Portal:Space exploration/Biography/Week 49 2007

Colin Michael Foale, CBE, PhD, (born 6 January 1957) is an Anglo-American astrophysicist and a NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six Space Shuttle missions and extended stays on both Mir and the International Space Station. He was the first Briton to perform a spacewalk, and holds the record for most time spent in space by a UK and US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes.

Foale joined the mission operations division of NASA in 1983 aged 24, working on the shuttles navigation system. Having gained dual-UK/US citizenship, he applied and was turned down twice as an astronaut candidate. After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster] in January 1986, Foale changed his application [[essay from writing about his dreams to focusing on the realities of leadership faced by NASA, and was selected in 1987.

In 1999, Foale was a member of Space Shuttle mission STS-103, during which he conducted an 8-hour spacewalk to replace components of the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2003, Foale was named commander of International Space Station Expedition 8 with cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri. His six-month tour of duty on the station ended on April 29, 2004. Foale is currently Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Operations at NASA HQ, Washington D.C.

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