Michael Foale
- ISS Expedition 8
Colin Michael Foale ( born January 6, 1957 in Louth, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom) is an American astronaut who is also a British citizen. By 2008, he was the Americans with the longest total stay in space: 373 days, 18 hours and 18 minutes, then this record by Peggy Whitson was broken. In addition, Foale was the first Briton, who completed an outboard activity.
Foale received at the Kings School in Canterbury a humanistic education. He received his diploma in 1975. Afterwards he attended the famous University of Cambridge. At the Queens' College he studied physics and earned a bachelor's degree in 1978. Four years later he received his doctorate in astrophysics compartment. As an avid scuba diver, he participated during his studies at several scientific diving projects, which he organized partly self.
In the early 1980s Foale moved over to the USA for a short time and took a job with McDonnell Douglas in Houston, Texas, before he started in the summer of 1983 at the Johnson Space Center. He was responsible for the payload operating in shuttle missions in the flight control center until the spring of 1986.
2003 Foale commander of ISS Expedition 8 (together with the cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri ). His six -month stay in space ended on 29 April 2004.
With this flight, he moved with astronauts John Young, Story Musgrave, Jerry Ross, Franklin Chang- Diaz, Curtis Brown, Jim Wetherbee, right, who were allowed to complete six space flights before him.
He was appointed in December 2004 to the Commander of the British Empire.
Foale left NASA in July 2013 to construct an electric airplane that costs should be reduced by 90%.