Michael Foale | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Colin Michael Foale (1957-01-06)6 January 1957 (age 68) |
| Nationality | British American |
| Education | Queens' College, Cambridge(BA,PhD) |
| Awards | Commander of theOrder of the British Empire |
| Space career | |
| NASA astronaut | |
Time in space | 374d 11h 19m |
| Selection | NASA Group 12 (1987) |
TotalEVAs | 4 |
Total EVA time | 16h 44m |
| Missions | STS-45 STS-56 STS-63 STS-84/STS-86 (Mir NASA-5) (Mir EO-23 and 24) STS-103 Soyuz TMA-3 (Expedition 8) |
Mission insignia |         |
Colin Michael FoaleCBE (/foʊl/; born 6 January 1957) is aBritish-Americanastrophysicist and a formerNASAastronaut.[1] He is a veteran of six space missions, and is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard bothMir and theInternational Space Station. He was the secondBriton in space and the first to perform a space walk. Until 17 April 2008, he held the record for most time spent in space by a US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes, and as of 2024[update] he held the cumulative-time-in-space record for a British citizen.[citation needed]
Foale was born inLouth, Lincolnshire, to a British father, Colin, and an American mother, Mary. His father was anRAF officer who retired with the rank ofAir Commodore.[2] Foale was raised inCambridge and educated atThe King's School, Canterbury. A member of theAir Training Corps, he studied atQueens' College, Cambridge receiving afirst-class honoursBA degree in natural sciences in 1978 (later promoted to aCambridge MA), and subsequenltly aPhD in laboratory astrophysics in 1982, where his supervisor wasAlan Cook.[3] When he left university, he "owned two pairs of jeans, a donkey jacket, a bicycle and a pilot's licence; which shows I had my priorities absolutely right".[citation needed]
While a postgraduate student at Cambridge University, Foale participated in the organisation and execution of scientific scuba diving projects. Pursuing a career in the US Space Program, Foale moved to Houston, Texas, to work on Space Shuttle navigation problems forMcDonnell Douglas. In June 1983, Foale joined NASA Johnson Space Center in the payload operations area of the Mission Operations Directorate. In his capacity as payload officer in the Mission Control Center, he was responsible for payload operations on Space Shuttle missions STS-51G, 51-I, 61-B and 61-C.
Born in the United Kingdom, Foale applied and was turned down twice as an astronaut candidate. After theSpace ShuttleChallenger disaster in January 1986, Foale changed his applicationessay from writing about his dreams to focusing on the realities of leadership faced by NASA, and was selected in 1987.[citation needed]
He flew on Space Shuttle missionsSTS-45 (1992),[4]STS-56 (1993)[5] andSTS-63 (1995).[6] In the last mission, he undertook a four-hourEVA. He was then selected for an extended mission aboard the RussianMir space station.
Launched bySTS-84[7] and returned bySTS-86,[8] Foale spent four months on Mir in 1997 during the Mir 23 and Mir 24 missions. During Mir 23, the station'sSpektr module was struck by aProgress resupply vessel.[9] Using knowledge from his physics degree Foale made calculations of how the stars were moving past his fixed-pointthumb reference on a window, and was thus able to advise Russian ground control of how to stop the resulting roll.[citation needed] The two Russian cosmonauts of Mir 23,Vasily Tsibliyev andAleksandr Lazutkin were planned to conduct an intravehicular activity (IVA) to inspect the collision damage from the interior of the space station, but this IVA was actually carried out by Mir EO-24 crew. After theMir EO-24 crew exchange, Soyuz TM-26 with all three crew aboard was undocked, repositioned and re-docked. Foale acted as photographer during the operation. Foale and Russian cosmonautAnatoly Solovyev also conducted a six-hour EVA in RussianOrlan spacesuits to inspect exterior damage to the Spektr module. Station damage produced significant risk to EVA suit integrity. For his efforts, he was awarded theYuri A. Gagarin Gold Medal by theFédération Aéronautique Internationale.[10] Subsequently, Mir's primary and backup oxygen generation systems failed, but these were successfully repaired by the crew. The station also experienced computer failures and problems orientating the solar arrays at the correct angle to the Sun. All these difficulties combined to produce what, looking back 20 years later, was arguably, the most dangerous long-duration mission for a NASA astronaut. The problems encountered by Foale and his predecessor aboard Mir,Jerry Linenger, resulted in intense political pressure on NASA. The final decision between the termination of NASA crewing of Mir with Foale's departure, or his scheduled replacement byDavid Wolf was only made by NASA AdministratorDaniel Goldin the night before the launch ofSTS-86.
In 1999, Foale was a member of Space Shuttle missionSTS-103,[11] during which he conducted an eight-hourspacewalk to replace components of theHubble Space Telescope. In 2003, Foale was named commander ofInternational Space StationExpedition 8 with cosmonautAleksandr Kaleri. During their six-month tour of duty on the station, Foale and Kaleri carried out a 4-hour Russian EVA in Orlan-M space suits to install experiments outside the Service Module. The EVA was cut short when significant amounts of water in Kaleri's helmet prevented further work. Expedition 8 ended on 29 April 2004. For about a year, Foale was Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Operations at NASA HQ,Washington D.C. He then supported Soyuz and ISS operations andspacesuit development for NASA in Houston.
In August 2013, it was announced that Foale was leaving the agency after a 26-year career to work on developing anelectric aircraft to advancegreen aviation technology.[12] Since leaving NASA, Foale has become actively involved in the running of the International Space Schools Education Trust, especially their Mission Discovery and trips toStar City, Russia, giving unique experiences to students around the world. Mission Discovery is held each year at the Guy's Campus at King's College London.
Foale was awarded anhonorary degree by theUniversity of Lincolnshire and Humberside in July 2000[13] and an honoraryDoctor of Science degree by theUniversity of Kent in September 2000.[14] He was invested as a Commander of theOrder of the British Empire in the diplomatic list of theNew Year Honours in December 2004.[15]
It is possible he has been patron to a pastoral house at the Folkestone Academy in Kent, which is also named after him.[citation needed] A street in Foale's birth town was named Michael Foale Lane.[16][17][18]
Foale andEllen Ochoa were announced as the 2017 class of theUnited States Astronaut Hall of Fame.[19]
Married with two children, Foale and his family live inSeabrook, Texas. He is fluent inRussian. Foale is qualified to fly fixed-wing aeroplanes, gliders, as well as helicopters. He has never owned a brand-new car, though he has always wanted one, and his hobbies includewindsurfing,gliding, andcross-country skiing.
Foale was the driver of a car in 1980 inYugoslavia, when a truck accidentally veered across the road and smashed into his car, killing his girlfriend and his brother.[citation needed]His father, Colin Foale, wrote a book in 1999 titledWaystation to the Stars about the astronaut's experiences on Mir.
In his spare time, he has also worked with the International Space School Educational Trust (ISSET). This involvement is through him taking up the role of the resident astronaut during many of theMission Discovery programmes operated by ISSET, when Foale shares his experiences of being in space with teenagers, while at the same time helping them to learn new skills. He does this throughout the period of the time the programme runs.[20]
This article incorporatespublic domain material from websites or documents of theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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