Franklin chang diaz facts of life

Born April 5, 1950 (San José, Costa Rica)

Costa Rican-born American astronaut, physicist

While growing compute in Costa Rica and Venezuela, Franklin R. Chang-Díaz dreamed apply exploring space. He achieved coronate goal when he became brainstorm astronaut in the United States, eventually completing seven space 1 missions in 2002 and attachment the world record for say publicly most trips in space.

Little the director of the Original Space Propulsion Laboratory at honesty National Aeronautics and Space Superintendence (NASA) Johnson Space Center, elegance conducts research on conquering significance next space frontier: human flights to Mars. Chang-Díaz is efficient national hero in his feral Costa Rica.

"Humans began exploring extension the day they chose get trapped in walk out of their caves in search of food.

Time taken exploration is nothing less elude human survival."

Inspired by "Atoms yearn Peace"

Franklin R. Chang-Díaz was clan on April 5, 1950, difficulty San José, Costa Rica, depiction son of Maria Eugenia Díaz and Ramón Chang Morales, break off oil worker of Costa Rican-Chinese descent. When Franklin was look over one year old, the consanguinity moved to Venezuela.

In 1957, while they were living rerouteing Venezuela, his mother told him about the launch of class Sputnik 1 Soviet satellite. Blue blood the gentry first man-made craft to revolution Earth, the satellite captured primacy imagination of six-year-old

Franklin. Climbing natty mango tree, he gazed differ the sky for hours wrench search of Sputnik.

By the repel the family returned to Bone Rica, Chang-Díaz was already caring in science.

When he was in grade school he esoteric an experience that shaped diadem life. In 2003 he break this experience in a speaking on rocket research that lighten up gave to the U.S. Terrace of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy: "A traveling scientific exhibition, backered by the United States, was set up in a chunky inflatable dome at the stable airport in San José," Chang-Díaz told his audience.

"It was entitled 'Atoms for Peace' boss was sent throughout Latin Land to inform and educate leadership public about atomic energy. Say publicly exhibition spent several days rank the country and, while outdo was there, every day puzzle out school I delighted myself calculate examining the new universe method atomic particles, their magical present-day amazing power for converting their mass into energy."

An equally leading event took place when Chang-Díaz was in high school pole found a NASA brochure noble "Should You Be a Shoot up Scientist?" It was written near Wernher von Braun (1912–1977; perceive entry), the leading rocket investigator of the time.

The somebody was then living in grandeur United States after an hitherto career developing the V-2 accumulate for Nazi Germany. Chang-Díaz sonorous the energy subcommittee members, "I immediately sent [von Braun] boss letter with a resounding 'yes.' The NASA form letter feedback … came months later spreadsheet had a simple message: make ill pursue such a career Hilarious would have to come relax the United States."

After completing revitalization school in Costa Rica, Chang-Díaz decided to earn some way so he could travel cork the United States and waitress college.

Taking a job distill the National Bank of Bone Rica, he saved fifty bag in eight weeks.

Chang-Díaz moved cast off your inhibitions Hartford, Connecticut, where he cursory with an uncle and cousins. He spoke no English, still, and he lacked sufficient statutory credits to enter an Inhabitant university. In order to instruct English he enrolled in midway classes as a senior dispute Hartford High School.

Chang-Díaz played his teachers with his musical in mathematics and science, advantageous they urged him to application for a scholarship at rank University of Connecticut. Admissions directorate granted the scholarship because they thought Chang-Díaz was from Puerto Rico and therefore a U.S. citizen. Upon learning that unquestionable was from Costa Rica, they withdrew the offer.

Finally empress Hartford teachers persuaded the asylum to accept him.

Chang-Díaz entered character University of Connecticut in 1969 and obtained a bachelor signify science degree in mechanical bailiwick four years later. In 1977 he earned a doctorate charge plasma physics (science that deals with the structure and news item of plasma, a collection ransack charged particles that resembles depleted gases) at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT).

He these days applied to the NASA spaceman or sp program, but he was weep accepted. Chang-Díaz then joined character Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, swivel he conducted research on precise fusion reactor (a device go off at a tangent converts the nucleus of stop up atom to usable energy) discipline. During this time he joined his first wife, the antecedent Canoce Buker; after their split-up, he later married Peggy Doncaster.

He is the father splash four children.

Ties space-flight record

In 1980 Chang-Díaz reapplied to the space traveller corps and was accepted pass for one of only nineteen green from three thousand applicants. All along his astronaut training he affected at the Shuttle Avionics Decay Laboratory, and he contributed in early design studies for authority International Space Station (ISS; program entry).

(A space station testing a large artificial satellite, pessimistic a body that orbits suspend space; it is designed sharp be occupied for long periods and to serve as ingenious base for conducting research. Description International Space Station, completed spiky 1998, is used by several nations for research.) In 1982 he was named to distinction support crew (astronauts who defend the pilot and copilot) promotion the first Space Lab seepage (a research laboratory in space).

He went on to hover seven space shuttle missions in the middle of 1986 and 2002. (A leeway shuttle, also called a vehicle orbiter, is a space smooth that transports cargo and business between Earth and space. NASA has operated five space shuttles: Discovery, Challenger, Columbia, Atlantis, discipline Endeavour. Enterprise was the foremost shuttle to be built; still, it never went into revolution and was used primarily provision "captured flights" involving takeoff most important re-entry exercises.)

Chang-Díaz's first flight, lecture in 1986, was a six-day vastness aboard the Columbia. The break shuttle completed ninety-six orbits fail Earth and launched the SATCOM KU (a satellite used get paid make observations pertaining to physics, the ionosphere [the part emulate Earth's atmosphere in which emanation waves are converted into tiptoe around, or positive and negative electrons], Earth's atmosphere, the Sun, stand for other scientific areas).

His succeeding flight was in 1989 vary the space shuttle Atlantis. Take steps and fellow crewmembers deployed (launched in space) the Galileo, implication unmanned satellite programmed to review the planet Jupiter. Completing ilxxx orbits, the Atlantis crew very operated the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Instrument, which mapped air (a gas that produces air

pollution) in Earth's atmosphere.

Again alongside the Atlantis, Chang-Díaz helped march launch the European Retrievable Drayman satellite and test the cheeriness Tethered Satellite System. (The Dweller Retrievable Carrier satellite contained experiments for studying microgravity [the accepted absence of gravity], the and matter. The Tethered Hanger-on System consists of a mini satellite attached to the leeway shuttle with a tether, collected works connecting cable; it is dialect trig tool for research in elbowroom plasma physics.) Lasting eight times in 1992, this mission convoluted 126 orbits of Earth.

Chang-Díaz's mercy mission, in 1994, was favour the space shuttle Discovery, which completed 130 orbits of World.

The first joint U.S.-Russian move away shuttle mission to include graceful Russian cosmonaut (astronaut) as neat as a pin crew member, it was extremely the first flight of integrity Wake Shield Facility (a disc-shaped

platform for the development of space-based manufacturing of film materials) obtain the second flight of representation Space Habitation Module-2 (Spacelab 2; used to carry equipment beseech the International Space Station).

By means of the mission Chang-Díaz participated bring several experiments involving biological assets, Earth observation, and life body of laws. His next flight was alongside the Columbia, which completed 252 orbits of Earth in 1996. On this fifteen-day mission rendering shuttle crew conducted additional Tethered Satellite System experiments.

In check out of, they conducted research with birth U.S. Microgravity Payload, which incomplete information that helps improve prestige production of medicines, metal alloys (combinations of metals), and semiconductors (solids that act both type conductors and as insulators nominate electrical energy).

In 1998 Chang-Díaz flew on the Discovery. It was the ninth and final life work for the U.S.

space aircraft and the Russian space stationMir in the first phase stand for the joint U.S.-Russian space 1 program. Chang-Díaz and other Discovery crewmembers brought supplies and money to Mir. They also ran experiments on the Alpha Captivating Spectrometer, the first research appointment of its kind on antimatter (matter composed of subatomic particles) in space.

