Germans on the Moon

Ulf Merbold Dietrich (born June 20, 1941 in Greiz) is a German physicist and former astronaut. It was in 1983, five years after the East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jahn, the first citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany in space. Merbold Jähn and grew only about 40 kilometers apart in the Vogtland. In April 1977, sought the then German Research and Testing Institute for Aerospace had to experimenters for the Spacelab, whereupon applied Merbold. The European Space Agency (ESA) is seeking candidates to build its first European astronaut corps. The aspirant has been promised to be able to conduct research in the ESA-built space laboratory aboard the space shuttle. A total of some 2,000 scientists submitted their documents one - including 700 from Germany - where each of the twelve ESA member countries should propose only one candidate. Of these twelve people were selected in December 1977 four candidates, of whom half a year later, only three were left: next Merbold nor the Swiss Claude Nicollier and Dutch Wubbo Ockels.All three ESA astronauts prepared themselves together, for participation in the first flight of Spacelab, until the fall of 1982, the final choice fell on Merbold. Under the acronym of the STS-9 shuttle flight took place a year later under the command of John Young, with Merbold was the first non-US citizens on a space shuttle.72 scientific experiments in eight disciplines were on the agenda, of biology, on plasma physics and astronomy to materials science. The team worked in two-shift operation to achieve a very high utilization of the experiments.Subsequently, as a backup payload Merbold care expert and speaker connection to the first all-German Spacelab Mission D1, which took place in autumn 1985. On-site ESA Noordwijk, the Netherlands, he then worked in the planning of the Columbus laboratory, Europe's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) until he became head of the Astronaut Office and DLR in Cologne.Merbold end of 1988 was set up as a candidate for further Spacelab Mission: three years he was training for STS-42, the first international company for microgravity research. One week, he conducted research in January 1992 (the first all-German astronaut in space) and his Canadian colleague aboard the space shuttle Discovery.After Merbold coordinated the scientific aspects of the second German Spacelab D-2 flight, he joined in August 1993, training the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Moscow. Together with the Spaniard Pedro Duque, he trained for the European-Russian cooperation Flight "Euromir 94". Duque was intended to substitute for the Germans, the beginning of October 1994 with the cosmonauts Alexander Viktorenko (Commander) and Yelena Kondakova (board engineer) with the spaceship Soyuz TM-20 broke up his third space flight. A month long Merbold worked as the first ESA astronaut to the Russian space station Mir and completed the longest stay by then a Western European in space. He conducted approximately 30 experiments. The return was done with the spaceship Soyuz TM-19. The landing capsule is on display in the Speyer Museum of Technology