Michael Foale
Michael Foale | |
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Country: | United States |
Organization: | NASA |
selected on | June 5, 1987 (12th NASA Group) |
Calls: | 6 space flights |
Start of the first space flight: |
March 24, 1992 |
Landing of the last space flight: |
April 30, 2004 |
Time in space: | 373d 18h 18min |
EVA inserts: | 4th |
EVA total duration: | 22h 44min |
retired on | August 2013 |
Space flights | |
Colin Michael Foale CBE (born January 6, 1957 in Louth , Lincolnshire , Great Britain ) is a former American astronaut who is also a British citizen. Until 2008 he was the American with the longest total stay in space: 373 days, 18 hours and 18 minutes, then this record was broken by Peggy Whitson . In addition, Foale was the first British man to do an outboard job.
Foale received a humanistic education at the Kings School in Canterbury . He received his diploma in 1975. He then attended Cambridge University . At their Queens' College , he first studied physics and earned a bachelor's degree in 1978 . Four years later he received his PhD in astrophysics. As an enthusiastic scuba diver, he took part in several scientific diving projects during his studies, some of which he organized himself.
In the early 1980s, Foale moved to the United States and briefly took a job at McDonnell Douglas in Houston , Texas , before he started at the Johnson Space Center in the summer of 1983 . Until the spring of 1986, he was responsible for the payload operations on shuttle missions in the flight control center.
In 2003 Foale became the commander of the ISS expedition 8 (together with the cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri ). His six-month stay in space ended on April 29, 2004.
With this flight he caught up with the astronauts John Young , Story Musgrave , Jerry Ross , Franklin Chang-Diaz , Curtis Brown , Jim Wetherbee , who were allowed to complete six space flights before him.
He was named Commander of the British Empire in December 2004 .
Foale left NASA in August 2013 to design an electric airplane that should cut costs by 90%. He is also an advisor to the Inspiration Mars Foundation .
Web links
- Short biography of Michael Foale at spacefacts.de
- NASA biography of Michael Foale (English; PDF)
- Chris Bergin and Chris Gebhardt: The amazing space adventures of Michael Foale (English)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Foale, Michael |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Foale, Colin Michael (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronaut |
DATE OF BIRTH | January 6, 1957 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Louth , Lincolnshire , England |