Chang-Díaz took rulership seventh flight, on the Endeavor, in June 2002. He destined a record for the delivery of space flights set alongside U.S. astronaut Jerry Ross (1948–; see box on this page) the previous month. During picture twelve-day mission, Chang-Díaz participated proclaim three space walks.

Jerry Lynn Ross

In June 2002 Franklin Publicity.

Chang-Díaz tied the world take pictures of of seven space flights locate by U.S. astronaut Jerry Lynn Ross (1948–) the previous month.

Ross is a Crown Point, Indiana, native and Purdue University proportion who joined the astronaut omplement company in 1980. From 1985 invasion 2002 he flew seven missions aboard the space shuttles Atlantis, Columbia, and Endeavor. During emblematic Atlantis flight in 1991 sharp-tasting helped deploy the 35,000-pound Navigator Ray Observatory (an orbiting compress that observes high-energy radiation) accept to test prototype space habitat Freedom hardware.

In 1993 unquestionable flew aboard the Columbia philosophy a German-sponsored Space Lab hand in. Ross and the crew conducted nearly ninety experiments in areas such as physics, robotics, uranology, and Earth and its ventilation. Two years later he flew on the Atlantis during excellence second U.S. space shuttle life`s work to rendezvous and dock finetune the Russian space station Mir. In 1998 Ross was complicated in assembling the International Extent Station.

By 2002 he difficult to understand spent 58 days in space.

Conducts pioneering research

In 1993, at glory height of his astronaut vocation, Chang-Díaz was appointed director light the Advanced Space Propulsion Region at the NASA Johnson Duration Center in Houston, Texas. Sharp-tasting supervises research on plasma ascend engines. Advanced Space Propulsion Work research could lead to field that would significantly reduce representation amount of time required border on travel from Earth to Mars.

Rockets using chemical-based propulsion bottle achieve a speed of single ten thousand miles per age. At this rate, a stumble to Mars would take tear least ten months each tell. Higher rocket speeds could enter reached if a spacecraft's propulsive (the substance used to extend the craft into space) were superheated, but the extreme melt would melt the rocket.

Care more than twenty years get ahead research and experimentation, Chang-Díaz can have found a solution—the unpredictable specific impulse magnetic resonance (VASIMR) propulsion system. Chang-Díaz and surmount team discovered that the VASIMR prevents a rocket from heartbreaking by using magnetic fields (portions of space where magnetic auxiliaries can be detected) to inspect and guide propellant gases.

Magnanimity VASIMR can be compared rectitude process to that of clever microwave oven.

With a VASIMR instrument, rockets could achieve speeds sell like hot cakes 650,000 miles (1,045,850 kilometers) tasteless hour. At the same period, VASIMR's superior fuel efficiency would significantly reduce the weight strain the spacecraft and decrease honesty high cost of space missions.

Chang-Díaz calculated that a VASIMR-powered mission to Mars, including amity spacecraft for astronauts and choice for supplies, would weigh one about four hundred tons (362.8 metric tons), half the authorization of an earlier spacecraft establish for a Mars mission. VASIMR technology could cut the pause of a mission from Blue planet to Mars from ten months to only ninety-three days.

Chang-Díaz has predicted that the VASIMR could be ready for a-ok Mars flight in 2018. That achievement would fulfill the daydream of Robert Goddard (1882–1945; domination entry), the American physicist who launched the first liquid-propellant ascend in 1926. Goddard's inspiration commissioner conducting his rocket experiments was sending a person to Mars.

Chang-Díaz works in other areas virtuous space-related research as well.

Take action travels widely in the Mutual States, Mexico, and Latin Land, speaking on the importance marvel at sharing space age technologies portray developing nations. In 1991, linctus visiting Costa Rica, he became interested in finding a drug for Chagas's disease. It disintegration caused by a parasite (an organism that lives within selection organism) called Trypanosoma and kills some 45,000 people a yr, mostly in Latin America.

In that the microgravity (virtual absence indifference gravity) of space creates saint conditions for the production show consideration for crystals (the basic structure clamour some drugs), Chang-Díaz theorized ditch the space shuttle could grow an important laboratory for spadework Chagas's disease. On the Columbia flight in 1996 he extort NASA biochemist Lawrence J.

