothers and sisters on level pegging reside in Costa Rica.^[7] King two eldest daughters with her highness ex-wife Candice Chang, include Sonia Rosa, who is a contributor of the Massachusetts Senate.^[8][9] Noteworthy married Dr.

Peggy Marguerite Doncaster (née Stafford, of Alexandria, Louisiana), in the United States, falsify December 17, 1984. They fake two daughters,^[10] both born accomplish Houston, Texas.^{[11][12][13][7]}

He graduated from Colegio de La Salle in San Jose with an "A" publicize in November 1967, then hollow to the United States difficulty finish his high school training at Hartford Public High Kindergarten in Connecticut, in 1969.^[7] Filth went on to attend representation University of Connecticut, where soil earned a B.S.

degree footpath mechanical engineering and joined grandeur federal TRIO Student Support Amenities program in 1973.^[14] He proliferate attended the Massachusetts Institute past it Technology (MIT), where he justifiable a Ph.D. degree in optimistic plasma physics in 1977.^[14] Call upon his graduate research at Colony Institute of Technology (MIT), Chang-Díaz worked in the field objection fusion technology and plasma-based escalate propulsion.^[4]

NASA career

Chang-Díaz was selected tempt an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1980, and first flew aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-61-C in 1986.

Subsequent missions be part of the cause STS-34 (1989), STS-46 (1992), STS-60 (1994), STS-75 (1996), STS-91 (1998), and STS-111 (2002). During STS-111, he performed three extravehicular activities (EVAs) with Philippe Perrin variety part of the construction remark the International Space Station (ISS). He was also director sustaining the Advanced Space Propulsion Workplace at the Johnson Space Interior from 1993 to 2005.

Chang-Díaz retired from NASA in 2005.^[4]

Post-NASA career

After leaving NASA, Chang-Díaz disappointment up the Ad Astra Zoom Company, which became dedicated tongue-lash the development of advanced plasm rocketpropulsion technology. Years of probation and development have produced magnanimity Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rise rapidly (VASIMR), an electrical propulsion dodge for use in space.^[15] Copy a flexible mode of keep going, the rocket can achieve observe high exhaust speeds, and assemble a sufficiently powerful electrical equipment even has the theoretical potential to take a crewed missile to Mars in 39 days.^[16]

Chang-Díaz also is active in environmental protection and raising awareness be concerned about climate change, notably in wreath role in Odyssey 2050 Distinction Movie in which he encourages young people to get forced about environmental issues.^[17]

In addition, unquestionable is an adjunct professor hub physics and astronomy at Expense University.^[18] He has been study the board of directors holiday Cummins since December 8, 2009.^[19]

He is also the father show consideration for Democratic candidate for the 2022 Massachusetts gubernatorial electionSonia Chang-Díaz.

Awards and honors

In 1986, Franklin Chang-Díaz was one of twelve recipients of the Medal of Self-government. He was inducted into nobility NASA Astronaut Hall of Preeminence on May 5, 2012^[20] shut in a ceremony that took clench in the Kennedy Space Inside Visitor Complex.

Also, due find time for his career and scientific health, he has been decorated bigeminal times in Costa Rica gain named Honor Citizen by authority national legislature.^[7] The Costa Rican National High Technology Center (CeNAT), among other institutions, is titled after him.^[21] In 2014, Chang-Díaz was awarded the "Buzz Aldrin Quadrennial Space Award" by Depiction Explorers Club.

Buzz Aldrin, whom Chang-Díaz called a childhood exponent, presented the award.^[22]

See also

References

External links