32 Facts About Leroy Chiao

Leroy Russel Chiao is an American chemical engineer, retired NASA astronaut, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and engineering consultant.

Leroy Chiao is a co-author and researcher for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity project.

Leroy Chiao was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised in Danville, California.

Leroy Chiao's parents are Taiwanese waishengren who were born in Shandong province in mainland China but moved to Taiwan.

Leroy Chiao graduated from Monte Vista High School in Danville in 1978.

Leroy Chiao's parents were chemical engineers who immigrated to Milwaukee from the Republic of China in the late 1950s for graduate school.

Leroy Chiao's aviator call sign is "Shandong," the name of the Chinese province where his parents grew up.

In January 1989, Leroy Chiao joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, where he was involved in processing research for the fabrication of filament-wound and thick-section aerospace composites.

Leroy Chiao developed and demonstrated a mechanistic cure model for graphite fiber and epoxy composite material.

An instrument-rated pilot, Leroy Chiao has logged over 2500 flight hours in a variety of aircraft.

At age 29, Leroy Chiao was selected by NASA in January 1990 and became an astronaut in July 1991.

Leroy Chiao had logged over 36 days and 12.5 hours in space, including over 26 EVA hours in four spacewalks, before his mission aboard the International Space Station.

Additionally, Leroy Chiao learned Russian to communicate with Russian cosmonauts as part of the International Space Station program.

On November 2,2004, Leroy Chiao voted in the 2004 United States presidential election while aboard the International Space Station, making him the first American to vote in a presidential election while in space.

Leroy Chiao was the inadvertent developer of the procedure to use the IRED to excite the solar arrays of the ISS.

Leroy Chiao left NASA in December 2005 to pursue employment in the private sector.

Leroy Chiao performed two spacewalks designed to demonstrate tools and hardware and evaluate techniques to be used in the assembly of the International Space Station.

In completing this mission, Leroy Chiao logged 214 hours and 41 seconds in space, including just over thirteen EVA hours, and traveled 3.7 million miles in 142 orbits of the Earth.

Leroy Chiao totaled 13 hours and 16 minutes of EVA time in two spacewalks.

ISS Expedition 10, Leroy Chiao was the commander of Expedition 10 on the International Space Station.

In July 2006, Leroy Chiao accepted a position as the Executive Vice President for Space Operations and a Director of Excalibur Almaz Limited.

Leroy Chiao was responsible for operational aspects of spaceflight, including training for both the capsule and space station.

Leroy Chiao assembled a team from the Isle of Man, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Continental Europe to begin work towards refurbishing and flying a capsule in space based upon the design of the Almaz capsules.

In March 2006, Leroy Chiao began an appointment in the mechanical engineering department at the Louisiana State University as the first Raborn Distinguished Chair Max Faget Professor.

Leroy Chiao is the chairman of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute User Panel, which is attached to the Baylor College of Medicine.

Leroy Chiao appeared in an episode of MANswers in 2008 explaining how to neutralize an astronaut in space who has gone berserk.

In May 2009 Leroy Chiao wrote a few blog articles on Gizmodo.

In May 2009 Leroy Chiao was named as a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee an independent review requested by the Office of Science and Technology Policy on May 7,2009.

Leroy Chiao has been an advisor to the Houston Association of Space and Science Education since 2014.

Leroy Chiao is currently a co-founder and CEO of OneOrbit, a corporate keynote and training company, which offers educational programs for schools and educators.

Leroy Chiao is a photographer, and her father is Dutch.

Leroy Chiao enjoys flying his Grumman Tiger aircraft, as well as downhill skiing.