Ulf Merbold

became the first non-American to orbit the Earth in a U.S. Space Shuttle in 1982. He is also the first European Space Agency astronaut to have been on board the Russian space station MIR. In 1987, he became director of the Astronaut Office at the German Aerospace Center. In 1995 he took over as director of the Astronaut Division at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne.