As parents of kids from China, it's important (they tell me) to seek out Asian-American role models - people who are relatively noteworthy and who are both Asian and American, who live well here, in this society. So here's another one.

Scientist. Adventurer. Atom Scrambler.

Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz is a Costa Rican-American of Chinese descent. The Chinese press typically calls him Zhang Fulin (張福林 ), his Chinese name. That's the same "Fu" you'll see in a lot of adopted kids' names - the lucky one. Within China, he's considered the first Chinese person in space.

Being in space is, as previously established on this very blog, pretty cool. And on one of his missions, he hung out in space itself, not inside the shuttle, while helping put together the International Space Station.

That's all well and good, but some kids (freaks!) just aren't impressed by astronauts. (Sorry. I'm actually not sure if Daughter's particularly impressed by people in space yet, but she will be.)

No, what's really cool is the big, fast fires Dr. Chang-Diaz makes. Here's one explanation of why this is cool, but to really get it, you have to watch the effusively brilliant Dr. Chang-Diaz himself this child-friendly NASA Connect video explaining, as simply as possible, how plasma rockets really work. By turning atoms into scrambled eggs.

Yes, Dr. Chang-Diaz is mighty. Look at that fire! Hot, hot fire! And he makes things *go really fast* with it!

Pretty.

Today, he seems to divide his time between testing the plasma rocket in in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and being an adjunct professor at Rice University and the University of Houston in Texas. There's a Florida Today interview with him over here (click the link under his smiling face), in which he declares, "I think that humans began exploring space the day they walked out of their caves, and that's what we really are doing here is nothing less than ensuring the survival of the human species."

Pretty. And pretty important.

_{Photo credit: Public domain image of Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz from NASA, a government agency.}