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Franklin Chang-Diaz

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Franklin Ramón Chang-Díaz, Sc.D. (born 5 April 1950) is a Costa Rican-American physicist and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of seven space shuttle missions, making him the record holder for most spaceflights by an astronaut (a record he shares with Jerry L. Ross). He is one of the first American citizens of Latin American descent to go into space.

Education

Chang-Diaz was born in San José, Costa Rica to a father of Chinese and Spanish descent and a Spanish Costa Rican mother (both Costa Rican-born) and moved to the United States to finish his high school education. He earned a BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1973, and a Sc.D. in applied plasma physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. For his graduate research at MIT, Chang-Diaz worked in the field of fusion technology and plasma-based rocket propulsion.

NASA career

Chang-Diaz was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1980 and first flew aboard STS-61-C in 1986. Subsequent missions included 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 EVAs with Philippe Perrin as part of the construction of the International Space Station. He was also director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center from 1993 to 2005. Chang-Diaz retired from NASA in 2005.

Current Life

Chang-Diaz is an adjunct professor of physics at Rice University and at the University of Houston. Due to his career and scientific success, he has been decorated multiple times in Costa Rica and named Honor Citizen by the National Congress. The Costa Rican National High Technology Center, among other institutions, is named after him.

Due to the traditional naming structure in Latin America (fathers last name, then mothers last name) he is typically referred to as Franklin Chang.

See also

External links



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Last updated on Monday February 25, 2008 at 14:33:20 PST (GMT -0800)
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