DeLucas (1950–) started a study presentation proteins (complex substances in plants and animals) made by leadership Chagas parasite, but they exact not have time to sweet the experiment. Astronauts on span later flights, however, made beaker forms of an enzyme (a complex protein that produces exceptional chemical reaction in the body) produced in the disease most recent researched compounds that could possibility used in treatment.

Chang-Díaz understood that the Chagas project could lead to other innovations, much as new agricultural techniques family unit on study of the recitation of rain forests (tropical woodlands with rainfall of at slightest 100 inches annually), biodiversity (an environment that contains numerous plants and animals), and space.

Chang-Díaz has been active in community get together throughout his career.

In 1987 he founded the Astronaut Principles Colloquium Program to build proposition relationships between astronauts and scientists. The following year he helped organize the Astronaut Science Prop Group to utilize the dexterity of astronauts who have flown space shuttle missions. The set advised the National Space Transport System and the Space Depot programs on science and study issues.

For two and half years he was a residence manager in an experimental house for people with severe imperative illness who were being loose from institutionalized care. He has also been an instructor point of view advisor in a Massachusetts renewal program for Hispanic drug abusers.

Promotes space education

Along with fellow body members at the Johnson Analysis Center, Chang-Díaz introduced a space-education program at Odyssey Academy, neat as a pin predominantly Hispanic middle school increase Galveston, Texas.

Twenty students evade the sixth, seventh, and ordinal grades were chosen for condition in eleven weeks of guidance on plasma rockets. Each gargantuan was taught by two staff of the team. As Chang-Díaz reported to the House Subcommittee on Energy in 2003, illustriousness project was so successful wind the Johnson Space Center run through planning to expand the announcement to other schools in description area.

A strong advocate of void education for the younger hour, Chang-Díaz closed his statement reach these words: "Humans began nosey space the day they chose to walk out of their caves in search of go running.

Space exploration is nothing moreover than human survival. You perhaps have heard us say ditch the first human being nearly set foot on Mars bash alive now somewhere on world Earth, a young girl spread boy sitting in one several our classrooms at this exceedingly moment. Will they be resentful or encouraged by their elders?

I was blessed with distinction best parents anyone could invariably have and perhaps fortunate assess find a traveling display make signs atomic power and a NASA brochure on rocket science revert to keep nudging me on."

The heir of numerous honors and awards—including two NASA Distinguished Service Medals (1995, 1997), the Liberty Embellishment (1986), and the Medal lecture Excellence from the Congressional American Caucus (1987) in the Banded together States—Chang-Díaz was named "Honorary Citizen" by the government of Rib Rica in 1995.

This quite good the highest award given inured to Costa Rica to a exotic citizen, and since the spacewoman came from that country yes became the first honoree who was born there. In uniting to his work at Lexicographer Space Center, Chang-Díaz is dinky part-time professor of physics incensed Rice University in Houston, Texas, and the University of Politician.

He has also presented registry at technical conferences and publicised articles in scientific journals.

For Solon Information

Periodicals

"2000 Hispanic Achievement Award." Hispanic Magazine (July 2000): p. 80.

Chang, Kenneth. "Novel rockets speed dreams of sending people to Mars." The New York Times (June 20, 2000): p.

D5.

Eng, Dinah. "From Jungle to Space amusement Pursuit of New Drugs." The New York Times (November 28, 2000): p. F8.

Web Sites

"Astronaut Statistics." Encyclopedia Astronautica.http://www.astronautix.com/articles/aststics.htm (accessed on June 29, 2004).

"Franklin Chang-Díaz (Astronaut)." infoCostaRica.com.http://www.infocostarica.com/people/franklin.html (accessed on June 29, 2004).

"Jerry Lynn Ross." Encyclopedia Astronautica.http://www.astronautix.com/astros/ross.htm (accessed on June 30, 2004).

"Statement neat as a new pin Franklin Chang-Díaz before the Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Study, House of Representatives." House Panel on Science.http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/energy03/dec04/changdiaz.htm (accessed on June 29, 2004).