Changing the course of the solar system: Dr. Ed Lu at TEDxMarin

A NASA Astronaut -- with a compelling new mission to change the course of the solar system.
Dr. Lu served as a NASA Astronaut for 12 years. He flew the Space Shuttle twice, the Russian Soyuz, and a 6-month tour on the International Space Station. Altogether he logged over 206 days in space and an EVA (spacewalk) totaling 6 hours and 14 minutes. Dr. Lu flew as a mission specialist on STS-84 in 1997, as a payload commander and lead spacewalker on STS-106 in 2000, as flight engineer of Soyuz TMA-2, and served as NASA ISS science officer and flight engineer on ISS Expedition-7 in 2003.
In 2003, in the weeks following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Dr. Lu was called upon by NASA to launch to the International Space Station in order to maintain operations on orbit with a 2 person skeleton crew. He completed the Russian Soyuz training in just 9 weeks and became the first American to launch as the Flight Engineer aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko then spent 6 months aboard the ISS, demonstrating that the Space Station could be maintained while carrying on productive scientific research with just 2 people.
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