Don Pettit
I know very few astronauts' names, and with one exception they are all from the pioneering days of space exploration: Yuri Gagarin, the first human being to go into space and even orbit the Earth before returning safely; John Glenn, who was quickly shot up—though not into orbit—to compete with Gagarin, and who much later became a US senator; Alan Shepard, who read the Wall Street Journal while waiting to be launched, was reprimanded for bringing a sandwich into space, and was the first human to play golf on the Moon; Gus Grissom, who died tragically along with Ed White and Roger Chaffee, when their oxygen-filled capsule caught fire before takeoff; Ed White again, as the first American to venture out of the capsule into space, and will forever go down in the annals of introductory physics by trying to turn a screw with screwdriver and spinning around himself instead; Valentina Tereshkova, the first female astronaut; Sally Ride, a victim of the Challenger explosion, the cause of which was eventually discovered by Richard Feynman; and of course Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins [1].
The exception is Don Pettit, who is in the news today having just returned from his latest mission aboard the ISS, where he just celebrated his 70th birthday. And the reason I know about Don Pettit is his enthralling microgravity experiments he set up and performed in his off-duty periods, recorded in a series of delightful [2] videos. Fire up Freetube on your computer, or Newpipe on your Android phone or the equivalent on iOS, and search with the phrase “science off the sphere” to see them. At least half the fun is watching a very creative mind let loose with just a few items like a knitting needle, some tinfoil, and plastic bag and a syringe.
In this tribute video by NASA Pettit comments that he comes alive when he is space, and just as some people are born to be cowboys and ride a horse, he was born to ride a rocket and be in space. I believe it, and I'm grateful for his enormous generosity in sharing his joy and the results of his creativity with everyone else.
[1] Come to think of it, I seem to know many astronauts' names.
[2] “delightful” is a word Pettit uses often in his videos, as he launched puffs of air against floating blobs of water or watches little droplets orbit around a knitting needle.