Ed Lu is a highly accomplished scientist and an astronaut who has logged 206 days in space over three missions for NASA. Now he’s working as the CEO of the B612 Foundation, a non-profit whose goals include protecting the Earth from Armageddon-style asteroid destruction. Oh, and he’s also the guy who installed the toilet in the International Space Station (ISS).

Ed nearly missed his opportunity to travel to the ISS when, after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA grounded its missions to space, leaving a number of unanswered questions about the future development of the orbiting space station. In April 2003, on very short notice, he was asked to team up with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko on the Soyuz TMA-2, which launched from Kazakhstan and delivered the two astronauts to the ISS as part of ISS Expedition 7.

Over the course of the next 6 months, in addition to construction on the space station and learning how to cut and vacuum one’s hair in zero gravity, Ed took a lot of photos of Earth, of the moon, and of the empty world around their orbiting home. He gained a deep appreciation for the planet that was his home, capturing a number of stunning images of cities and natural features from the privileged perch in orbit. When he turned his lens on the moon, however, Ed sparked a passion that has driven him ever since.

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