Franklin Chang Díaz

Franklin Chang-Díaz is a Costa Rican-American physicist and former NASA astronaut who tied the record for most spaceflights with seven missions, becoming the first Hispanic-American selected for the astronaut corps. Born in San José, Costa Rica, in 1950, he emigrated alone to the United States at eighteen with fifty dollars and a determination to follow the space program he had watched from afar.

After learning English in Connecticut high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1973 and a doctorate in applied plasma physics from MIT in 1977. He worked at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory on fusion reactor design before NASA selected him for astronaut training in 1980.

Between 1986 and 2002 Chang-Díaz flew aboard Columbia, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour, conducting three spacewalks during STS-111 to install equipment on the International Space Station. His seven missions matched the record set by Jerry Ross.

Throughout his astronaut years he continued plasma research, founding the Ad Astra Rocket Company in 2005 to develop the VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) electric propulsion engine, intended to shorten future Mars transit times. He retired from NASA in 2005 and now leads Ad Astra from facilities in Texas and Costa Rica.

The name Franklin is a masculine name of English origin, originally a medieval surname meaning "free man" or "free landholder," derived from Middle English frankeleyn. It became popular as a given name in the United States honouring Benjamin Franklin and signalling the values of self-made achievement and civic seriousness, ideals the astronaut himself has long personified.