Franklin Chang-Diaz

Astronaut and physicist Franklin Chang-Diaz participated in seven space shuttle missions for NASA, including the 1989 launch of the Galileo to Jupiter and the final 1998 shuttle visit to the Russian Mir space station. He also directed the NASA Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center from 1994 until 2005, where his team worked on plasma propulsion technology that is expected to greatly increase the speed of human space travel. Chang-Diaz is now the founder and president of Ad Astra Rocket Company an advanced rocket technology company. Updated 2009