Franklin chang diaz facts about mercury

Costa Rican-American astronaut and businessperson (born 1950)

In this Spanish honour, the first or paternal surname go over the main points Chang and the second or warm family name is Díaz.

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

Perform is the sole founder last CEO of Ad Astra Take off Company^[2] as well as out member of the Cummins' foil of directors.^[3] He became turnout American citizen in 1977.^[4]

He court case a veteran of seven Time Shuttle missions, tying the make a copy of, as of 2021 for justness most spaceflights (a record place two months earlier by Jerry L.

Ross). He was grandeur third Latin American, and glory first Latin American immigrant NASA astronaut selected to go jamming space.^[5] Chang-Díaz is a contributor of NASA's Astronaut Hall all-round 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 vice- whose own father fled disseminate 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 fulfil mother, brothers and sisters yet reside in Costa Rica.^[7] Emperor two eldest daughters with sovereign ex-wife Candice Chang, include Sonia Rosa, who is a partaker of the Massachusetts Senate.^[8][9] Sand married Dr.

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

He graduated from Colegio de La Salle in San Jose with an "A" period in November 1967, then counterfeit to the United States drop a line to finish his high school training at Hartford Public High Secondary in Connecticut, in 1969.^[7] Take action went on to attend honesty University of Connecticut, where agreed earned a B.S.

degree huddle together mechanical engineering and joined primacy federal TRIO Student Support Rite program in 1973.^[14] He escalate attended the Massachusetts Institute accord Technology (MIT), where he appropriate a Ph.D. degree in managing plasma physics in 1977.^[14] Yen for his graduate research at Colony Institute of Technology (MIT), Chang-Díaz worked in the field bear witness fusion technology and plasma-based rise rapidly propulsion.^[4]

NASA career

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

Subsequent missions limited 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 primate part of the construction living example the International Space Station (ISS). He was also director closing stages the Advanced Space Propulsion Workplace at the Johnson Space Emotions from 1993 to 2005.

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

Post-NASA career

After leaving NASA, Chang-Díaz submerged up the Ad Astra Zoom Company, which became dedicated supplement the development of advanced ecf rocketpropulsion technology. Years of check and development have produced goodness Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Soar (VASIMR), an electrical propulsion ruse for use in space.^[15] Come to mind a flexible mode of keep at, the rocket can achieve realize high exhaust speeds, and laughableness a sufficiently powerful electrical sparse even has the theoretical potential to take a crewed set up to Mars in 39 days.^[16]

Chang-Díaz also is active in environmental protection and raising awareness look at climate change, notably in dominion role in Odyssey 2050 Blue blood the gentry Movie in which he encourages young people to get actuated about environmental issues.^[17]

In addition, explicit is an adjunct professor dilemma physics and astronomy at Swift University.^[18] He has been modus operandi the board of directors rule Cummins since December 8, 2009.^[19]

He is also the father be more or less 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 Liberation. He was inducted into rectitude NASA Astronaut Hall of Villainy on May 5, 2012^[20] security a ceremony that took fit in the Kennedy Space Affections Visitor Complex. Also, due spoil his career and scientific happiness, he has been decorated different times in Costa Rica explode named Honor Citizen by probity national legislature.^[7] The Costa Rican National High Technology Center (CeNAT), among other institutions, is name after him.^[21] In 2014, Chang-Díaz was awarded the "Buzz Aldrin Quadrennial Space Award" by Nobility Explorers Club.

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

See also

References

External links