Franklin Chang Díaz

He was the first Costa Rican Hispanic astronaut to go into space.

He is an advocate for environmental protection and had a part in the movie 'Odyssey 2050' which encouraged action on climate change.

Franklin Ramón Chang-Diaz was born on April 5, 1950 in San José, Costa Rica, and is one of six children. His father was Chinese and his mother Costa Rican.

His interest in space began at an early age and he believed strongly that the only way he would realize that dream is by moving to the United States. After finishing high school in the late 1960s, with his family's support, he left Costa Rica for the United States to pursue that dream.

He moved to Hartford, Connecticut, with his uncle. He did not know English so he enrolled in high school there to transition into the U.S. education system.

He experienced some challenges because he was not a U.S. citizen. He had been offered a scholarship to the University of Connecticut but was ineligible to receive it due to his citizenship status. A petition was raised and he was eventually allowed to receive one year of the scholarship and the in-state tuition rate.

In 1969, he attended the University of Connecticut and earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.

When NASA's space program picked back up in 1977, they made a request for astronaut candidates. Chang-Diaz applied and was selected in 1980. At the time, he was studying nuclear fusion.

Again, he faced adversity because he was a scientist. At that point, military personnel typically went on space missions and the scientists engineered the rockets. However, six years after he was selected, he flew aboard the Columbia in mission STS-61-C in 1986. This was the first of seven missions he would fly.

He was originally charted to fly in the ill-fated Challenger mission in 1986. The disaster was a sobering experience for him and his colleagues. His second mission in 1992 took on a new seriousness in the light of the tragedy.

In 1993, he became the director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the John Space Center.

In total, he completed seven space missions. The other five missions were STS-60 (1994), STS-75 (1996), STS-91 (1998), and STS-111 (2002).

He wrote 'Dream's Journey' which is an autobiographical account of the transitional time after he moved to the United States from Costa Rica.

'The First Years' is the first of three books in an autobiographical trilogy he is writing. This first part explores his years as a child in Costa Rica.