Editing Ed Lu (section)

==NASA career==
Lu flew on [[Space Shuttle]] missions [[STS-84]] in 1997 and [[STS-106]] in 2000, in which he carried out a six-hour spacewalk to perform construction work on the International Space Station. Having been flight engineer on [[Soyuz TMA-2]], Lu spent six months in space in 2003 as part of [[Expedition 7|ISS Expedition 7]], with cosmonaut [[Yuri Malenchenko]].<ref name="NASA-bio Ed Lu" />

In July 2003, Lu and Malenchenko answered questions from students participating in Japan's [[NASDA]] special educational event, where Ed Lu performed "[[Happy Birthday to You|Happy Birthday]]" on an electronic piano for a student's birthday in the live broadcast from space.<ref>[http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/video/station/expedition7/ndxpage3.html Expedition 7 Video Index<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030013614/http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/video/station/expedition7/ndxpage3.html |date=2011-10-30 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/video/station/expedition7/net56/nasda2_56.asf |title=Lu Video from Space - Happy Birthday|access-date=2011-04-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120531160956/http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/video/station/expedition7/net56/nasda2_56.asf |archive-date=2012-05-31 }}</ref> He had demonstrated the difficulty of playing the piano instrument in space during a live in-orbit interview with CBS News and NASA TV video feed.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULrx5J0WfgQ Piano in space – YouTube<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Also on this ISS mission on 15 October 2003, Lu communicated with the crewman of China's first crewed mission into space, [[Yang Liwei]], flying aboard [[Shenzhou 5]]. Lu congratulated the Chinese for the achievement and said in ''[[Putonghua]]'': "Welcome to space. Have a safe journey". Malenchenko added: "I love to have somebody else in space instead of (just) me and Ed".<ref>[http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/iss_china.html NASA – Expedition 7 Crew Members Welcome China to Space<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

During the [[STS-106]] mission, Ed Lu observed that there is no [[moon_illusion | moon illusion]] in space <ref>{{cite web |title=Explaining the moon illusion |url= https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.97.1.500 |website=PNAS}}</ref>

While still employed at NASA, Lu co-founded the [[B612 Foundation]] along with former astronaut [[Rusty Schweickart]] and scientists Clark Chapman and [[Piet Hut]].  It has conducted two lines of related research to help detect asteroids that could one day strike the Earth, and find the technological means for asteroid deflection. The foundation's current goal is to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space telescope, Sentinel, to be launched in 2017–2018. The Sentinel's infrared telescope, once parked in an orbit similar to that of Venus, will help identify asteroids and other near-Earth objects (NEOs) that pose a risk of collision with Earth.<ref name="NASA-bio Ed Lu" />