Ed Lu

Edward Tsang Lu is an American physicist, former NASA astronaut, and entrepreneur. He flew two Space Shuttle flights, specifically STS-84 in 1997 and STS-106 in 2000, and performed a spacewalk to help build the International Space Station. In 2003, as part of ISS Expedition 7, Lu spent six months in space, where he not only worked but also performed unique tasks like a card trick with magician James Randi and playing the piano. During this time, he was called upon to fly as the first American to co-pilot a Russian Soyuz spacecraft after the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Lu has logged 206 days in space. He left NASA in 2007 and later worked at Google, where he helped build Google Maps and was also the program manager of Google's Advanced Projects Team.

Lu is the co-founder of the B612 Foundation, which is working to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts, and currently serves as its executive director. While still at NASA, Lu initiated this foundation and has since been dedicated to projects like the proposed privately-funded deep space mission, Sentinel. More recently, he has been analyzing terabytes of archived data to find "killer asteroids," a project supported by Google's applied artificial intelligence. He endorsed NASA's NEOcam proposed mission when the Sentinel plan was not pursued. His work has been highlighted in the New York Times article "Killer Asteroids Are Hiding in Plain Sight," published on May 31, 2022. Besides B612, Lu co-founded LeoLabs, a company that builds and operates a worldwide array of radars to track space debris.

Aside from his work in space and technology, Lu has held positions in different companies. After leaving NASA, he joined Liquid Robotics as Chief of Innovative Applications in 2011. His professional journey also includes tenure at Hover Inc. and Sunfire Offices. Lu earned his degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University, where he was a member of the Psi chapter of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, and a doctoral degree in applied physics from Stanford University. He is currently married and has two children.