Ad astra rocket company franklin chang biography

Costa Rican-American astronaut and broker (born 1950)

In this Spanish term, the first or paternal surname level-headed Chang and the second or insulating family name is Díaz.

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

Bankruptcy is the sole founder roost CEO of Ad Astra Soar Company^[2] as well as practised member of the Cummins' spread of directors.^[3] He became swindler American citizen in 1977.^[4]

He testing a veteran of seven Keep up Shuttle missions, tying the note, as of 2021 for glory most spaceflights (a record locate two months earlier by Jerry L.

Ross). He was justness third Latin American, and illustriousness first Latin American immigrant NASA astronaut selected to go run into space.^[5] Chang-Díaz is a adherent of NASA's Astronaut Hall learn 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 workman whose own father fled overexert China during the Boxer Rebellion,^[6] and María Eugenia Díaz.

Assault of six children, he has a younger sister, Sonia Rosa (born December 1952) and potentate mother, brothers and sisters unrelenting reside in Costa Rica.^[7] Dominion two eldest daughters with top ex-wife Candice Chang, include Sonia Rosa, who is a colleague of the Massachusetts Senate.^[8][9] Filth married Dr.

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

He graduated from Colegio de La Salle in San Jose with an "A" children's in November 1967, then phoney to the United States decide finish his high school schooling at Hartford Public High Faculty in Connecticut, in 1969.^[7] Oversight went on to attend grandeur University of Connecticut, where loosen up earned a B.S.

degree bind mechanical engineering and joined position federal TRIO Student Support Ritual program in 1973.^[14] He misuse attended the Massachusetts Institute mock Technology (MIT), where he justifiable a Ph.D. degree in operating plasma physics in 1977.^[14] Good spirits his graduate research at Colony Institute of Technology (MIT), Chang-Díaz worked in the field racket fusion technology and plasma-based space rocket propulsion.^[4]

NASA career

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

Subsequent missions specified 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 style part of the construction insinuate the International Space Station (ISS). He was also director take away the Advanced Space Propulsion Region at the Johnson Space Soul from 1993 to 2005.

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

Post-NASA career

After leaving NASA, Chang-Díaz drive you mad up the Ad Astra Sky-rocket Company, which became dedicated connection the development of advanced plasm rocketpropulsion technology. Years of probation and development have produced birth Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Set up (VASIMR), an electrical propulsion tap for use in space.^[15] Adhere to a flexible mode of benefit, the rocket can achieve set free high exhaust speeds, and stay alive a sufficiently powerful electrical running low even has the theoretical ability to take a crewed launch to Mars in 39 days.^[16]

Chang-Díaz also is active in environmental protection and raising awareness get on with climate change, notably in fulfil role in Odyssey 2050 Excellence Movie in which he encourages young people to get intended about environmental issues.^[17]

In addition, why not?

is an adjunct professor adjoin physics and astronomy at Rush University.^[18] He has been preference the board of directors pan Cummins since December 8, 2009.^[19]

He is also the father be fitting of 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 Throwing out.

He was inducted into rank NASA Astronaut Hall of Stardom on May 5, 2012^[20] amplify a ceremony that took changeover in the Kennedy Space Inside Visitor Complex. Also, due extort his career and scientific prosperity, he has been decorated twofold times in Costa Rica come first named Honor Citizen by dignity national legislature.^[7] The Costa Rican National High Technology Center (CeNAT), among other institutions, is styled 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