Bio
There are few people on earth who can claim to approach…or even imagine the astronomical wonder of Leroy Chiao's journey through life. The wide-eyed child of Chinese immigrants, Leroy was inspired by the Apollo 11 moon-landing to launch his own journey to the stars. The hard-working, suburban kid soared beyond the accomplishments of his peers securing a Ph.D from University of California at Santa Barbara, on his way to becoming one of the most accomplished astronauts in history. Chiao flew four missions into space, including three shuttle missions, walked in space six times, co-piloted a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft and was afforded the honor of commanding the international space station, on a six-and-a half month mission. Comfortable working with pilots and scientists of any background, Leroy played a key role in helping to bring together earth’s uneasy superpowers into a cohesive unit in space. In fact, Chiao and his NASA contemporaries created such unparalleled cooperation between Russia and the United States that after the Shuttle Program ends in 2010, Americans will be flown to the International Space Station exclusively on Russian rockets until the next generation of US spacecraft is ready for launching in or around 2015. In addition, he is an executive for an international commercial space exploration company called Excaliber Almaz whose mission is to fly civilians to the stars in former Soviet spacecraft. While he boasts an out-of-this-world, resume, he is a proud, down-to-earth dad of twins. Leroy is writing a series of children's books offering stories of him trying his hand at all kinds of professions to point out to kids the importance of always giving your very best to any task you take on. He’s also writing a second book titled, Man vs. Robot, which offers insights of the benefits of manned vs. robot missions to Mars and beyond. In 2009 Leroy was appointed to the White House commissioned Human Space Flight Review Committee. Leroy is frequently sought out by the media for his expert analysis on the future of commercial space travel and the NASA program and has landed everywhere from “astroblogger “for Gizmodo.com, CNN, Fox News, the cover of USA Weekend and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Show.